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BY
H. CLIFFORD SMITH, M.A.

NEW YORK: G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
LONDON: METHUEN & CO.
1908

{v}

{ix}

B. M. = British Museum.
V. and A. M. = Victoria and Albert Museum.

A page-number appended to a description indicates place of reference in the text.

{xxxiii}

THE term Jewellery is used generally in a very wide sense, and it has been necessary to impose certain limitations upon its meaning for the purpose of the present work. Jewellery may be defined as comprising various objects adapted to personal ornament, precious in themselves or rendered precious by their workmanship. The jewel worn as a personal ornament may be merely decorative, such as the aigrette or the pendant, or it may be useful as well as ornamental, such as the brooch or the girdle. Gems and precious stones are not jewels, in the present sense, until the jeweller's skill has wrought and set them. This definition will be found to correspond with the term minuteria adopted by Italian writers on the goldsmith's art for objects in precious materials employed for the adornment of the person, as distinct from grosseria—those fashioned for household use or ornament.

With the exception of a chapter dealing with Egyptian jewellery, I have confined myself solely to Europe. The work falls into four main divisions. The first deals with the jewellery worn during classical times, and until the ninth century of our era. The second treats of the jewels of the Middle Ages. The third is devoted to the jewels of the Renaissance, and the fourth includes those of subsequent times. In the chapters dealing with Renaissance and later jewellery I have endeavoured to utilise the valuable evidence, hitherto generally overlooked or neglected, which may be derived from the engraved designs and working drawings of jewellers, from personal inventories, and from pictures by the old masters. Perhaps too generous a share of attention has been bestowed on English work; but this may be pardoned when it is remembered that the previous literature of jewellery has been almost entirely from the pens of French and German writers. While fully appreciating the importance and interest of the recent revival of artistic jewellery, I have not thought it necessary, in a book intended mainly for the connoisseur, to give more than a rapid review of the main features of the modern movement, with a brief mention of some prominent craftsmen therein employed. For similar reasons no general account is given of the processes of manufacturing articles of jewellery, though references are made to technical methods when they serve to explain points of artistic importance.

Assistance has been supplied by numerous works. The largest debt is due to the learned art historian Ferdinand Luthmer, whose standard work Gold und Silber has afforded most important aid. From Rücklin's Schmuckbuch I have constantly derived instruction; and Fontenay's Bijoux anciens et modernes has been a storehouse of information. Other books which have been of service are included in the Bibliography.

It is now my duty and pleasure to express my obligations to all those whose unvarying kindness has facilitated my researches. Special thanks are due: to Lady Rothschild, who has presented me with photographs, specially taken for the purpose, of some of her choicest jewels; to Lady Fuller-Eliott-Drake, who at considerable personal inconvenience brought the Drake jewels to London; to Mr. Jeffery Whitehead, who despatched for my use a number of jewels from his collection; to Mr. Max Rosenheim, who, besides placing at my disposal his unrivalled series of engraved designs for jewellery, has read through and corrected the portion of the subject dealing with engraved ornament; to Sir John Evans, k.c.b., who has guided me personally through his splendid collections of early jewellery; and to Dr. Williamson, for assisting me in many ways, and for the loan, on behalf of Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, of copyright photographs of the finest enamelled miniature-cases from his catalogue of Mr. Morgan's collection, with leave to describe and reproduce such of them as I might select for this volume.

Among those who have favoured me with permission to publish the treasures in their possession I must gratefully mention Lady Cook (Viscondessa de Monserrate), Lady Ramsay, Lady Monckton, Mrs. Holman Hunt, Mrs. Percy Macquoid, the Marquess of Clanricarde, Viscount Falkland, and Lord Fitzhardinge; also Herr James Simon, of Berlin, and Lieut.-Col. G. B. Croft Lyons, who have presented me with photographs of their jewels. Thanks are also due to Dr. Kitchin, Dean of Durham, for the photograph of St. Cuthbert's Cross; to Dr. Spooner, Warden of New College, for permission and aid in photographing the New College jewels; to Dr. J. Anderson, Director of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, for the loan of blocks of two jewels in the Edinburgh Museum; to Mr. F. G. Hilton Price, who enabled me to photograph the old ledgers in Child's Bank; and to Mr. J. T. Herbert Baily, for leave to reproduce illustrations to my articles on the King's gems and jewels at Windsor Castle in the "Connoisseur" (1902-3). The names of many others, who have kindly lent me jewels or photographs, will be found, attached to the individual objects, in the List of Illustrations.

