POST MEDIEVAL BOOK FITTING

1500

Hookplate from a book-clasp, made from a rectangular piece of copper-alloy sheet. For most of its length it is 12 mm wide, but one end flares outwards to an attachment edge, now bent, with three small V-shaped nicks cut into it. Here there is a single copper-alloy rivet, with two concentric grooves around it; some longitudinal grooves along the centre connect this to another concentric ring-and-dot motif, this time without a rivet. A little way further up is a second copper-alloy rivet, this time without ring decoration; fine longitudinal grooves cover the full width of the clasp from here to a transverse band which is decorated with three pairs of diagonal grooves. Then there is a transverse groove, then the last motif is a transverse line of rocker-arm engraving. The clasp then narrows and the end is bent over to form the 5 mm wide hook. The edges are bevelled from the attachment edge to just beyond the central rivet. On the reverse, the central rivet can be seen to hold a piece of corroded iron sheet. These clasps were attached to straps fixed to the leather cover, and helped to hold the book shut by hooking into a corresponding catch-piece on the other cover.