page_title: Anglo-Saxon brooches
section_title: Jewelled keystone
hierarchical_section_title: Anglo-Saxon brooches / Early Anglo-Saxon brooches / Circular brooches / Jewelled disc / Jewelled keystone
caption_attribution_description: English: Early Anglo-Saxon era silver-gilt plated disc brooch. The brooch contains a nielloed border and gold appliqué with cloisonné garnet and glass cross, five shell bosses and filigree.
context_page_description: Anglo-Saxon brooches are a large group of decorative brooches found in England from the fifth to the eleventh centuries. In the early Anglo-Saxon era, there were two main categories of brooch: the long brooch and the circular brooch. The long brooch category includes cruciform, square-headed, radiate-headed, and small-long brooch brooches. The long brooches went out of fashion by the end of the sixth century.
  The circular brooch form developed from jewelled disc brooches produced in Kent in the early sixth century. In the early Anglo-Saxon era, the circular brooch type included the saucer, the applied saucer, the button, the annular, the penannular, and the quoit brooches. The circular was the most common brooch form during the middle to late Anglo-Saxon era, with the enamelled and non-enamelled circular brooches being the predominant brooch styles.
  There are a few styles that fall into the miscellaneous category. These include the bird and S-shaped brooch of the early Anglo-Saxon era and the safety-pin, strip, ottonian, rectangular, and bird motif of the middle to late Anglo-Saxon era.
context_section_description: The keystone brooch is cast in one piece, most often in silver or copper alloy. It has a circular setting surrounded by three or four keystone garnets or pieces of glass and alternating sections of raised decoration, often in Style I. The brooch is usually edged with niello and a gilded rim. The jewelled keystone varies in detail and size from small and simple, 23–40 mm diameter, to larger and more elaborate, 32–52 mm diameter. Keystone brooches were generally worn individually near the throat.
caption: Plated disc brooch
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