I would especially thank, amongst others, the following officers of the Continental museums who have generously presented me with photographs of articles of jewellery in the collections under their charge, or have aided me with their advice:—Sir Henry Angst, k.c.m.g., British Consul-General for Switzerland, late Director of the Zurich Museum; M. E. van Overloop, Conservator of the Royal Museums, Brussels; Dr. Lindenschmidt, Director of the Mainz Museum; Dr. Hermann J. Hermann, Keeper of the Imperial Art Collections, Vienna; Dr. Wilhelm Behncke, late of the Kunstgewerbe Museum, Berlin; Dr. H. Graf, Director of the Bavarian National Museum, Munich; Dr. L. Curtius, of the Antiquarium, Munich; and M. J. de Foville, of the Cabinet des Médailles, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

Grateful acknowledgment is also due to the officers of the British Museum for the help they have given me, particularly to Mr. Cyril Davenport for numerous valuable suggestions. To my colleagues in the Victoria and Albert Museum I owe cordial thanks for much encouragement and help, particularly to Mr. A. Van de Put for his aid in reading through the proofs of this volume; and above all to Mr. Martin Hardie, a.r.e., who, besides executing the pen-drawings which illustrate the text, has assisted me in various ways, and throughout the whole course of the present work has favoured me with constant advice and suggestions.

H. Clifford Smith

{xxxvii}

THE love of ornament prompted by vanity is inherent in the human race. A most primitive instinct of human beings is to make their persons more beautiful, more imposing, or more striking by ornamentation. This inclination is as old as dress itself, nay, perhaps, dates even further back. For there are tribes to whom climate and civilisation have not yet suggested the necessity of clothing the body, but who nevertheless possess ornaments of some degree of development. From the rudest of beginnings up to the last refinements of art, jewelled ornaments have ever the same purpose in view—to give prominence to individual parts of the body by means of glittering, beautiful objects which involuntarily draw the eye of the spectator in the desired direction.

Jewellery is not only worn with the purpose of attracting attention and setting off the beauty of the person, but satisfies the desire, not less deep-rooted in humanity, of establishing a distinctive mark of rank and dignity. In fact the wearing of certain kinds of ornaments has at times been fixed by legislation.

Among savages, and races not far removed from barbarism, it may be observed that the love of ornament is chiefly characteristic of men. As civilisation advances it is displayed more and more by women alone. Yet even a century ago, among the most civilised nations of Europe, the "beaux" and "macaronis" adorned themselves with jewellery of all kinds. To-day, however, it is confined, and with greater propriety, almost entirely to women. Desirous always of pleasing, the gentle sex has ever sought to add to its charms by adorning itself with jewels.

Two methods of dealing with the history of the present subject present themselves. One method consists in taking individual classes of jewellery, tracing their complete development, and following the changes they undergo during the various periods of civilisation. By the other—the historical method—all types of jewellery in existence at a particular time are examined side by side within the historical period to which they belong. The general changes that take place at one epoch find an echo in every piece of jewellery that belongs to that epoch. The different classes of jewellery during every period all bear a distinct relationship of style. For instance, the changes which take place in the aspect of the necklace at a particular epoch will be found to occur at the same time in that of the bracelet and girdle. But there may exist the widest divergence in style and idea between a particular piece of jewellery and its successor of a subsequent period. For these reasons an historical and chronological mode of treatment has been adopted, which will allow more completeness of observation, and fuller and more scientific investigation of style and craftmanship. Certain difficulties are nevertheless encountered, because periods and fashions naturally overlap. This is particularly the case in times when communication was not easy; since some people {xxxix} would cling to an old form of jewellery, while others, more travelled or more fashionably minded, would prefer a new.

