This horse harness pendant was recovered from the ditch beside the road just inside the gate of Nevern Castle. Might it have been dropped by Gerald of Wales?
Figure 1:
X-radiograph or horse harness pendant from Nevern
It is a kite shaped pendant broken into two fragments (broken in antiquity), originally 45mm long, 16mm wide, and unusually is made of iron. It has a broken loop at one end and would have originally hung from the harness of a horse, usually the headband or breastband.
Horse harness pendants are normally made of copper alloy, enamelled and come from the 13th – 16th centuries. They demonstrated the wealth, status and allegiance of the rider often depicting armorial devices (heraldic symbol) of the lord to whom the horse (and rider) belonged.
The actual object is very fragile, little more than a lump of rust, and even cleaned by conservators, it shows little of its original shape and decoration. However, the X-radiograph does show what the original object looked like (Figure 1).
Harness pendants first appear in the early 12th century and are rare until the 13th century. This example has an unusual rounded kite shaped shield form, (inverted tear shape) similar to the Folkingham brooch, rather than the usual heater shape (like figures 2 and 3) which was prevalent in the 13th and 14th century. Similar shaped, though undecorated, harness pendant examples come from Salisbury, Sporle with Palgrave in Norfolk and Scarning in Norfolk.
This shield shape and the archaeological context both indicate that it comes from the 12th century. The decorative scheme of the Nevern example comprises 5 pairs of silvery lines against on an iron background, which was presumably originally blackened. The lines are actually tin, which was detected by EDXRF analysis, and this form of decoration is not currently paralleled.
The device could obliquely refer to the heraldic device of the FitzMartin family, which is two red (gules) bars on a white (argent) background (Figure 2). However, the de Barri / de Barry family has a heraldic device of argent (white background) with three bars gemelles gules (three thin double bars in red), Figure 3, which is visually closer to the form of the Nevern horse harness pendant.
At least one member the de Barri family, Giraldus Cambrensis, is known to have visited the castle in April 1188. Whilst it is undoubtedly stretching coincidence to suggest this object derives from his visit, the possibility certainly exists.
Figure 2
FitzMartin armorial device.
Figure 3
De Barri heraldic device
