• Date: 16th century
• Material: Slate
• Place Made/Found: North of reredorter

Excavated objects often show signs of reuse, and this slate fragment is one such example. One side is engraved with stave lines for musical notation, almost certainly for use in teaching music.

After a breakage the slate was turned over and the other side (shown here) was reused to record accounts – the medieval equivalent of making notes on the back of an envelope. The scratched inscription includes payments for repair of a pair of boots, ink, and ‘repair of King William’s table’. The word ‘table’ here is probably an abbreviation of ‘retable’ and refers to a painting of William I.

• Date: Late 15th to 16th century
• Material: Lead
• Place Made/Found: North of the reredorter

This pot contains traces of vermilion red paint, which was almost as expensive as gold leaf. Artists used small pots like this because they only made up as much paint as they would use that day to prevent wastage. Paint was made by combining powdered pigment with ‘glair’ (egg white and water) to create a liquid.

However, this object was not made for use as a paint pot. Recent research suggests that it was originally used in the making of lead white paint. A lead pot, usually larger than this, would be filled with vinegar or urine and left to heat up in dung or compost. The lead oxide formed on the lid would be crushed for use as pigment.

• Date: 15th century
• Material: Bone
• Place Made/Found: Reredorter drainage system

Medieval spectacles were used for close-up work, such as reading or writing, common tasks in monasteries. This is a bone fragment from the frame of a pair of scissor spectacles (worn by pinching either side of the nose). The fragment has a groove on the inner curve, to hold a lens. Originally, two hooked tabs would have secured the lens in place, with the aid of a wire binding – one tab still remains.

Finds relating to spectacles of this period are extremely rare, but English Heritage has another fragment at Hailes Abbey in Gloucestershire which appears to have been from an identical pair.

• Date: 11th to 15th century
• Material: Bone and copper alloy
• Place Made/Found: North of reredorter

A stylus is a writing tool used to inscribe on a surface such as a wax tablet. Two kinds of stylus were found at Battle Abbey – small bone ones and larger metal pointed ones. The metal pointed styluses were previously identified as parchment prickers, but recent research has demonstrated that prickers were significantly larger.

As well as being the medieval equivalent of pencils, metal pointed styluses similar to the ones we have may have been used to rule the lines on manuscripts before 1300. After that a lead derivative called pummet began to be used instead.

• Date: 15th to early 16th century
• Material: Bone
• Place Made/Found: Outside reredorter

Twelve tuning pegs were discovered during excavations and all but one show evidence of having been used. The squared ends were to allow a shaped tool to be used to turn the peg, much like a spanner is used to tighten a nut.

The length and shape of tuning pegs can be used to determine what instrument they came from. It appears that we have pegs from at least three different instruments at Battle: long pegs from a harp, shorter ones from a fiddle or rebec, and one of a completely different shape which was used on a boxed (keyboard type) instrument such as a zither.

• Date: Late 15th to 16th century
• Material: Bone
• Place Made/Found: North of reredorter

These pieces are very small – the die is just 6mm across. The brickwork pattern on the side of the gaming piece was produced by grooving the horizontal lines on a lathe and then carving vertical incisions.

Playing games provided the monks with relief from the rigour of the monastic routine. Dicing may even have had some educational function, equipping monks with basic mathematical skills. Gambling, however, was strictly forbidden. The abbey’s guests would also have amused themselves by playing dice and other games.

• Date: Early 16th century
• Material: Copper
• Place Made/Found: Near reredorter

Ritual washing was an important part of the monastic routine and medieval liturgy. Before celebrating Mass, priests would use combs to remove lice from their hair. It was also important to ensure that there was no risk of bodily secretions, such as ear wax, falling from the body and polluting the altar.

This is one of a number of personal grooming tools found at Battle, including three other ear scoops. It is of an unusually decorative design, which bears a strong resemblance to surviving French examples rather than those commonly found in England.

• Date: Late 15th to 16th century
• Material: Copper
• Place Made/Found: North of reredorter

Whip fragments like this are relatively rare survivals – there is a larger fragment at Rievaulx Abbey in Yorkshire. It is made from knitted wire, a technique that was used as early as the 10th century. The whip would have consisted of a series of strands about a foot (300mm) long attached to a handle. Each strand ended in a number of small metal knots.

According to the Rule of Saint Benedict, disobedient monks could be chastised using corporal punishment. This was administered by the abbot at the daily chapter meeting. Scourges were also sometimes used privately by monks as self-penance or as a way of calming desires.

• Date: Mid-12th century
• Material: Copper
• Place Made/Found: North of reredorter

Together with the carved ivory crozier fragment, this is one of very few pieces surviving from Battle that give a hint of the wealth and splendour of the abbey. The copper gilt plaque is decorated with a Greek cross motif in vernis brun, and originally came from either a treasure binding on a book or a reliquary.

The reason it survived when other decorative elements were lost lies in the fact that it was reused. At some point it was detached from its original object and turned round so the decoration wasn't showing, then was nailed as a patch to repair something else.

