During medieval times, the buttons was used to close garments, a few may have been merely decorative. The new fashion with tight-fitting garments that occurs from the middle of the 1300s made buttons a regular part of the garments. Medieval images show several examples of clothing with buttons on sleeves and front. There is evidence all the way back to the Viking age for use of buttons, but the large use of buttons starts in Europe at the begining of 1200th Century.

The buttons we know from the Middle Ages can be mainly classified into three types: molded, soldered together by punched brass sheet and fabric. The cast buttons seem to have been of lead / tin or tin-plated bronze.

All the buttons below are copied from the originals. Originals to AS1 and AS9 has glass beads, but the copies are garnet (red) and Onyx (blue and green), because today it is not possible to get hold of the glass beads of the right kind.