Some bronze weapons and implements, which have come into my possession, appear to be of so much interest in respect of novelty and peculiarities of form, manufacture, and ornamentation, as to make it desirable to bring them under the notice of the Society, with the object of placing them on permanent record in Archaeologia.

The priory, church, and manor of Harmondsworth, near West Drayton, in Middlesex, with its subinfeudations of Padbury's, Barnard's, and Ludington's, belonged to the Benedictine convent of the Holy Trinity and St. Katherine at Rouen. Who gave them to that house I know not. Tanner merely says that the priory was a cell to the monastery at Rouen, and Dugdale is not more explicit. I see by the presentment of a Middlesex jury in Michaelmas Term, 44 Edward III., that Robert, then prior of Harmondsworth, held the church and two carucates of land by the gift of one (they do not say which) of the king's progenitors by the tenure of distributing weekly amongst the poor of the place three bushels of “wastyl” or best bread. The prior was indicted for that he had failed to distribute the bread during the last twenty years, and he pleaded, with what result does not appear, a charter of Privileges granted to the monks at Rouen by Henry II. and confirmed by Henry III. and Edward I.:

Henricus Dei gracia Rex Anglie dux Normannie et Aquitanie et comes Andigavie archiepiscopis, etc. Salutem. Sciatis nos concessisse et presenti Carta confirmasse Abbati et Monachis Sancte Trinitatis sancteque Katherine de Monte Eothomagensi omnes donaciones elemosinarum terrarum et hominura, que facte sunt eis tarn in ecclesiis quam in rebus et possessionibus mundanis. Quare volumus et firmiter precipimus quod dicti Abbas et monachi et ministri eorum teneant et habeant omnes elemosinas et possessiones suos cum sacha et sacca et thol et theam et Infangeneþief cum omnibus libertatibus et liberis consue tudinibus et quietanciis suis in bosco et piano et pratis et pasturis in mariscis et piscariis in vivariis et stagnis. In aquis et molendinis. In virgultis et grangiis extra burgum et infra. In viis et semitis et in omnibus aliis rebus et aliis locis quietas liberas et solutas. de Sirra. et de liundredo et placitis et querelis et de murdro et de wapentaoha et scutagio et geldis et danegeldis. et assisis. et hidagiis. et de operacionibus pontium. et Castellorum et de Lerwite et de Hengewite et fleamcameswite. et de Blodewite et de fithwite. et de auerpeny. et hundredespeny et de Wardepeny. et quietas de omni Pontagio thelonio et passagio et lestagio et stalagio et de omni servicio seculari et servili opere et exaccione et de omnibus occasionibus et secularibus consuetudinibue. excepta sola justicia mortis et membroruni.

About a mile and a half south from Penrith on the main road from Carlisle to York and on the Westmorland side of the river Eamont, which is the boundary between the two counties, stand the ruins of Brougham Castle, one of the most important strongholds of the great Clifford family, who owned no less than four castles in the county, namely, Brougham, Appleby, Brough (under Stanmore), and Pendragon, and also Skipton in Craven, Yorkshire. From comparatively early times the site of this castle has been a place of some importance, as the Romans had here a strong camp, the remains of which are still to be seen in the field to the south of the present building. The name of this camp was Brovacum, but it has been spelt in various ways. It was a rectangular parallelogram surrounded by a single ditch about 75 feet broad with rounded corners, and had a rampart on the inside. There has also been a berm or terrace between this rampart and the ditch below the main defensive works, which were of timber. No trace of the entries to the camp now remain. The ditch on the south side is still complete, and portions on the east and west. Mr. Gr. T. Clark, in a paper in the Proceedings of the Cumberland and Westmorland Archæological Society gives the area within the ditch as 113 yards by 134 yards at the present time, but says it was most likely 198 yards originally, as that was the proportion of the Brough camp. The reason for placing this camp where it is was to guard the ford across the river Eamont where the road from York to Carlisle crossed that river. This ford I think was a little further down the stream than the present bridge, at a point where it is very shallow in summer, but during the winter and spring it must have been often dangerous and at times impassable. Of course the bed of the river may have been quite different in Roman times, but probably its course was much the same as at present. If I am right as to the site of the ford, the Roman road was continued in a straight line from about the Countess's Pillar to the brow of the hill above the river, down which it went at a sharp angle to the water, and then straight across the marshy field until it meets the road as traced by the ordnance surveyors. The camp stands on the south side of the river about 30 feet above it on flat land; and if Mr. Clark's suggestion as to the original size be correct its north-east corner was about 50 yards distant from it. On the opposite side for some considerable distance must have been marsh land, probably often flooded, whilst still further north rose the conspicuous hill now known as Penrith Beacon, under the southern flank of which the Roman road ran in an almost straight line to the next important camp, Voreda, near the village of Plumpton, about five miles north-north-west of Penrith. The camp was also, in all probability, approached by another road, which ran past the present Brougham Hall and across the river Lowther near the bridge and on to Yanwath, where it joined the road that goes over High Street, Avhich in places attained an elevation of 2,200 feet. A third road I think led to the camp from the south, going over Crosby Ravensworth Fell and so on to Lancaster. The main road all the way from Brough Castle to Carlisle is a most wonderful piece of engineering, when the probable condition of the country when the Romans made it is considered. Its gradients are seldom excessively steep, and yet it keeps an almost straight line for miles; and this was surveyed and made at a time when the whole country was a dense forest and the surrounding hills inhabited by a warlike and hostile race. It is rather surprising, considering the military importance of Brovacum, that it has not yielded more important monuments than it seems to have done. Stukeley mentions that he saw many fragments of altars and inscriptions at the Hall (Brougham Hall), and in the wall by the Roman road beyond the castle and near the Countess's Pillar a pretty “buste,” part of a funeral monument, and further on another bas-relievo much defaced, so that in his time perhaps there were some monuments which are now lost; but Chancellor Ferguson in his History of Westmorland says it “has not yielded many inscribed stones, and those not of any great importance. A couple of altars to the local deity Belatucador and four or five fragments of tombstones.” A portion of an inscription remains on a slab in the ceiling of a doorway passage leading to the second floor of the keep; the only word I could read for certain was Titus.

