Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Wednesday 22 June 2022

An Anglo Saxon pendant from Buckinghamshire


I have posted twice in recent days about the excavation of an important early Anglo Saxon cemetary at Wendover in Buckinghamshire. Now there is a report on the BBC News website of the discovery in the same county by a metal detector of a pendant from the same period. It is in fact a reused Roman seal, presumably from a ring, which had been reset as a jewel in a silver mount to be worn on a chain or cord.

The seal appears to be made from bloodstone, a stone for which medicinal and therapeutic properties were claimed in the ancient and medieval world. These are set out by Wikipedia in Heliotrope (mineral)

The pendant is described and illustrated in tree BBC article at Saxon pendant with Roman jewel found in field


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