A HISTORY OF LONDON A work of art that can with more confidence be attributed to the period between the conversion of England and the coming of the Vikings is here illustrated in colours (coloured plate, figs. 8, 9). It consists of one half of a sword-handle, including the pommel, and was evidently made more for ornament than use. The metal is silver, partly gilt, and served to cover the wooden grip through which passed the iron tang of the sword, doubtless resembling fig. 11. Round the centre of the grip passed a silver ring to conceal the junction of the two halves of the grip, all being of oval section. This ring and the bar below the pommel, which corresponded to the guard now lost, are ornamented with repeated chevrons, but the handle and pommel deserve more particular notice. The former is engraved with different designs on the two faces, and a rich effect is obtained by contrast- ing the gold and silver surfaces. On one side (fig, 8) is a whorl of four serpents, their heads being distinguishable at the centre. The scales on their bodies are suggested by transverse curves in niello now hardly visible, and the outlines are traced in the same material. In the narrow spaces between the bodies are leafy scrolls that are foreign to early Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian art, and may have been transmitted from classical sources through Ireland. An Irish origin for the serpentine forms is indicated, for such are rare in Teutonic art, and are only represented in a top-view. The present examples are clearly viewed from the side, and their arrangement is due to the Irish craftsman's preference for the eccentric spiral. This is shown still more clearly on the other side (fig. 9), where the silver surface has niello spirals within it, and itself runs off into spiral curves, while just within its borders run single lines of slightly-incised dots that remind one forcibly of the red-punctured borders of large initial letters in Irish illuminated manuscripts. The gilt spaces are engraved with larger masses of the same foliage as before, which occurs on other relics of the ninth century found in England, and is allied to the leaf-work on Merovingian illuminated manuscripts,"' but is not characteristic of Irish work. The pommel is attached by rivets to the cross-bar, but some of the silver rivet-heads are only ornamental. The central lobe is decorated differently on the two faces, and the engraving is evidently an attempt to fill the space with an acanthus design which, like the foliage below, can only be traced to classical models on the continent. The form of the hilt is evidently transitional, preserving in the grip a pattern that goes back to the time of the moss-deposits of Denmark, when the Teutonic tribes were moving westward and Britain was still a Roman province. The pommel again retains some features of the seventh century, when garnet inlay was in fashion, and also heralds the Viking form as seen in figs. 9—12. The serpents' heads are also somewhat in the third style of Teutonic art (eighth century) as formulated by Dr. Salin,^* and enough has been said to justify the opinion that this remarkable relic, which was found in Fetter Lane, and is now the property of the nation, belonged to a state sword made by a craftsman of the Irish school who had access to continental models in the early part of the ninth century. "^ Examples have been collected in Proc. Soc. Antiq. xx, 54. '"' Die altgermanische Thieromamentik, 272. 154
