ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS was as a rule placed over the middle of the body, but the transverse position of the sword in this instance is quite irregular : that weapon is found in most cases close alongside the body, on the right or left indifferently. The list of finds on this occasion (July 1901) closes with a fine bronze- gilt brooch (fig. 6) which may safely be described as cruciform, such being the last stage in the development of the cruciform type of Scandinavia, perhaps better described as the ' long ' brooch in England. Apart from its exceptional dimensions, this specimen is remarkable for its composite character, the top limb being clumsily attached, and having two pierced lugs at the back, as though for a hinge, but quite useless in that position.^ Were it not that the style of decoration is identical with that of the two side limbs, one would be tempted to suppose that the brooch had been repaired in Saxon times, and part of some other ornament (such as a bracelet clasp) added to replace a missing terminal. It was apparently furnished with a long spring coil through which ran an axis held at the ends by two pairs of ears on either side of the head-plate. The pin which sprang from the coil would have spanned the bow and had its point protected by the catch seen behind the foot, at a point just below the bow. The oblong wings here seen are a feature specially developed in this country and point to the early part of the yth century, and some idea of the artistic progress (or otherwise) of the Anglo-Saxons may be gained by comparing this brooch with an earlier long brooch in the series. This has been already referred to (p. 99), and is itself a late specimen of the typical Scandinavian brooch, the evolution of which is now determined with considerable precision." The tendency in pagan England to unwieldy shapes, to florid decoration, and overloaded surfaces is here well exemplified, and a close parallel is afforded by the neighbouring county of Northampton.^^ During these operations several fragments of pottery were recovered, but there was no trace of complete vessels. Two at least had evidently belonged to large decorated urns, such as were used in some districts to contain the ashes of the dead ; and though it is possible to see in these sherds the origin of the practice noticed by Shakespeare — of throwing ' sherds, flints and pebbles,' into a suicide's grave — it is at least possible that in digging graves on this spot the pagan Anglo-Saxons had disturbed earlier interments of cremated remains ; and several knives found on the site are themselves good evidence of as many inhumations. Some of the brooches found have been noticed above, but two specimens of bronze remain and will serve to connect this cemetery with others beyond the county borders. One found by Mr. Crowther-Beynon next a skull is a variety of the ' long ' brooch, but of the smaller kind, with expanding foot and trefoil head, the three projections from the head-plate representing the knobs seen in a less developed form on early specimens. The other is an annular brooch, consisting of a flat hoop pierced near the inner edge for the reception of a pin which crossed the central opening. The surface is tinned and decorated within either edge with a punched pattern, which is " A similar arrangement has been noticed on a cruciform brooch from Warren Hill, Mildenhall, Suffolk {Proc. Biiiy md IVest Suff. Arch. Inst, vi, 67). " Haakon Schetelig, Cruciform Brooches of Norway (Bergen, 1906). " y.C.H. Nortkants, i, 233, 247 (coloured plate). 101