In proceeding towards a systematic classification of personal ornaments it may be advisable, instead of dealing with the separate ornaments of each period according to their relative importance or prominence, to follow a simpler and more natural plan. Thus, the ornaments dealt with in each succeeding epoch will in every case be those worn: (1) on the head—diadems, tiaras, aigrettes, hair-pins, jewels for the hat and cap, and earrings; (2) on the neck—necklaces and neck-chains hung with numerous varieties of pendants; (3) on the breast—brooches, clasps, buttons; (4) on the limbs—armlets, anklets, bracelets, rings; and (5) on the body and waist—girdles and their various attachments, chatelaines, and miscellaneous pendent ornaments, such as pomanders, scent-cases, rosaries, etc.

A few preliminary words may be said respecting the evolution of some of the various ornaments employed on the different parts of the body.

The custom of decorating the head with jewelled ornaments was probably suggested by the natural idea of encircling it with flowers in token of joy or triumph. The use of diadems was in early times generally reserved for those of noble birth. From the fillets employed for binding the hair, developed circlets, which with the addition of precious stones assumed the dignity of crowns.

The use of earrings as personal ornaments seems to have originated in the East, where they have always been in favour. Earrings formed an important article of jewellery during the classical ages, but they were not {xl} commonly worn again in Europe until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At the present moment fashion does not decree their general use.

The necklace—one of the most primitive of ornaments—is worn either close round the throat, loosely round the neck, or low down upon the breast. Occasionally, as among savage peoples, it takes the form of a ring; but as a rule it is formed either of a simple cord, or a chain formed by the appropriate linking together of rings, perforated discs, or pierced balls. Artistic effects are produced by a regular alternation of these details, as well as by the tapering of the chain from the middle towards the ends. Neck-chains with symbolic elements are those worn as orders and as signs of dignity.

The necklace may be further ornamented by a row of pendants, or more generally a single pendent ornament. The pendant thus employed has become, perhaps, the most beautiful of all articles of adornment. It occupies a conspicuous position upon the person, and possibly for this reason has evoked the greatest skill and refinement of the jeweller's art. Its varieties are manifold—from the primitive charm, and the symbolic ornaments of the Middle Ages, to the elaborate pendant, for the most part purely decorative, dating from Renaissance times.

Next comes the important group of ornaments worn chiefly on the breast, comprising brooches, clasps and pins, employed for fastening the dress. All have their origin in the simple pin. To this class belongs the hair-pin, of which the most handsome and varied examples are to be found in ancient work. Unlike modern hair-pins which are provided with two points, {xli} they have a single cylindrical or slightly conical stem, pointed at one end, and terminated at the other with a knob or some other finial.

A simple pin for the dress was uncommon in antiquity, and its general use for this purpose belongs to comparatively recent times. Its place was always taken, especially in early periods, by a brooch—an outcome of the pin—which supplied the want of buttons. The brooch, an ornament of very considerable importance, can be traced down from the earliest civilisation, and is a valuable criterion in questions of ethnic movements. The story, however, of the growth of each of the different classes into which primitive brooches may be divided, the periods at which these ornaments made their appearance, and the deductions of ethnographical interest that may be drawn therefrom, must of necessity lie outside the scope of the present work.

All brooches, as has been said, originated from the simple pin, which itself was preceded by and probably derived from a thorn. At an early period this pin, after having been passed through the garment, was for greater security bent up, and its point caught behind the head. Later, in order that the point might be held more securely in the catch, the pin was given a complete turn, which produced the spring, as seen in the common form of our modern safety-pin. Thus constructed, the brooch, though in one piece, may be said to consist of four parts; (a) the acus or pin; (b) the spring or hinge; (c) the catch or locking apparatus, which forms the sheath of the pin; and (d) the bow {xlii} or back—the framework uniting the spring with the catch.

From this primitive safety-pin, which is the foundation form of all brooches with a catch, developed the numerous varieties and patterns of the brooch or fibula of succeeding ages. Amongst these is the Roman fibula, which instead of being made of one piece of metal, is of two pieces—the bow and the acus. The pin here works on a hinge—the result of gradually extending the coils of the spring symmetrically on each side of the pin into what is known as the double-twisted or bilateral spring, and placing a bar through the coils thus made. From the brooch hinged in this manner originated the Roman provincial fibula of the T-shaped type common in France and Britain, and later the cruciform brooch of Anglo-Saxon times. The brooch with with a hinge was exclusively used until the revival of the "safety pin" with a spring, patented as a new invention in the nineteenth century.

