MEDIEVAL BUCKLE

1350

A slightly damaged and incomplete cast copper-alloy medieval 'locking buckle'. The frame is rectangular in plan, with rounded corners. The outer edge is wide (c. 5.6mm), flat and rabbeted (or notched) to accept and secure the U-shaped arm attached to the pin bar; this latter is now missing due to an old break. It also features a shallow central triangular indentation in which the pin still rests. In profile the sides of the frame are expanded (Th.: 5.3mm) to receive the off-centred pin bar; from this point they travel down to the outer edge in a curvilinear fashion.As implied, the pin bar survives in situ with the 'pin-chape' surviving around it in its entirety. The latter is formed of an integrally cast rectangular element, pierced all the way through for the pin bar, with protruding and tapering bevelled, triangular pin. The rectangular element is of a thickness with the sides around the pin bar perforations. The arm was an asymmetrical 'U' in shape; it has broken having turned through approximately ninety degrees. The arm is hexagonal in cross-section and is thinned to go through the frame and accommodate the pin chape.This artefact can be dated to the 14th century AD (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 dark-green patina with file marks on all constituent parts.