The bronze cauldron here illustrated (pl. 1) has recently been added to the British prehistoric collections in the Ashmolean Museum. It was acquired from the person into whose hands it passed almost immediately after discovery, but of the conditions of discovery it has been impossible to ascertain more than that it was found by some bathers in the bed of the River Cherwell at Shipton-on-Cherwell. Chance was indeed kind when it allowed a vessel of a highly interesting class to be rescued from the mud in which it had lain in a comparatively shallow stream for over two thousand years, in what must, in view of the extreme fragility in relation to its size, be regarded as a quite remarkable state of preservation.

It is a commonplace that before the Romans conquered Britain, its inhabitants had reached a high level of achievement in decorative art, and that one result of the conquest was the destruction of this art and the imposition of an inartistic though materially comfortable culture. With this view I do not propose to quarrel; but in certain ways I think it may with advantage be qualified. My present concern is with one such qualification.

The survey of Kingsdown Camp began on 12th August 1927, and digging in that year was in progress from 15th August to 27th August. In 1928 operations were continued from 7th February to 1st March, and from 10th April to 5th May. The work was completed in 1929, from 8th April to 24th April, and from 7th October to 19th October.

Although it is in the nature of things that all liturgies should be characterized by great conservatism, yet there are plenty of instances of liturgical usages which in the course of time have become obsolete or nearly so; and one of the most interesting of these is, I venture to think, that which concerns the object with which the present paper deals, namely, the Eucharistic Reed, or, as it is more frequently called, the Calamus or Fistula.

The Franciscan monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie is situated on the bank of the Mincio some five miles west of Mantua on the road to Cremona. My attention was first drawn to it by the late Baron de Cosson during a conversation in Florence in 1926, when he showed me a photograph of the interior of the church. He understood that the local tradition was that the statues were clad in armour taken from the battlefield of Marignano in 1515, and mentioned that there appeared to be some basis for this belief as the armour looked to to him genuine enough, so far as it was possible to see it from the floor of the church. ‘Rien n'est plus rare qu'une arinure ancienne’ The suggestion that there might be in existence a church full of armour dating from the early part of the sixteenth century, hitherto unrecorded, inspired a desire to visit the place at the first opportunity. I was unable to fulfil my intention that year, but two years later I was in the north of Italy again and was able to make the promised pilgrimage. The antiquary is well used to receiving specious accounts of treasures which on examination turn out to be utterly worthless. Perhaps objects associated with warlike exploits lend themselves even more commonly to exaggeration than most, and I was prepared to find that I had made a journey in vain. On my arrival a brother informed me that the armour on the statues was only of carta pesta and not worth looking at. But the first figure that I inspected showed that my hopes had been exceeded. Not only was much of the armour real, so far as one could tell through a coating of thick black paint overlaid with the dust of countless Italian summers, but its form was not that of the time of Marignano but of some fifty years earlier, when the art of the Italian armourer had reached its zenith. Last year I returned to the monastery and arranged to have a scaffold erected, and to have the seventeen figures which wear armour out of the total of sixty-seven photographed; for permission to do this I wish to record my gratitude to Monsignor Guarnieri and the Soprintendente di Belle Arti of.the district.

In 1075 William de Warenne, who came from Normandy to England with William the Conqueror, set out with his wife Gundrada on a pilgrimage to Rome. Travellers from the north of France and England to Italy then usually took the Roman road, the Via Agrippa, which led from Boulogne, through Burgundy, by Avallon, Autun and Mâcon, to Lyons. ‘We went to many monasteries in France and Burgundy to offer our prayers,’ wrote William de Warenne, ‘and when we had come to Burgundy we learnt that we could not safely travel through it on account of the war between the pope and the emperor, so we turned aside to the monastery of Cluny, a great and holy abbey in honour of St. Peter, and there we adored and besought St. Peter.’

The monument to be described lies in the parish of Llanddaniel Fab in Anglesey, the latitude being 53° 12′ 26″, and the longitude 4° 14′ 6.″ It is a large circular single-chambered cairn, originally about 160 ft. in diameter, and at least 12 to 14 ft. high. The site is at the end of a low ridge of glacial moraine 500 ft. from a small stream known as the Braint, a mile distant from the Menai Straits and 100 ft. above sea-level. Closely adjoining the cairn is the base of a second (see p. 212).

When Constantine the Great transferred the seat of his empire from Rome to Byzantium he not only preserved that empire from destruction, but he established it at a centre from whence it derived new life and energy. Menaced by the barbarians from the north and the Persians from the east, the empire was in constant danger of overthrow. Now it is often of the greatest importance rather to anticipate an attack than to await its onslaught, rather to be ready for your enemy near his gates than to await his arrival at yours. Constantine therefore removed his base of operations nearer to the source of danger and established himself at the very gate of his enemies. At New Rome new conditions of life had to be faced; new methods of building, suitable to the climate, the skilled labour, and to the materials available, had to be devised. But in the very solution of these difficulties lay the germs of salvation. By his bold and sagacious action a new life and vigour was infused into his people, a new force which not only preserved the empire for over eleven hundred years, but maintained a progressive civilization during what was probably one of the darkest periods in the history of the world. But it was in the selection of the particular site that the emperor showed the greatest prescience. At Byzantium he commanded the great line of communication between east and west through Asia Minor and Thrace, and also controlled the maritime passage between the Euxine and the Propontis, the Straits of Bosporus. He secured at once the most potentially wealthy and the most strongly situated position in Eastern Europe.

In 1923, in consequence of a change in the ownership of the land, a large part of the area within the Roman walls at Caerwent came into the market, including certain sites not explored during the excavations of 1899–1913. Among the latter was the orchard adjoining the main road immediately to the north of St. Stephen's Church. This orchard was acquired for building purposes, and, in order to recover something of the history of the site before the work of destruction began, the National Museum of Wales secured the permission of the new owner, Mr. Moses Adams, to cut trenches across it. The excavations were carried out by the writer in consultation with Dr. R. E. M. Wheeler, F.S.A. A generous grant towards the cost was made by the Haverfield Bequest Committee, and thanks are also due to the owner of the site, to the vicar of Caerwent (the Rev. W. Coleman Williams), and to the churchwardens for courteous assistance during the work.