In addition to the above brooches or fibulæ (group 1)—all developments of the safety-pin type—there are three other large groups of brooches: (2) the circular disc type; (3) the penannular or Celtic brooch; and (4) the ring-brooch. The first of these—the type generally worn at the present day—may be described as a flat disc fitted with a hinged pin. In cemeteries belonging to the Early Iron Age {xliii} in Southern Europe circular plates have been found fitted with a pin. These plates appear[1] to have been developed by the conversion of a primitive disc of spiral concentric wire into a circular plate. From the brooch of this type sprang the circular brooch of the Roman period, often inlaid with enamel, as well as the splendid circular brooches of Anglo-Saxon times, and all other disc-shaped brooches. In all early periods, and even in Roman times, the bow or safety-pin type of brooch was commoner than the disc and also more practical, as it offered room for the gathered folds of the garment. In modern times the disc-shaped brooch fitted with a hinged or sometimes with a spring pin has been principally used.

The two remaining groups of brooches—(3) the Celtic brooch and (4) the ring-brooch—are both developments of the simple pin in combination with a ring—in the former case penannular and in the latter annular. The Celtic brooch, with penannular ring and long pin, is apparently the result of fitting a pin to a prehistoric form of fastening for the dress—a penannular ring terminating with knobs, known as a mammillary fibula. The ring-brooch with complete ring, and pin of the same length as the diameter of the ring, which was popular in {xliv} mediæval times, is the outcome of fitting a complete ring of wire to a pin to prevent the head of the pin from slipping through the material—which ring in course of time became the more important member. It is improbable that the Celtic brooch originated in the same way, from the union of a long pin with a small ring. Nor is it likely that these two forms of brooches were evolved the one out of the other by the shortening or lengthening of the pins. As a matter of fact the two appear to have arisen independently side by side.

Bracelets and armlets may be considered together, for though the bracelet is properly only a decoration for the wrist, the term has become descriptive of any ornament worn upon the arm. The bracelet, together with the necklace, were the earliest ornaments used for the decoration of mankind. Amongst savage tribes both were worn in some form or another—the necklace as an ornament pure and simple, but the bracelet serving frequently a practical purpose, sometimes as a shield for the arm in combat, sometimes covered with spikes, and used for offensive purposes. While used universally by women in the form of a band, closed, or open on one side, or else in the shape of a spiral, or fashioned like a chain, the bracelet has been worn from the earliest times in the East by men also, especially by princes as one of the insignia of royalty, and by distinguished persons in general.

Of all jewels the simplest and at the same time perhaps the most interesting and important is the finger ring. It is universally employed as an article of personal ornament, and has been worn by both sexes at almost all times, and in nearly every country. {xlv} Sometimes it is an object of use as the signet ring, or a token of dignity as the bishop's ring. Sometimes it has a symbolical significance, as the wedding-ring. Sometimes it is purely ornamental. Most finger rings may be said to be formed of two parts—the circular portion which surrounds the finger, known as the hoop or shank, and the enlarged or upper portion which is called the bezel. This latter term, applied to the upper side of the ring, which is broadened to receive an ornament of some kind, generally a stone, seems to have originally designated the basil or projecting flange, that retained the stone in its setting. The term collet, also used for the whole top including the stone or seal, is similarly derived from the flange or collet in which the stone is set. From its box-like shape this part of the ring is also called the chaton.

