Table of Contents
Please note that this guide has not been fundamentally changed from the original print version of the Finds Recording Guide (Geake 2001), written when the database contained just 8,800 non-numismatic records.
Introduction
Fasteners analogous to buttons dating before the medieval period are discussed by Read (2005); see also our own guide to recording Late Iron Age to Roman button-and-loop fasteners.
Egan and Pritchard (1991, 272, 278-280) summarise what is known about the earliest buttons in England, while Egan (2007, 151) noted that buttons became far more popular in the 15th century. Medieval lead-tin buttons such as Egan and Pritchard 1991, nos 1376-1382 seem rarely encountered outside urban contexts. More common examples are discussed below by period.
PAS object type to be used
Use BUTTON
Terms to use in the description
The parts of a button are the front, the back and the loop. The front and the back sometimes need to be described together; if so, call them the ‘head’. Sometimes the front is decorated with a small, central boss; don’t call it a raised dot, pimple, or nipple. Sometimes the loop is better described as a large perforated lug.
Cast lead-tin buttons such as (Egan and Pritchard 1991) nos 1376-1382 from London seem rarely encountered outside urban contexts (although there are some at Meols (Egan 2007, 151)). Small solid copper-alloy buttons with a tin coating and a separate wire loop are known from the mid 13th century (ceramic phase 8) onwards.
Small, perhaps medieval to early post-medieval ones which are a solid blob of white metal with a separate copper-alloy wire loop (Egan and Pritchard 1991, no. 1388-1393)
Hollow buttons made from two pieces of copper-alloy sheets soldered together, with a separate wire loop, begin in the 13th century and continue into the 17th century (Egan and Pritchard 1991, 280; nos 1397-1404).
Small early post-medieval biconvex or globular buttons cast in one piece with a large perforated lug on reverse, either solid or openwork. The first type often have a small boss in the centre (Read 2005, 35-37; Egan 2005, 48-51; nos 179-184). The openwork ones are hollow and generally have six triangular perforations in the front and six in the back (e.g. Read 2005, 35; no. 110; Margeson 1993, 21; fig. 11, no. 102). They may have been used as hat ornaments as much if not more than as clothing fasteners.
In Southwark, as well as buttons of the above type, similar buttons of lead-tin alloy were also found in the same context dated c. 1630-1650 (Egan 2005; nos 207-216). Most were cast in one piece, either undecorated or with a small boss in the centre, but nos 209, 210 and 212 have separate iron or copper-alloy loops. This context also produced larger, flatter copper-alloy buttons; the group may have included some buttons which were old when discarded. Other London contexts with similar buttons (nos 205, 217, 218 and 219) range in date from c. 1550-1600 to c. 1650-1700. In Norwich, a hemispherical one-piece button was found in a context of c. 1550-1700 (Margeson 1993, 21; fig. 11, no. 103).
From the late 17th- to early 19th-century large flat polished buttons, often with a white-metal coating, proliferate. While these might not hold much archaeological significance, contemporary or later institutional buttons often can (e.g. military, naval or livery buttons).
Examples
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