Abstract: |
Volume discussing finds from the late-fifteenth to late-seventeenth centuries. The mostly waterlogged riverside sites in Southwark from which the finds came lay within the boundaries of two adjacent medieval aristocratic properties: the Rosary and Fastolf Place; however, most of the items listed are everyday ones. The items catalogued include leather jerkins, gloves and a range of shoes; various base-metal accessories such as buckles, mounts, and hooked clasps; two lead/tin brooches, several plain buttons and other connectors; finger rings, pendants and wound-wire jewellery; beads of various materials; fragmentary purses; grooming tools such as combs, razors and a combination tool for the nails; structural fixtures and fittings, mainly ironwork though with a couple of gilded-lead leaf mounts; a moulded casket leg; a probable skeleton key; lighting and heating items such as firesteels and candle holders; a wide variety of knives; kitchen equipment and tableware such as cooking and serving vessels; glass drinking and storage vessels; a large number of spoons; a stylus, an armorial seal matrix and part of a leather book cover; a series of pewter whistles, miniatures and other children's playthings; wooden gaming pieces; pewter bird feeders; needles and thimbles; metalworking tools and waste, including partly made items and a very early ingot of antimony; leather- and woodworking tools; bone working waste, including panels possibly from rosary beads; antler offcuts; glass working waste, including one crystal piece; shipwrights' tools and fishing equipment; weights, including two for checking gold coins; coins (low value English specie and a few counterfeits, plus some Continental issues); a wide variety of unofficial tokens of lead/tin and an extensive series of copper-alloy jettons from the Continent; horse equipment, including several horseshoes and a virtually complete saddle; arms and armour, including daggers, parts of two swords, blade chapes, plate armour (including hand armour and part of a helmet), and chain mail; a priming mechanism for a musket and several pieces of shot; pilgrims' souvenirs, charting the cults favoured during the period covered; and political and other secular badges. A final chapter comprises and account of the metallurgical analyses undertaken, and a glossary of leather terms is included, along with French and German summaries. Separately authored reports include |