The belt or girdle was worn round the waist by men as a means of suspending weapons, by women sometimes merely as an ornament, and generally by both sexes for the practical purpose of confining the clothing. It is commonly formed of a band of leather or textile material. The part as a rule which receives particular attention is the fastening. This is either in the form of a clasp, or more often a buckle. The clasp consists of two parts, generally symmetrical, one of which can be hooked into the other. The buckle, another combination of a ring with a pin, is similar to the mediæval ring-brooch, but differs from it in that while the pin of the brooch pierces the material twice, that of the buckle pierces it only once. It may be described as a rectangular or curved rim having one or more hinged pins or spikes attached on one side of it or {xlvi} on a bar across its centre, and long enough to rest upon the opposite side. The buckle is made fast to one end of the girdle; whilst the other end, drawn through on the principle of a slip knot, is kept fast by pushing the point of the pin or tongue through a hole made in the material of the girdle. The girdle is attached by means of sewing a fold of it round the bar or round one side of the rim of the buckle. As a great strain was put upon the doubling of the leather or stuff, this soonest gave way. Consequently a plate of metal was passed round the bar or edge of the buckle, and the two portions of it received the end of the strap between them. The whole was then made fast with rivets. The plate is known as the buckle-plate. One end of the girdle being thus furnished, the other was frequently made to terminate with a metal chape to enable it to pass easily through the ring of the buckle in the process of buckling and unbuckling. This chape is known also as the mordant. The chief point of the girdle to be decorated was the buckle-plate, which was often in one piece with the buckle, or hinged to it. The mordant or tag was commonly decorated too, while ornaments of metal of similar design, sometimes jewelled, were applied at regular intervals to the strap or band of the girdle. In later years the girdle often took the form of a chain, on which, as in the case of chains for the neck and wrists, artistic effects were produced by a regular {xlvii} sequence of links. Fastened by a clasp, it was worn by women chiefly as an ornament, or to carry small objects for personal use. For the latter purpose it was subsequently supplanted by the chatelaine.

{1}

EGYPTIAN AND PHŒNICIAN JEWELLERY

MOST of the forms met with among the jewellery of the civilised nations of later times are found represented in the ornaments of the Egyptians. It is fortunate that important specimens of all descriptions of these have come down to our days. This we owe to the elaborate care which the Egyptians bestowed on the preservation of the dead, and to the strict observance of funeral rites, which induced them to dress and ornament their mummies with a view to future comfort both in the grave and in the after life. The ornaments, however, buried with the dead were frequently mere models of what were worn in life, and the pains taken in making these depended on the sums expended by the friends of the deceased after his death. While those who were possessed of means and were scrupulous in their last duties to the dead purchased ornaments of the best workmanship and of the most costly materials, others who were unable or unwilling to incur expense in providing such objects were contented with glass pastes instead of precious stones, and glazed pottery instead {2} of gold. With the exception of many finger rings worn by both sexes and some female ornaments, the greater number of jewels discovered in the tombs are of inferior quality and value to those which the deceased had worn when living.

A peculiarity of the jewellery of the Egyptians is that, in addition to its actual purpose, it generally possesses something of the allegorical and emblematic signification, for which their mythology offered plentiful material. Among the emblems or figures of objects which symbolise or suggest the qualities of deities, the most favourite is the scarab or beetle, type of the god Khepera. The use of scarabs in burial had reference to the resurrection of the dead and immortality. Other important emblems include the uza or utchat, the symbolic eye—the eye of Horus, the hawk-god; the cobra snake, the uræus—emblem of divine and royal sovereignty; the tet, the four-barred emblem of stability, endurance, and lastingness; the human-headed hawk, emblem of the soul. These and many others, as well as figures from the animal world, were worn as ornaments, and especially as amulets to bring good fortune or to ward off evil.

Colour plays an important part in Egyptian jewellery. This love of colour was displayed in the use of glazed ware, incorrectly termed porcelain, but properly a faience, much employed for all articles, as necklaces, scarabs, and rings, and particularly for the various kinds of amulets which were largely worn as personal ornaments. The most usual and beautiful was the cupreous glaze of a blue or apple-green colour; yellow, violet, red, and white are also met with, but less frequently, and chiefly at later periods. But colour showed itself above all in the surface decoration of jewellery, produced by the application of coloured stones and the imitation of these inserted in cells of gold prepared for them. The chief materials employed for the purpose were lapis-lazuli, {3} turquoise, root of emerald or green felspar, jasper, and obsidian, besides various opaque glasses imitating them.

With the exception of enamel upon metal, which is only found in Egypt in quite late periods, the Egyptians appear to have been acquainted with all the processes of jewellery now in use. Chasing and engraving they preferred to all other modes of ornamenting metal-work, as these methods enhanced the beauty of their jewels while retaining a level surface. They were also highly skilled in soldering and in the art of repoussé work. The great malleability of gold enabled them to overlay ornaments of silver, bronze, and even stone with thin leaves of this metal; while ornaments were also composed entirely of plates of gold of extreme thinness. In articles where frequent repetition occurs, for instance, in necklaces, patterns were produced by pressure in moulds, and then soldered together.

