File:The arts in early England (1903) (14598059869).jpg

Identifier: artsinearlyengla03brow (find matches)
Title: The arts in early England
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Brown, G. Baldwin (Gerard Baldwin), 1849-1932 Webster, A. Blyth (Adam Blyth), 1882-1956 Sexton, Eric H. L. (Eric Hyde Lord), 1902-1980
Subjects: Art Architecture Architecture, Medieval Church architecture Crosses Decoration and ornament, Celtic Inscriptions, Runic
Publisher: London, J. Murray
Contributing Library: Wellesley College Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Library Consortium Member Libraries

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not in any effective way braced or strengthened by metal.They have evidently seen service as may be judged by thedints in the umbos and the holes in the woodwork, but whatprotection they can have afforded against a severe blow orthrust it is difficult to see. A restored example of a Thorsbergshield in the Museum at Copenhagen is given PI. xxi, 2, andconveys an idea of the general aspect of an Anglo-Saxon pieceof the kind. The umbo is here of a plain hemispherical form thatDr. Salin rightly notes is derived from the usual Roman type,but the Germanic umbos proper are of more elaborate and vary-ing shapes. The most common shape, found in all parts of thecountry, is called c mammiform from a certain resemblance tothe female breast.2 From the inner edge of the horizontal rimthere rises an erect cylindrical piece that is sometimes worked 1 Engelhardt, Denmark in the Early Iron Age, Lond., 1866, p. 48, andThorsberg, pi. 8. 2 Fourteen examples were found at Bifrons. XXIII facing p. 199 UMBOS
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5, 6, are Continental; 7, British FORMS OF THE UMBO 199 into a concave profile. This carries a hemispherical cover,varying in section but most often rather depressed, thatcommonly rises in the centre to a narrow stem surmounted bya flat button of the shape of the rivet heads already mentioned.This flat button and the rivet heads are sometimes plated withsilver, as at Folkestone and other places in Kent, and there aretwo instances, from Cottesmore, Rutland, and Barton Seagrave,Northants, where the button is worked with ornament in reliefand gilded. This sort of ornamentation is most commonabroad on the shield bosses of the Lombards. An examplefrom the Rhineland at Mainz is given No. 3 on PL xxi.The specimens from Stowting and from Buttsole, Kent,PL xxii, 4 and 2 (c) show two varieties of the type. No. 4has been pierced by two formidable lance thrusts. The other examples in PL xxii, No. 2 show different formsof which the centre one, (b), introduces us to a distinct variety.Here the form

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