File:HARNESS PENDANT (FindID 602370).jpg

English: A cast, copper alloy, medieval heraldic harness pendant with enamel, dating from 1250-1400. The heraldry is almost certainly argent, three chaplets gules.

It is a "heater shaped" shield similar to "London Museum Medieval Catalogue", 1940, page 118, figure 38(I). It is complete with its suspension loop, bent but unbroken. Most of its enamel remains, but it has lost its metal finish. Otherwise the surface has a dark brown patina with some green verdigris. The pendant is a little bent near the bottom where the metal is quite thin. It measures 46.78 mm including the loop x 28.98mm wide and is 2.55mm thick. The loop itself is 10.56mm long x 5.85mm thick. It weighs 9.31gm.

The heraldry is argent (silver) [almost certainly], three chaplets gules (red). Each of the chaplets has 4 "roses" on a circlet; each rose with 5 "petals". The chaplet is a much used image in the late Middle Ages. On late thirteenth century coins, Jean d'Avesnes II, Count of Hainault, is shown wearing a chaplet, instead of a crown. This shows that he is a prince; it otherwise copies the pennies of Edward I, which have a crowned bust.

Sir Robert de Hilton bore this coat of arms at the battle of Boroughbridge. It was also borne by a Robert de Hilton of Swine, near Hull. See Foster "The Dictionary of Heraldry", page 112. In the church at Swine is a tomb of a member of the Hilton family family, dating from the third quarter of the fourteenth century. He wears a jupon decorated with the three chaplets. See Crossley "English Church Monuments", page 216 for this image.

It has not been possible to find another pendant with the same coat of arms on the PAS database. The nearest is NMS-ACF050. This shows the arms virtually reversed , gules, three chaplets or (instead of argent); representing a different family.