Examples of jewellery furnished by the Egyptian tombs are to be found in the museums of almost every country. Undoubtedly the finest collection is in the Viceregal Museum of Egyptian Antiquities at Cairo. It contains jewels of the earliest dynasties, very few of which are to be found outside it. Dating from the great Theban dynasties, the eighteenth and nineteenth, when the jeweller's art reached its highest level, are many beautiful examples, notably the famous set of jewels discovered in the tomb of Queen Ȧāh-Ḥetep (1600 b.c.). Fine collections are also preserved in the British Museum, in Berlin, Munich, and in the Louvre.

Following the sequence of ornaments from the head downwards, mention must first be made of diadems or frontlets. These were composed either of ring ornaments, set with precious stones and strung in a variety of ways, which hung down over the temples, or of gold bands ornamented in cloisonné inlay with {4} the favourite allegorical representations of animals in various arrangements. In the case of royal personages there is a uræus in front.

Among all Oriental nations of antiquity of whom we have any accurate knowledge, earrings have always been in general use by both sexes; but as far as can be judged from monuments, these ornaments appear in Egypt to have been worn by women alone. M. Fontenay[2] claims that the holes visible in the ears of statues of Rameses II—such as the colossal head in the British Museum, cast from the original in the temple of Ipsamboul—have been pierced for earrings. But even so, earrings had probably only a sacerdotal or sacred significance, and were worn by the sovereign only, and on very exceptional occasions. Earrings, however, found very little favour even among women until what in Egyptian chronology are comparatively late times. Those that do occur are of the simplest kind, formed of a ring-shaped hook for piercing the lobe of the ear, hung with a blossom-shaped or symbolical pendant. Large penannular rings of various materials were occasionally employed as ear ornaments; the opening in them enabling them to be fitted on to the upper part of the ear.

Necklaces appear to have played a very prominent part in Egyptian ornaments. No tomb seems to be without them, and the wall paintings also prove their very general use. Most frequent is a chain consisting of various materials strung together, generally with a large drop or figure in the centre, and pendent motives introduced at definite intervals. The latter, of every imaginable variety of design, occur in rhythmical alternation, and are occasionally introduced between two rows of beads. The peculiarly severe and regular decorations of the Egyptians—more particularly the various charming adaptations of open and closed lotus {5} flowers—are here found in the finest forms of application. Especially is this shown on the ornament called the usekh collar, which figures on every mummy and mummy case. Formed of rows, generally of cylinder-shaped beads with pendants, strung together and gathered up at either end to the head of a lion or hawk or to a lotus flower, this collar or breast decoration covered the shoulders and chest, and is found in that position on the mummy, attached frequently to the winding-sheet.

One of the most important Egyptian ornaments is the pectoral, which, as its name implies, was worn on the breast, suspended by a ribbon or chain. In all probability it formed a portion of the everyday costume of men and women, but its symbolism points to its chief use as a mortuary ornament, and it is found on almost every mummy. Pectorals are usually in the form of a pylon or shrine, in the middle of which is often a scarab, the emblem of transformation and immortality, adored by the goddesses Isis or Nephthys.

These ornaments were made of metal—rarely gold, more often gilded bronze—and very frequently of alabaster, steatite, and basalt sometimes glazed, and of earthenware always glazed. In the Cairo Museum is a pectoral of pure gold inlaid with carnelian, lapis-lazuli and turquoises, which was found at Dashûr in 1894 in the tomb of the Princess Set-Hathor (twelfth dynasty). Discovered at the same time was a pectoral having at the top a vulture with outspread wings and below the name of Usertsen III supported on either side by hawk-headed sphinxes. The open-work pectoral of Queen Ȧāh-Ḥetep, of solid gold, also at Cairo, is one of the most beautiful of all specimens of Egyptian jewellery. Another golden pectoral, found in the tomb of Khā-em-uas, son of Rameses II, is in the Louvre.

