Buried Treasure 20

Hello, I'm going to look at two finds by metal detectorists. One that was probably accidentally lost and the other more likely to have been deliberately discarded. Now this is the Brigstock brooch. It's a flower-shaped cluster brooch. It's made of gold with diamonds and pearls and the large stone in the centre is a spinet. It was found on farmland at Brigstock in Northamptonshire by metal detectorist Justin Owens who was working on an organised dig with his wife Helen and it wasn't made public knowledge. It was discovered in 2017. It wasn't made public knowledge until March of 2020 by which time it had been acquired by the Victorian Albert Museum and it's now on display in their jewellery gallery next to a Victoria. When the V&A were asked how much they paid for it they were rather coy and they refused to put a figure on it. They simply said it's priceless. Now the site where it was found was formerly part of Rockingham Forest. This was a designated royal hunting forest created after the Norman conquest by William I and it was enclosed in 1832 and then largely turned over to agriculture. The jewel dates to the early part of the 15th century about 1425-1430, somewhere around that date, so Henry VI. It is the only brooch of its type that has ever been found in Britain. There are another half dozen that are known. They're all of a similar date and the others all come from Central Europe so it is likely that this belonged to someone who travelled to Central Europe or perhaps someone from there who'd travelled to England. The thinking is, given the area that it was found in and the date that it was found, that this was probably lost by someone out hunting, you know, in the heat of the chase and the excitement of capturing the prey ripped from clothing and the pin on the back was badly twisted which bears that scenario out, and it may well be that whoever owned this jewel was not aware that it was missing until the hunt was over. Who would have owned a jewel like this has to be someone of high status, so an aristocratic noble. It would have been a very ostentatious display of wealth. It was found quite close to the surface, it's only about four inches below the surface, and the find of a lifetime for a metal detectorist of course. Justin Owens who found it had been detecting for about four years and I've got a little quote that I'd like to share with you. This is what he said about it. At best I'd hope to come across a Roman or a medieval hammered coin but to find something so rare and valuable as this was a total shock. It was absolutely caked in mud. I didn't have high hopes thinking it might be an old bottle top or something but what a discovery. Now I've seen it cleaned up I can't believe how exquisite it really is. Now cleaning and conservation was a very delicate process on something as valuable as this and what the conservator used was ostrich and pheasant feathers that can shape the quill and the keratin is firm but flexible and does the job that's required and the technique is to wrap a little bit of cotton wool around the tip of the quill and then use saliva, so literally spit and polish. One or two diamonds had gone missing and I mean this brooch had been in the ground for the best part of 600 years so not surprisingly some of the pearls have degraded but it is still a beautiful object. Now in 1999 a metal detectorist made a discovery of a badge at Chittingley in East Sussex and it's the badge of a silver ball. It had been part gilded and there were just traces left most of the gilding had worn off. It's quite small about an inch and a half across and on the back were the remains of a pin. Where would this have been worn? Probably on a hat. It's a symbol of allegiance. A white boar was the symbol of the household of the Duke of Gloucester, the man who will become Richard III and the royal wardrobe accounts for 1483 tell us 8,000 embroidered white boars were ordered in 1483 for Richard's coronation. The accounts actually say they were wrought upon Fustian at 20 shillings per thousand, so ten a penny. More badges were ordered later that year for the investiture of Richard's son Edward as Prince of Wales, this time in pewter and some in bronze. Whoever wore a silver badge would have been someone of high status and considerable importance. Now the origin of the device, this white boar, has been subject to quite a lot of speculation. Loyalty me lie is Anglo-Norman, it means loyalty binds me. There is in the Bodleian Library a list in a manuscript of 1460, a list of all the devices adopted by the House of York and it includes a blue boar for Edward III. So as a descendant it is possible that Richard, when he became Duke of Gloucester, chose a boar to reflect that and symbolism so important in the 15th century, maybe white for purity or loyalty or just to distinguish himself as a younger son from a badge that was worn by a king. Another theory is that it might be related to the old Roman name for York, Eberarchum, so if you short Ebor and you can twist the letters around to make boar. Another theory that's emerged comes from an illuminated manuscript, it's now known as the Taymouth Hours and it's in the British Library. But within it there is an illustration, it accompanies a story about the legendary Guy of Warwick and in the story Guy of Warwick encounters this mighty boar and the illustration on the page for that story is very similar to the design of Richard's boar and there is evidence that this manuscript was in the possession of the Neville family of Raby Castle in County Durham in the 15th century and Richard's mother was Cecily Neville of Raby Castle, so Richard may have encountered this as a child. Now opposition to Richard III centred on support for Henry Tudor who would become Henry VII and one of Henry VII's supporters, a man called William Collingbourne, used the boar in a little lampooning poem that around the time of Richard's coronation he then nailed up on the door of St Paul's Cathedral and his little poem goes like this, The cat, the rat and Lovell our dog rule all England under a hog. And it's a reference to close advisors and allies of Richard, the cat was William Catesby, he was executed after the battle of Bosworth. The rat was Richard Ratcliffe who was killed at Bosworth. Lovell our dog was Francis Viscount Lovell, one of whose heraldic devices was a silver wolf and Lovell was the man who carried on the resistance to Henry Tudor after the defeat at Bosworth. He in turn was defeated at East Stoke on the River Trent near Nottingham in 1487 and presumed killed but disappears from history. Rule all England under a hog, so back to this reference to the white boar, the device of Richard III. The Richard III Society when that began was known as the Fellowship of the White Boar and there is an alabaster effigy in St Mary and St Barlock Church at Norbury of Ralph Fitzherbert, his wife is next to him Elizabeth, but Ralph is shown wearing the sun and roses livery collar of allegiance to the House of York but the pendant again is the white boar. There's a copy of this alabaster monument in the V&A. So the Chittingley Boar, was that accidentally lost? I suspect this was a supporter of Richard III who after the battle of Bosworth and the death of Richard and the defeat of his supporters thought it is best not to be associated with the white boar anymore and probably got rid of it. Now this is going to end my series on buried treasure but I'm going to start a new series of videos exploring monasteries. In medieval times religious houses were at the centre of dominated social and economic life, so I want to look at their beginnings, why were they founded, who founded them, how were they run and then look at their end, why were they suppressed and what was the impact? So I hope you will join me for that new series. If you've enjoyed this video hit the like and subscribe buttons and click on the notification bell to be informed when the next video is published.