Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/77

Rh The spur, discovered in the tomb assigned by Mr. Brougham to Udard de Broham, appears to have resembled in general form that which was in use in the latter part of the Anglo-Saxon period, and during the reign of the Conqueror. The shanks were straight, as those of the Frankish spur of the tenth century, in Sir Samuel Meyrick's Armoury, Skelton, ii. pl. 80. The neck appears to have been straight, not, as in that example, slightly curved, but, in the present corroded state of this curious relic, it is not possible to form an opinion whether it terminated in a short point, like the iron spur found in a kistvaen in Cumberland, with a sword, battle-axe, horse's bit, and part of a gold buckle and pendant. Archæol. x. 112. It is more probable that the neck was prolonged, and terminated in a pyramidal point. Compare the iron spurs found with Roman remains in Gloucestershire, represented in Lysons' Woodchester, pl. 35. The distinctive mark of the spur of those earlier times seems to consist in the straight shanks, whilst those of the spur of the succeeding period were curved and contracted, so as to bring the point high upon the tendon of the heel. For the sake of comparison, a representation of a good example recently disinterred in the church-yard at Chesterford, Cambridgeshire, for Rh