Quoit (brooch)

The quoit brooch is a type of brooch found from the 5th century and later during the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain that has given its name to the Quoit Brooch Style to embrace all types of Anglo-Saxon metalwork in the decorative style typical of the finest brooches. The brooches take their modern name from the rings thrown in the game of quoits, and have the form of a broad ring, or circle with an empty centre, usually in bronze or silver (sometimes inlaid with silver or gold respectively), and often highly decorated. The forms are in a very low relief, so contrasting with other early Anglo-Saxon styles, with detail added by shallow engraving or punching within the main shapes. Dots or dashes are often used to represent fur on the animal forms, as well as lines emphasizing parts of the body. They are fixed with a single, straight hinged pin like those of other Anglo-Saxon ring or Celtic brooches and are further defined by the presence of a slot and pin-stops on the ring.

Most scholars now agree that the style developed mainly from provincial late Roman metalwork styles, apparently drawing elements from both the relatively low-status jewellery found in military graves in northern Gaul and England such as belt buckles and fittings, and also late-Roman luxury work such as the style in one bracelet in the very late Roman Hoxne Hoard. In the Quoit Brooch Style the very varied motifs are largely geometrical but include human face-masks and processions or confronted pairs of schematic animals. In most pieces the motifs are tightly packed together in a way lacking classical harmony, but comparable to later Anglo-Saxon work. The style has also been related to late-Roman ring styles in finds such as the Thetford Hoard.

In late Roman Gaul and Britain cingula or belts decorated with metal fittings were worn as signs of rank by both soldiers and civilian officials. One theory is that the style was produced by goldsmiths trained in late Roman provincial traditions working for Germanic clients, certainly after and perhaps also before the departure of the Roman legions and the end of Roman rule in Britain in 410 or thereabouts. The style and forms are very different from contemporary continental Germanic ones, and the contexts of the various finds seem to allow for both the possibilities that Germanic owners were adopting some Romano-British cultural habits, and that Romano-British owners of objects were adopting partially Anglo-Saxon ones in the first years of the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain.

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