Anglo-Saxon Inscribed Sheaths from Aachen, Dublin and Trondheim

NOTES

• The Appendix gives a bibliographical reference for each sheath listed. The sheaths Aachen and Trondheim 1 will be published in English in E. Okasha, ‘A second supplement to Hand-list of Anglo-Saxon Non-runic Inscriptions’ (forthcoming, Anglo-Saxon England, 21, 37–85).
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• Dr Georg Minkenberg of the Domkapital, Aachen, writes in a letter dated 25 July 1989: ‘Die Messerscheide ist alter Bestandteil des Domschatzes. Wann sie im Mittelalter nach Aachen kam, ist unbekannt’.
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• I am most grateful to Oddmun Farbregd of the Vitenskapsmuseet for his help when I was examining this sheath.
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• B Ó Ríordáin, ‘The High Street Excavations’, Proc. Seventh Viking Congress, Dublin 15–21 August 1973 (Dublin, 1976), 140.
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• I have personally examined only the sheaths Aachen, Dublin, Trondheim 1, 2, York 1, 2, 5,6 and 7. Otherwise I have worked from photographs, drawings and descriptions.
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• E. G. Grimme, Der Aachener Domschatz, Aachen Kunstblätter, 42 (Dusseldorf, 1972), 18–19,
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• This occurs on the following sheaths: Dublin, Gloucester J, 2, Hexham, London 1, 2, Troodheim 1, York 2,3,4,6 and 7. In the cases of London 3 and 4, I have seen a drawing of only one side of each sheath; both of these contain geometric patterning.
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• C. E. Goudge, ‘Late Saxon Leather Sheaths from Gloucester and York’, in ‘Notes’, Antig. J., 59 (1979), 126.
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• D. Tweddle, Finds from Parliament Street and Other Sites in the City Centre. The Archaeology of York, 17, fascicule 4 (York, 1986), 240.
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• The texts of the sheaths have no word-division spaces and some letters arc damaged. The texts are printed here with word-division spaces added. Slight damage to letters is ignored but letters whose reading requires editorial reconstruction arc bracketed. [-] indicates complete loss of text.
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• E. Okasha, Hand-list of Anglo-Saxon Nan-runic Inscriptions (Cambridge, 1971), no. 37, 70–71 and fig,
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• Ibid., no. 19, 58–59 aod figs.
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• A. Campbell, Old English Grammar (Oxford, 1959), § 305, 129, note 1.
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• V. J. Smart, ‘Moneyers of the Late Anglo-Saxon Coinage 973–1016’, Commentationes de nummis saeculorum IX- XI in Suecia repertis 2, Kungl. Vitterhets Historie och Antikvitets Akademiens Handlingar, Antikvariska Serien 19 (Stockholm, 1968), 221.
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• O. v. Feilitzen, The Pre-Conquest Personal Names of Domesday Book. Nomina Germanica (Uppsala, 1937), 17.
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• See op. cit. in note 1–1, 8. Those texts with Latin maker formulae which are published in the supplements also date from the 9th to 11th century.
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• See E. Okasha, ‘The Non-runic Scripts of Anglo-Saxon Inscriptions’, Trans. Cambridge Bibliographical Soc., 4, pt. 5 (1968), 321–38.
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• Ibid, Table 1a.
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• See E. Okasha, ‘Three inscribed objects from Christ Church Place, Dublin’, Proc. English Viking Congress, Århus 24–31 August 1977 (Odense, 1981), 48.
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• Ø. Lunde, Trondheims fortid i Bygrunnen. Riksantiksvaren Skrifter, 2 (Trondheim, 1977), 137.
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• See for example Goudge, op.cit. in note 8, 126; A. P. Garrod and C. M. Heighway, Garrod's Gloucester: Archaeological Observations 1974–81 (Gloucester, 1984), 98; A. MacGregor, ‘Industry and Commerce in Anglo-Scandinavian York’, in R. A. Hall (ed.), Viking Age York and the North (London, 1978), 53.
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• Tweddle, op. cit. in note 9, 238–40, quotation from 240.
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• Ibid., 241.
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• I am grateful to Frances Pritchard, Museum of London, for bringing to my attention the sheaths Londoo 3, 4 and 5 and to the Museum of London for permission to publish them.
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• I am grateful to the York Archaeological Trust for permission to publish the sheaths York 6 and 7.
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• F. Pritchard, ‘Small Finds’, in A. G. Vince (ed.), Aspects of Saxo-Norman London, II: Finds and Environmental Evidence. London and Middlesex Archaeol. Soc. Special Paper, 12 (1991), no. 269 (Milk Street), 211–12, 267 and figs.; no. 10 (Pudding Lane), 132–33, 211–12, 267 and figs.; the sheath from Wood Street (ABS86, no. 825) is unpublished. All these sheaths are in the Museum of London.
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• On the plain sheaths, see K. M. Richardson, ‘Excavations in Hungate, York’, Archaeol. J., 116 (1959), 86 and fig. 19, no. 25, and also MacGregor, op. cit. in note 21, 53. On the Lloyds Bank sheath, see D. Tweddle, in A. MacGregor, Anglo-Scandinavian Finds from Lloyds Bank, Pavement and Other Sites. The Archaeology of York 17, fascicule 3 (York, 1982), 142–43 and figs.
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• Richardson, op. cit. in note 27, 102–05 and figs.
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• M. O. H. Carver, ‘Three Saxo-Norman tenements in Durham City’, Medieval Archaeol., 23 (1979), 28 and figs.
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• Tweddle, op. cit. in note 27, 142.
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