I have the honour of submitting to the Society, on behalf of the Executive Committee of the Silchester Excavation Fund, a full report of the discoveries made during the year 1901. This is also the record of the continued exploration of the site for the twelfth year in succession.

Work for the season was begun on 10th May by Mr. Mill Stephenson, who directed operations throughout until their conclusion on 13th November, with the exception of five weeks in July and August, when Mr. Herbert Jones was in charge. A deep debt of gratitude is due to these gentlemen for the time and trouble they have so freely bestowed upon the work.

The fall of two of the stones of the outer circle of Stonehenge, No. 22 and its lintel No. 122, on the last day of the century, directed the attention of the public, and especially of archæologists, in a very forcible manner to the insecure position of other stones in this venerable monument. At a meeting of the Council of this Society soon afterwards a resolution was passed and sent to Sir Edmund Antrobus, the owner of Stonehenge, expressing their desire to co-operate with him in any operations which might be advisable for its preservation. Sir Edmund accepted the offer, declined any pecuniary aid, and invited the Society to form, together with the Wiltshire Archæological Society, and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, a small committee to advise him as to the work required for the conservation of the monument and the order in which it should be carried out.

It is by the kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's that I exhibit the charter on the table. This document is a grant, by the Prior of the Hospital of St. John in Jerusalem in England and the Chapter, of the church of Broxbourne, Herts, to the Bishop of London for a yearly payment of four marcs.

The charter is sealed, and it bears the date of 1190, a date which, as I shall explain, is of some historical consequence. Although calendared so far back as 1883 by my friend Sir Henry Maxwell Lyte in his valuable report on the muniments at St. Paul's, the charter seems to have been overlooked, for it was not found in that great repertory of all the charters of the Order, published by M. Delaville Le Roulx, although he endeavoured to include all those that are in England.

The excavations which were made in June and July of 1902 were included in the report of the work done in 1901.

The excavations, of which the results are now to be reported, did not begin until 11th August and were continued until October. The greater part of House No. 4 had, however, been excavated in 1900, but our description of it was postponed until the whole should have been brought to light.

The work for the year 1901 began on 10th June, and was continued till 22nd October. It consisted in the excavation of the west wing of House No. 2, the rest of which had been uncovered in 1900, and of the whole of House No. 7. House No. 8, which was partly excavated in 1901, has been completed (with Block A) during June and July of the present year, 1902. Excavations were also carried on in the field adjoining the north gate, now the property of Lord Tredegar, F.S.A., the cost of which was entirely defrayed by him. As, however, these excavations are by no means complete, and many problems which they present still await solution, it has been thought better to postpone all detailed report of this portion of the work until next year.

