BROOCH, or Broach, (from the French broche}, an awl or bodkin. A spit is sometimes called a broach, and hence the phrase “to broach a barrel.” The term is now used to denote a clasp or fastener for the dress provided with a pin, having a hinge or spring at one end, and a catch and loop at the other. Brooches were universally used among the more civilized nations of antiquity. They were made of many materials, and in innumerable varieties of ornamental design, the forms varying according to the period of their manufacture, or the taste and culture of the people using them. They are unknown in the Swiss Lake settlements of the Bronze Age, though pins and bracelets are abundant. Brooches of the Bronze Age are extremely rare in Britain, although they occur in considerable numbers and of elegant forms in North Germany and Scandinavia. The simplest is similar to that which has been reproduced in modern times as the “patent safety-pin,” but having the ends prolonged into flat spirals and the clasp flattened and engraved with ornamental designs. Another characteristic form was produced by winding a long wire into a flat double-spiral, of which one end formed the pin and the other the catch. A third form consisted of two round ornamented plates connected by a bow-shaped centre piece. In the early Iron Age the brooches of Central Europe exhibit an immense variety of forms, which are for the most part bow-shaped or harp-shaped, with spring-pins, akin to the types found in the Etruscan cemeteries of Certosa aud Villanova recently explored. The Frankish group exhibits three well-defined types, viz., an imitation of animal forms, a simple disc, and a cruciform type, of which there are innumerable varieties of form. The Merovingian brooches were made in gold, silver, or ...