. Bergens Museums aarbog. Science. 1906] The cruciform brooches of Norway 83 the eomposition of the foot — the animal-heads excepted — are certainly most closely related to the West-Norwegian series here before us, I have preferred to introduce them at this place in the description. It may be noted in this connexion that a similar ornamentation of the foot is common among the cruciform brooches in England, but there arrangecl in such a different manner that I consider an influence from that country excluded. We have now reached the last stage of development of the cruciform brooches in Norway;
. Bergens Museums aarbog. Science. 1906] The cruciform brooches of Norway 83 the eomposition of the foot — the animal-heads excepted — are certainly most closely related to the West-Norwegian series here before us, I have preferred to introduce them at this place in the description. It may be noted in this connexion that a similar ornamentation of the foot is common among the cruciform brooches in England, but there arrangecl in such a different manner that I consider an influence from that country excluded. We have now reached the last stage of development of the cruciform brooches in Norway; from this point the cruciform type ceased to be the fashionable ornament of the dress and was there- fore subject to no more typological transformations. The large and fine brooches were now made after another type than the cruci- form. Only a few of the smallest and most worthless specimens which will be mentioned in con- nexion with the chronological cruestions treated in the following, may be of a later date than any of the specimens mentioned in the description. It would be a tempting task to explain why the cruciform broo- ches were used no longer in our country while they in England produced a series of remarkable variations later than all the broo- ches found in Scandinavia. It is difficult to answer a question of this sort. But I think the disappearance of the cruciform brooches in Norway was partly due to the increasing taste for a surface ornamentation in relief which became at that time predominant in the Teutonic world. We are going to see that the latest develop- ment of the cruciform brooches in England is directed by this taste, and that the surface of the brooches becomes more and more covered with complicated ornamental patterns; but the Norwegian brooches were not Ut for such ornamentation, as their attraction consisted in the lively contrasts of light and shadow produced by the sharp facets and edges of the form itself; consequently they did not afford s
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