• Date: Early 14th century
• Material: Copper
• Place Made/Found: Outside reredorter

A decorated sheet of copper, showing a traditional representation of St Luke as a winged bull, the plaque was attached to a wooden altar cross. Each altar at Battle Abbey would have had its own crucifix, and the use of copper rather than a more precious metal suggests that this probably came from a minor one.

Elements of the design, such as the shape of the foliage, suggest that this object was made in about 1300. The decorative technique vernis brun was used to create the design. The process involves engraving, oiling, heating and scraping to produce a surface that gilding would adhere to.

• Date: 15th century
• Material: Lead
• Place Made/Found: North of reredorter

This lead pilgrimage badge showing a crowned head is just 40mm long. It probably depicts St Edward the Confessor, as it is very similar to another badge found in London (where St Edward’s cult flourished), but St Edmund is also possible.

Pilgrim badges were common from the 14th century until the Protestant Reformation. They were small, mass-produced tokens usually made from a cheap metal, like lead or pewter, depicting the saint whose shrine had been visited. They could be worn by pilgrims or put on display to show which shrines had been visited – rather like tourist souvenirs today.

• Date: Late 11th to early 12th century
• Material: Ivory
• Place Made/Found: North of reredorter

This small piece of carved walrus ivory once formed part of an ecclesiastical staff, an important symbol for a senior church official. The decoration of acanthus leaves and beading is typical of very early 12th-century design, but the details are so similar to carvings found at Canterbury Cathedral that it has been suggested that the staff came from that city. A possible explanation for this connection is Abbot Henry, who arrived in Battle in 1096 having previously been Prior of Canterbury.

• Date: Late 13th or early 14th century
• Material: Ceramic
• Place Made/Found: Near reredorter

This tile was probably from the abbey church but similar tiles would have been used in other buildings. It depicts Adam and Eve beneath a canopy and foliage.

Two-colour, inlaid floor tiles were widely used in high-status medieval buildings. They were produced using clay of two different colours. The main body of the tile is red clay, into which a pattern has been stamped using a wooden block. White clay slip was then poured into the impression and the whole tile glazed. Using this method makes the pattern durable because the tile has to be worn down considerably before the background is revealed.

• Date: Early to mid-13th century
• Material: Glass
• Place Made/Found: Chapter house

The abbey’s windows were smashed when it was suppressed. Surviving fragments are of a style known as grisaille, a term used for panels of predominantly clear glass decorated with simple painted patterns. This piece shows part of a feline face (a nose and one eye).

The designs from Battle are very similar to that of a surviving window in the parish church of Stodmarsh, Kent, and we believe that they were produced at the same glass studio. A reconstruction of a window from Battle Abbey on display in the museum has been created using the surviving glass and the Stodmarsh window as a reference.

• Date: 13th century
• Material: Stone
• Place Made/Found: Unknown

The abbey’s buildings would have been decorated both inside and out with sculpted stone ornament, often consisting of fantastical or grotesque faces. Their purpose is not entirely clear, but the latest thinking is that they may symbolise the division between the human world and the divine.

This particular grotesque was stolen by a child decades before English Heritage took over the site in 1976. He kept it and took it with him when he emigrated to Australia. As an old man he recently sent it back to us, restoring a lovely example of the abbey’s decoration to its original home.

• Date: 1932
• Material: Paper

In July 1932 Battle Abbey was the backdrop to a spectacular pageant with 3,000 participants dressed in historical costume, telling the story of the Battle of Hastings and the history of the abbey in nine acts. The pageant leaflet gives summaries of each act, historical notes, and names of participants, interspersed with illustrations and adverts.

The Pageant Master was actress Gwen Lally, who specialised in male impersonator roles. The Battle pageant was one of many she wrote and directed from 1924 until the late 1940s. She also taught acting and wrote romantic poetry as a male to a female lover.

• Date: 1820
• Type: Painting
• Material: Oil on canvas
• Place Made/Found: England
• Artist: Francis William Wilkins

Sir Godfrey Vassall Webster, 5th Baronet (1789–1836), commissioned this large-scale painting of the Battle of Hastings for the great hall at Battle. Sir Godfrey himself was the model for William the Conqueror. The only historical painting by Francis William Wilkin (1791–1842), who specialised in portrait miniatures and engravings, it was rediscovered in 1939, badly damaged, in a local museum. In 2002 English Heritage conserved and rehung it.

The painting now hangs within the great hall, the location for which it was originally intended, which is now part of Battle Abbey School. Guided tours of the school buildings are held in July and August (see events page for details).

• Date: About 1680s
• Type: Painting
• Material: Oil on canvas
• Place Made/Found: London
• Artist: Studio of Sir Godfrey Kneller

Sir Godfrey (1650–1720) was a merchant and prominent member of the Cloth Workers’ Guild. He provided a loan to William III after the Revolution of 1688–9. In return, the king gave him the contract to supply clothing to the army and hemp to the navy. This was so lucrative that by 1710 he owned enough stock in the Bank of England to qualify as a director.

The painting is part of the collection of Webster family portraits that hangs within Battle Abbey School. Guided tours of the school buildings are held in July and August (see events page for details).