Extensive study of the entire corpus of Anglo-Saxon button brooches, looking at their design, origins and development. The Anglo-Saxon button brooch is a small disc brooch, about 2cm in diameter and decorated with a single human face mask, found mainly in southern England and occasionally in France; although many examples survive, its origins anddevelopment are not fully understood. This book offers a comprehensive study of its typology, genealogy and chronology. It investigates formal and structural design features, proposes a prototype- and statistics-based typology, and examines the physical, conceptual and geographical dimensions of the classification. Through an in-depth description of class-internal distinctions and class-external similarities, the author also explores the development of button brooches and reconstructs their genealogy or derivational history. He then situates the evolutionary trajectory of button brooches in a temporal framework, by linking them to other brooch types such as Jutlandic relief brooches and Saxon cast saucer brooches, and by taking account of associated grave goods as appropriate. A catalogue of the entire corpus of 209 button brooches and that of related objects is provided in the appendices; there are also over 200 plates and other illustrations, enabling the details to be carefully studied. SEIICHI SUZUKI is Professor of Old Germanic Studies, Kansai Gaidai University, Japan.
Reviews
An extremely detailed analysis. * MEDIEVAL ARCHAEOLGY *



Book Information
ISBN 9781843833628
Author Seiichi Suzuki
Format Hardback
Page Count 490
Imprint The Boydell Press
Publisher Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Weight(grams) 1g