In various documents of the Middle Ages, preserved in the archives of Santiago, mention is made of certain gifts made by Royal personages to the Cathedral under the name of _limace_ or _lunace_. These objects were usually of gold, and of great value; sometimes they were studded with pearls and precious stones.[215] Señor Villa-Amil pointed this out to me when I was in Madrid in the spring of 1907, and said that possibly these objects, of which all trace seems to have disappeared, were nothing more nor less than torques. Now I find that besides their torques the Irish had golden crescents, or neck-circlets, which they called _munices_, and Mr. Joyce says that the word seems to have applied to almost every kind of neck ornament; he describes three main types, and gives illustrations of them, adding that Sir W. Wilde thought some of them must have been diadems, to be worn on the head. The definition of the word torque given by Chambers is “a necklace of metal rings interlaced,” and there is no doubt that the word is derived from the Latin _torqueo_, to twist. Some of those in Señor Ciceron’s collection are like thick cord twisted into a rope, but others are not twisted at all. Señor Villa-Amil has recently been engaged in writing a very full and learned description of all the torque collections in Spain, and he begins with the remark that Señor Ciceron’s collection, taken together with those of the late Señor Arteago, his own, and those of the Archæological and Historical Museums of Madrid, would form the finest collection of torques in the world. Many of the objects labelled as torques in the museums are not torques. Señor Villa-Amil has seen eight gold ones in the museum at Toulouse, but not one of them can be compared to those he has mentioned; they look more like work of Louis XIV.’s time.
Besides his torques, Señor Ciceron has a most valuable collection of prehistoric gold jewellery, amongst which I saw a deep neckband of solid gold, some gold beads on a gold thread, a spiral ring, and a wide bracelet which has no join in it, and must have been hammered out of a solid lump of the precious metal; experts who have examined it say that is the only way in which it could have been made. Another curious object was a necklace formed of hand-made gold fillets, which Señor Ciceron had bought of some peasants who had found it in the sand of the River Sil, which has been known to contain grains of gold since the days of Strabo. Señor Ciceron informed me that he had recently received letters both from England and America asking if he would be willing to sell his unique collection, and although he had no intention of parting with his treasures at the time of my visit, I think it is more than likely that the torques, at least, will eventually find their way to the United States.