MEDIEVAL BUCKLE

1300

An incomplete cast copper-alloy medieval 'locking buckle'. The frame is rectangular in plan, with rounded corners. The outer edge is wide (c. 6.5mm), flat and rabbeted (or notched) to accept and secure the U-shaped arm which would have extended from the bar. It also features a shallow pin rest. In profile the sides of the frame are expanded around the bar (to a thickness of 5.8mm) to receive the off-centred pin bar; from this point they taper, and the upper edge is concave.Part of the bar survives in situ with the pin extending from a tube which enclosed the bar. The tube is formed of an integrally cast rectangular element, pierced all the way through for the pin bar, with protruding and tapering triangular pin. The curved arm is has broken off and is missing, but the lower bart of the bar is in place.This artefact can be dated to the 14th century (Geake 2001, 28). Complete 'locking buckles' can be found illustrated in Ward Perkins (1940, opp. 273; Plate LXXVII), with a reconstruction drawing in Egan 2005 (37-38; refs. 116, 117). The object has a patchy light green patina. An almost complete example on the PAS database is HAMP-1E6A51.