The letters contained in the volume before us now preserved at Ditchley consist of five written by Charles II. and forty written by James II. while Duke of York. They are addressed to Charlotte Fitzroy, Countess of Litchfield, their daughter and niece. Sir Edward Henry Lee, the fifth baronet of that name, was by patent dated 5th June, 1674, created Earl of Litchfield, Viscount Quarrendon, and Baron Spelsbury. On 11th August, 1674, he was betrothed t o Charlotte Fitzroy, daughter of Charles II. by Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine, and on 3rd August, 1670, created Duchess of Cleveland. The bride and bridegroom were very young, he having been born 4th February, 1663, and she 5th September, 1664. A little later, on 22nd February, 1677, the actual marriage took place, and, as recorded on their monument in Spelsbury Church, “at their marriage they were the most graceful bridegroom and most beautiful bride, and that till death they remained the most constant husband and wife.” a Their married life lasted forty-two years, during which time she bore him eighteen children, the youngest of whom, Robert, eventually succeeded as fourth and last Earl of Litchfield.

The beautiful ivory carving exhibited by the Rev. A. H. Williams (Plate XXVII.) is not only an object of great rarity, but is of exceptional interest from the fact that it is an altogether admirable example of the work of our Saxon ancestors before the Norman Conquest. Although from age and long burial much of its original glory has vanished, enough remains to excite admiration at the cunning skill of the craftsman who fashioned it.

From the artistic and antiquarian points of view, the systematic destruction of our old City churches under the Union of Benefices Act is greatly to be deplored. Under this Act the churches designed by Sir Christopher Wren have especially suffered; and here I will venture to say a few words on that famous architect and his work. A dire catastrophe sometimes calls forth the energies of the master mind that can grapple with it; this was the case, when, after the Great Fire of 1666, by which eighty-six parish churches were destroyed or severely injured, Wren at that time, hardly a professional architect, turned his attention to the City. He first produced a plan for general rebuilding, which would have given free scope to his genius, although at the same time destroying many links with the past. The chief public buildings were to have been grouped round the Royal Exchange, which would have formed an important centre; St. Paul's Cathedral being approached from the east by two broad converging streets. A river quay, in part adorned by the City Halls, would have extended from Black-friars to the Tower of London; while the churches, greatly reduced in number, were to occupy commanding and isolated sites, their burial grounds being outside the City. For reasons which it is here not necessary to discuss, this proposal was not accepted; and so the City grew again, more or less on its old irregular lines. To Wren, however, was assigned the task of rebuilding or repairing not only St. Paul's Cathedral, but, if we include St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Sepulchre, both only repaired, no fewer than fifty-two other churches, The remainder were not rebuilt, their parishes being united -with adjoining parishes which continued to possess churches. The ancient burial grounds were, to a great extent, retained, and burials continued in them until after the middle of the nineteenth century.

I have the honour of laying before the Society, on behalf of my colleagues, a report of the operations carried out by the Executive Committee of the Silchester Excavation Fund during the year 1902, being the thirteenth successive season of the systematic exploration of the site.

The pyx illustrated in Plate XXXIII., and acquired by the British Museum in the present year, was formerly in the possession of the Reverend Walter Sneyd, of Keele Hall, where it had been preserved for about half a century. It was exhibited at the Art Treasures Exhibition at Manchester in 1857 and again at South Kensington in 1862, has been figured, though imperfectly, by Grarrucci and Rohault de Fleury, and cast for the series issued by the Arundel Society.

During the past five or six years a number of interesting examples of enamelled glass have been sent to Europe from various sites in the nearer East, the principal localities near which they are said to have been found being Damascus, a spot in the neighbourhood of Aleppo, and at Koos and Fostat in Egypt.

One of these, the subject of the present paper, has come into my hands for the British Museum collection, through the liberality of Miss Alice de Rothschild. It is figured in colours in the accompanying Plate XIV. of the size of the original.

The manor of Ropley, like the manor of Meonstoke about which I read a paper in December, 1900, is a made up one. A number of ancient free tenements, holden by suit and service of the bishopric manor of Sutton, were purchased and thrown together between the years 1390 and 1476, and became the college manor of Ropley, the copyholders in which held at the will of the college as they had previously held at the will of the free tenants of the bishop, and attended the court of the college steward as they had previously attended the court of the bishop.

The custom of washing the hands before the principal meal of the day, based, as it is, upon common decency and convenience, has at all times been observed by civilised people. The Greeks and Romans, or at any rate the more leisured and luxurious among them, not only took their baths before the chief meal, but had water for their hands brought round repeatedly during the meal, which would be the more necessary when the fingers were used in eating much more than they are now. The disciples of Christ were accused by the Pharisees and certain of the Scribes of transgressing the tradition of the elders by not washing their hands when they ate bread. The “tradition of the elders” is abundantly illustrated in the literature of the Jews, and similar traditions prevail among the Mohammedans and other Orientals. In religious minds the act of washing the hands has naturally acquired a symbolical meaning. Hence the Lavabo in the Eucharistic rite which i s described by Cyril of Jerusalem (A.D. 348-386) as not merely for the sake of personal cleanliness, but as a symbolic act, connected with the words of Psalm xxvi. 6, “I will wash my hands in innocency, O Lord, and so will I go to thine altar.”