Somewhat similar to the pectorals are jewels in {6} the shape of conventional hawks. As emblems of the soul, they are found placed upon the breast of the mummy. The finest are made of pure gold decorated with cloisons shaped according to the natural formations of the body and wings of the bird. The talons grasp a pair of signet rings. Allied to these are ornaments known as ægides, which were occasionally also worn on the breast. A very beautiful specimen, the ægis of Bast, is in the Louvre.

Sculptures and paintings represent bracelets by bands of red or blue colour on the arms, and show that the Egyptians wore four—one on the wrist and one above the elbow of each arm. Some of the earliest are composed of glass and gold beads threaded so as to form various patterns. The more solid forms of bracelet are ornamented with inlaid work. Rings for the arms, as well as the ankles, are generally of plain gold—both solid and hollow—sometimes bordered with plaited chain-work. Bracelets of thick and occasionally twisted wire, found as early as the twelfth dynasty, usually have the ends beaten out into a thin wire, which is lapped round the opposite shank so as to slip easily over the wrist. Bracelets in the form of serpents belong to the Ptolemaic and early Roman periods.

The commonest ornament is the finger ring. The ring was not only an ornament, but an actual necessity, since it served as a signet, the owner's emblem or badge being engraved either on the metal of the ring or on a scarab or other stone set in it. There are three main types of Egyptian rings. The first and simplest, composed of a seal stone with a ring attached, is formed of a hoop with flattened ends, each pierced, which grasp the scarab. Through a hole made in the scarab was run a wire, the ends of which, passing through the extremities of the ring, were wound several times round it. The revolving scarab exhibited its back when worn on the finger and the engraved side when necessary to {7} use it as a seal. The general outline of the ring is like a stirrup, a form which of course varied in accordance with the size of the scarab. In a second type of ring the swivel disappears, and the ring is in one piece. Its outline retains the stirrup form, but the inside of the hoop is round and fits closely to the finger. Of this type are rings, dating from the eighteenth to the twentieth dynasty, formed of two hoops united at the top and having the names and titles of the owner deeply sunk in hieroglyphics on oblong gold bezels. A third type, almost circular in outline, is of similar form to the signet-ring of the present day. In addition to those which were actually worn in life, are models of real rings employed solely for funeral purposes to ornament the fingers of the wooden model hands which were placed on the coffins of mummies of the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties. The model rings are made of faience with fine glazes of blue, green, and other colours, with various devices, incuse or in intaglio, upon the bezels, which are generally of oval form.

PHŒNICIAN JEWELLERY

As the inventors of methods and the creators of models which exercised a widespread influence in the development of subsequent types of ornaments, Egypt, and in a lesser degree Assyria also, occupies a position of considerable importance. The chief agents in the spreading of these methods and models were the Phœnicians, the first and foremost navigators of the ancient world, who imported jewels among other articles of trade, into Italy and into the islands and mainland of Greece. Not by nature creative, but always copying those nations with whom in their wanderings they came in touch, the Phœnicians produced a native jewellery of composite type in which there is a perpetual mixture of Egyptian and Assyrian forms. As {8} they had imitated Egypt and Assyria, so they began to imitate Greece as soon as they came into contact with her. The Greeks in return made great use at first of this composite style, but subsequently shook off its influence and incorporated it only after many modifications into their own developed art. The amphora—a form of ornament in goldsmith's work which can be traced to Assyria—is one among many motives borrowed by the Phœnicians, and transmitted by them to Greece.

From Egypt the Phœnicians acquired a high degree of technical skill and mastery over materials. This finish was transmitted to the finest Greek jewellery, and to the personal ornaments of the early Etruscans. The art of soldering gold to gold, which was known in Egypt at an early period, was greatly perfected and developed by the Phœnicians; and it is generally believed that they were the inventors of the process of decorating jewellery by granulation, that is by affixing to the surface minute globules of gold—a process which attained its perfection in the skilful hands of the Etruscan goldsmiths.

The jewellery of the Phœnicians must be sought for from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, rather than in Phœnicia itself. It occurs chiefly in their settlements on the shores and islands of the Eastern Mediterranean, at Sardinia, Crete, and Rhodes, and on the southern coasts of Asia Minor, but the best and most numerous specimens have been found in Cyprus.

