We cannot pretend to offer to English archaeologists any new or startling discoveries. Anglo-Saxon industrial art has never, it is true, been dealt with as a whole, but its various branches, in all their numberless details, arc none the less well known. It is our desire to provide archaeologists with means of comparison, to enable them to judge from a broader standpoint questions relating to the great invasions. Our essay may serve to render less obscure an episode in the Barbarian epoch of which hardly anything is known on the Continent. Nor is there anything surprising in our design, seeing that historians recognise this period as one of general activity among the Barbarian races. These nations were yielding to one universal impulse when they hurled themselves upon the Roman provinces during the decline of the Empire.