In a paper describing the discovery and partial excavation of an Early Iron Age settlement on Park Brow Hill near Cissbury, published in the Antiquaries Journal, vol. iv, mention was made of the location of two other habitation sites on the hill—one Roman, and another probably occupied during the Bronze Age of Britain. It was to this latter site that I decided to attend in 1924, the object being to examine the relation between this settlement and that attributed to the Hallstatt–La Tène I period found on the top of the hill (see fig. a). The new site consists of a series of disturbed areas roughly circular, and lying on the slope of the hill facing south-west, about a furlong from the Hallstatt settlement (see fig. b).

In making researches into the early history of the Armourers' Company, we are faced with the question what kind of craftsman was the armourer or ‘armorarius’ up to the middle of the fourteenth century. On consulting the recognized reference books on the subject, up to the present I have found no word used to denote the maker of defensive armour and offensive weapons as distinct from any other craft till the end of the thirteenth century. Smith translates armourer as ‘faber armorum’, and Riddle and White do not even give this qualification under the word ‘faber’. Du Cange gives 1412 as the earliest use of the term, Murray 1386, and Gay 1351. The nearest approach to the word is ‘armarium’ from which we get ‘armoir’, a closet or cupboard to keep arms, clothing, and possibly, but not necessarily, armour.

Since the publication of the first report, which included all the work carried out on the site of the Saxon village at Sutton Courtenay down to the end of 1922, further excavation has resulted in the discovery of eight more houses in the same area as those previously described, and two others a little distance away. In addition, three Bronze Age circular ditches have been observed and partly explored, as well as one or two more pits of the same period. Above one of the circular ditches were found traces of Saxon houses, in one case consisting of a pavement of large limestone blocks.

By examining those arrow-heads which are known to have been found in strict association with typical objects and by ignoring those from the material of barrows or from the surface of ploughed fields, it should be possible to classify the series and to establish the successive changes in an article of common use during the later Stone and Bronze Ages of Britain. Only brief references to continental work on the subject will be necessary to enable comparisons to be made, to trace possible lines of communication, and to reach some measure of agreement as to chronology.

In preparing this paper I have tried to choose a subject of equal interest to both our countries. The peculiar decorative style of the Migration period is common to Anglo-Saxon England and to Scandinavia; and with equal ardour archaeologists on both sides have been engaged in solving its fascinating problems. Especially in recent years English antiquaries have made most valuable contributions, which seem to call for a revision of current Scandinavian opinions about these questions. In acknowledgement of the high merits of English archaeology in this complex and difficult research, I shall try to set forth how far a Norse student may accept the explanation offered by eminent English scholars like Dr. Ellis Minns and Mr. Reginald A. Smith.

It has been claimed that in its general form the type of burial cave which is the principal subject of this paper is in some way linked with the longbarrows of Britain; that is to say they must have had a common origin, and both must have been built by people dominated by some very powerful tradition—the cult of the dead. So far as western Europe is concerned, it is here assumed that the original home of this cult, or at any rate of many of its attributes, is to be sought for in or around the eastern Mediterranean, and that a great deal, if not all, of its influence reached Britain by way of Spain, or by the more direct route on which lie the Aries group of caves and those of the Marne. Therefore, in view of the central position of the Balearic Islands in the western basin of the Mediterranean, there is at least a possibility that the monuments of megalithic type to be found in them may bear a definite, even if remote, relation to those of Britain.

The internal vaulted roof of the presbytery of Winchester Cathedral is ornamented with a series of ninety-seven carved wooden bosses (pl. xxvi). They are not only interesting in themselves, but they are thought to throw some light on the date of the roof itself. In any case they are worthy of careful study.

One of the most remarkable periods in the history of English art is that which covers the closing years of the thirteenth and the opening years of the fourteenth centuries. This period is distinguished, among other evidences of intense artistic vitality, by the appearance of a group of illuminated manuscripts, some of which were produced by the famous East Anglian school of illuminators, while others had their origin in London. Their works bear the impress of their artists' contact with a busy world; they mark an advance upon their predecessors, not however because they cut themselves adrift from the ‘hieratic’ traditions maintained in the monastic houses, for at least another century had to pass before this finally occurred, but in their purely artistic qualities; they express swifter movement, show more vivid observation, and manifest a greater delight in all natural and human form. For a century or more English art had shown remarkable powers of growth: now it began to emerge from the cloister; artists and craftsmen congregated in centres, and they became forcing houses, as it were, of a new and luxuriant growth, which was peculiarly and essentially English without any immediate counterpart on the continent.

Chun, Ch'un, Chyoon, or Chywoon, as it is variously spelt, is the most remarkable of all the Cornish hill-castles. It is tempting to derive the name from the castle itself (Chy-oon, house on the moor), and, if that is legitimate, in Borlase's day, when the inner walls still stood 15 ft. high and more, the name was very apt. The ‘oon’ portion of the name is still present in the adjacent Woon Gumpus Common. Like Trencrom in Lelant, however, the castle probably took its name from the farm on which it stands.

Just within the boundaries of the modern Lexden Park, through which runs the innermost of the ancient defensive earthworks of Camulodunum, known in part of its course by the name of Blue Bell Grove, and formerly Hollow Way, lies the tumulus, the excavation of which in July and August 1924 is the subject of this paper. It lay within the great west field of the town, which apparently was not made several till late in the seventeenth century. In 1758 it lay in Mr. B. Evans's paddock. In 1838 the field in which it then lay was called Round Field Hill, which was absorbed into the Park in 1860.

The earlier history of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, or Black Canons as they were commonly called, can hardly now be traced. They do not seem to have made their appearance in England until after the beginning of the twelfth century. It is true of course that certain houses, such as Huntingdon and Taunton, which subsequently followed the Augustinian Rule, were founded at a far earlier date, but the whole matter needs a discussion into which we cannot here enter. Like the Benedictines, each house was a separate corporation bound in no way to other houses. Each canon was sworn to ‘stabilitas’ or permanence in the house of his profession. Like the Benedictines, too, the Canons Regular held their triennial Chapters in accordance with the Lateran Council of the year 1215. Unlike them, however, the Austin Canons might serve the cures of souls, in particular those attached to their own houses. This last is an interesting point as bearing upon the fact that Thomas Becket, who as a child of ten began his education at Merton, at a later date wore the habit of the Merton Canons, while Hubert Walter, bishop of Salisbury, soon after his enthronement as archbishop of Canterbury became a professed Canon of Merton. The first house to be settled in England would appear to be that of St. Botolph, Colchester, which was established within a year or two of the beginning of the twelfth century. The foundation of Merton must have followed shortly afterwards.

The recent discovery of the finest known example of an English Astrolabe of the largest size, signed by the Elizabethan maker, Humphrey Cole of London, has afforded an opportunity of gathering together some notes on all instruments now known to have been made by him, and of setting forth the chief biographical details of his life. The result shows that he must be regarded as the leading English scientific instrument maker of his century.