A complete medieval stirrup has been recorded from Quainton in Buckinghamshire. Contributing to the record was Helen, a local volunteer, Ros, the then FLO for Buckinghamshire, and Rob from the PASt Explorers team. The record can be found on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database here: BUC-1A3216. This type of stirrup is relatively rare, though it is even rarer for examples to survive intact.
This stirrup has been deformed, but retains all of its elements. At the top a cover plate protects the bar around which the stirrup strap would have been looped. Below this plate, the sides are engraved with diagonal lines to give a ropework effect. At the bottom of the stirrup is an expanded foot rest with a decorated lip at the front whose ridges rather nicely echo the decorative ridges on the cover plate above.
As noted, it is rare for complete stirrups of this sort to come down to us through history. We now have between 40 and 50 fragments of stirrups like this recorded on the Portable Antquities Scheme database. Mostly cover plates have been recovered, but also some foot rests. It is hoped that this post might help in the identification of further fragments of such stirrups, which can be quite difficult to identify by themselves.
As might be expected, almost all stirrups of this type recorded through the Portable Antiquities Scheme are made of copper alloys. The type is known in wrought iron, however: a single example has been recorded from Wiltshire, WILT-B72FF6, while another is known archaeologically from Salisbury (Schuster et al. 2012 ‘Objects of iron’, in P. Saunders (ed.), p. 199; fig. 59, no. 289). Such archaeological examples give a date for stirrups of this type in the 14th or 15th century.
Thought reasonably rare, the spread of stirrups like this is wide and covers the entire country. It is therefore to be expected that examples carrying the same trefoil shaped cut outs in the cover plate come from as counties as spread out as Hampshire (HAMP-46A675), Leicestershire (LEIC-892CC1), and Cheshire (LVPL-316327).
We look forward to hearing of further examples, fragmentary or complete!