The Early Teutonic jewellery ornamented with garnets and glass pastes, frequently known as Orfévrerie Cloisonnée, has been so extensively discussed that it may appear almost superfluous to draw attention to it once more. But the publication in the following pages of objects now in the British Museum will, it is hoped, supply fresh links in the chain of evidence connecting it with the East; for it is now universally agreed that this kind of jewellery entered Europe from Asia, and it is with examples of early date from that continent that we are here chiefly concerned. The principal aim of this Paper is to make better known the armlet from the Oxus, and the reliquary from Afghanistan reproduced by figures 1 and 2 of the accompanying coloured plate (Plate XVI.). But in considering these objects it has been difficult to avoid speculation as to the origin of the style of ornamentation which they represent. The early date and pronounced Perse-politan style of the armlet bring us nearer to Egypt than anything hitherto discovered in the East, and in view of these facts, we are tempted to revive the question whether the Cloisonnée jewellery of Central Asia can have been introduced from the banks of the Nile. The opposite theory, which regards this jewellery as indigenous in Asia, has probably the balance of opinion in its favour; but in the present state of our knowledge, its acceptance would appear to involve something of a dilemma. For on this view the great antiquity of the earliest Egyptian jewels in this style would compel us either to prove that their Eastern prototypes were in existence some three thousand years before Christ; or to suppose two independent centres of invention, one in Asia, the other in Africa, thus severing Egypt from all connection with the development of the art on the neighbouring continent. Time may remove the difficulties incident to these alternatives, but at present neither of them is easy of acceptance. The perfection of the famous inlaid jewels of Dashur (figs. 1 and la), which belong to the twelfth dynasty (third millennium, B.C.), would make it necessary to assume from their rude Asiatic forerunners an almost fabulous antiquity. But so far as I am aware, neither Babylonia nor Assyria, Central Asia, or India, have as yet produced anything in this style of so remote a date; and though the early archæology of China is at present so little known that it may have many surprises in store, as matters now stand it is a legitimate inference that the Far East could hardly have exercised an artistic influence towards the West thirty centuries before the beginning of our era. The theory which derives enamelling from Asia, does not involve the same dilemma, because this was not one of the characteristic arts of Ancient Egypt.

It is my privilege to bring before you the results of the recent exploration of the Arbor Low Stone Circle. These excavations, organized by the Anthropological Section of the British Association, and carried out in 1901 and 1902, were conducted with a view of ascertaining the age of Stone Circles, a beginning, possibly, of a series of such explorations. The Committee appointed to control this work consisted of Dr. J. Gf. Grarson (Chairman), Mr. Henry Balfour (Secretary), Sir John Evans, Mr. C. H. Read, Professor R. Meldola, Mr. Arthur J. Evans, Dr. R. Munro, Professor Boyd Dawkins, and Mr. A. L. Lewis. The actual organization and direction of the work in the field was placed in my hands. The ground landlord, the Duke of Rutland, K.GL, the First Commissioner of Works (in whose charge, under the Ancient Monuments Act, the Circle is placed), and the tenant, readily gave their consent for the conducting of the exploration.

The history of mural and panel painting in England before the sixteenth century may perhaps be divided into three periods. Firstly, that from the Norman Conquest, or possibly before, which continued during the wave of monastic enthusiasm which swept over Europe, and ended at the close of the thirteenth century. During this time there is every reason to suppose from the evidence of chronicles, fabric rolls, and works accounts that in England as well as elsewhere all the decorative arts were practised by persons associated together in schools or lodges with three gradations of members, namely, masters, workmen, and apprentices or novices. Art was at this date fostered by the monasteries, indeed, those who practised it were largely drawn from the inmates of the Benedictine houses, and it would seem that, at all events at St. Albans, the sacrists were themselves workers and sometimes held the rank of master workmen. During this period one man practised many arts. We know that Richard the Painter superintended the building of Hereford Castle in 1172, and, later, Master John of St. Omer, while making the great lectern for the chapter house at Westminster in 1253, had carpenters, masons, painters, smiths, and others working under his direction. Numerous other instances could be quoted were not the practice so well known as to make it unnecessary.

‘Soleo eniin et in aliena castra transire, non tamquam transfuga, sed tamquam explorator.’ Seneca, Epistul. Mor. I., Ep. II.

Some years ago it occurred to the author that certain submerged ruins in the Bay of Naples were sufficiently well preserved to repay investigation with a view to supplementing the history of the post-Roman land-movements, as recorded upon the columns of the Macellum of Puteoli, commonly known as the “Temple of Serapis.”