MEDIEVAL STRAP END

1300

Incomplete medieval composite strap-end with full-width spacer and openwork decoration on the front plate, almost all of both outer plates beyond end of spacer missing. Two dome-headed rivets at concave attachment edge (one with head missing) and single flat-headed rivet next to break. The openwork decoration consists of round apertures, both single and combined to form a trefoil and a quatrefoil. It is accompanied by engraving on the front plate, in straight and oblique lines. There is a stamped circle around the quatrefoil. The edges of the plate converge to a point and then expand to a cross, perhaps as a representation of a tower or gable end. The surface of the spacer, where exposed by the narrowing of the plate, is also decorated with engraved lines and broad zig-zags. Organic material, probably textile, survives between the spacer and the rear plate. Very close to an example in the Musée de Cluny, Paris, dated to the first half of the 14th century (Fingerlin 1971 Abb. 137, Kat. Nr. 370).