In addition to the actual ornaments, special value attaches also to Phœnician sculptures, principally busts, both from Phœnicia itself and from its colonies, owing to the care with which personal ornaments and details of dress are represented. Several striking examples of these are preserved in the galleries set apart for Cyprian and Phœnician antiquities in the British Museum. The most famous of similar works, {9} which include the sculptures from the "Cerro de los Santos," near Yecla in the province of Albacete in Spain, now in the museum at Madrid, is the remarkable stone bust of a woman in the Louvre, known as the "Lady of Elché," from a town of that name in the province of Alicante, where it was discovered in 1897 (Pl. II, 9). The majestic character of this figure, its sumptuous coiffure with clusters of tassels suspended by ten chains, the wheel-like discs cover the ears, the triple row of necklaces with their urn-shaped pendants—all unite to produce an effect unequalled by any known statue of antiquity. Especially noticeable among these ornaments is the diadem which encircles the forehead and hangs down from each side in long pendants upon the shoulders. With this may be compared the chains hung at the ends of the golden fillet at Berlin, discovered by Schliemann at the pre-Mycenæan city of Hissarlik in the Troad, the ornate tasselled appendages at St. Petersburg, found with the famous Greek diadems in the tombs of the Crimea, and the elaborate head ornaments with pendent ends worn by Algerian women at the present day.

The Phœnicians, as seen also by their sculptures, were addicted to the barbaric practice of piercing the upper parts of the ears, as well as the lobes, and attaching to them rings bearing drop-shaped pendants. Rings were also attached to the hair on each side of the face. They consist of a double twist which could be run through a curl of the hair, and are ornamented at one end with a lion's or gryphon's head.

Of ordinary earrings worn by the Phœnicians the simplest is a plain ring. In the majority of cases the simple ring was converted into a hook and served to suspend various ornaments, of which baskets or bushels with grain in them afforded favourite motives. Examples of earrings of this kind, from Tharros in Sardinia, are in the British Museum.

{10} Statues, like the Lady of Elché, show that Phœnician women wore three or four necklaces at the same time, one above the other; these vary in the size of their elements, from the small beads about the throat, to the large acorn-shaped pendants which hang low upon the breast. They display a striking admixture of Greek and Egyptian motives. Gold beads are often intermixed with small carnelian and onyx bugles, to which hang amphoræ formed alternately of gold or crystal. The Phœnicians were particularly skilled in the manufacture of glass: occasionally the sole materials of their necklaces are beads of glass. A necklace from Tharros in Sardinia, now in the British Museum, is formed of beads of glass and gold; of its three pendants, the centre one is the head of a woman with Egyptian coiffure, and the two others lotus flowers.

Finger rings are of all materials—gold, silver, bronze, and even glass. They are usually set with a scarab or scaraboid, fixed or revolving on a pivot. Silver is less common than gold; but in the British Museum is a ring of almost pure Greek workmanship from Cyprus which is entirely of silver, save for an exquisitely modelled golden fly that rests on the bezel.

{11}

GREEK JEWELLERY

BEFORE dealing with Greek jewellery of the classic period some reference must be made to the primitive and archaic ornaments that preceded it. The period and phase of Greek culture to which the primitive ornaments belong is known widely as "Mycenæan"—a title it owes to the discoveries made at Mycenæ, where in 1876 Schliemann brought to light the famous gold treasure now preserved in the National Museum at Athens. A characteristic motive of the decoration of these objects is the use of spiral patterns almost identical with those employed on Celtic ornaments. Besides these and other primitive exhibitions of decorative skill, we find representations of naturalistic animal forms, such as cuttlefish, starfish, butterflies, and other creatures. These are displayed in repoussé patterns worked in low relief. Among the most notable objects are a number of gold crowns usually in the form of elongated oval plates ornamented with fine work chiefly in the shape of rosettes and spirals.

Most numerous are the gold plates intended to be fastened to the dress. They are ornamented with spirals and radiating lines, with the above-mentioned animal forms, or with leaves showing the veins clearly marked (Pl. III, 1). Specially worthy of note also are the finger rings with the designs sunk into the oval surface of the bezel.

{12} Ornaments of this same epoch, like those in the British Museum from Ialysos in Rhodes, and Enkomi in Cyprus, have been discovered throughout the whole Ægean district. They are likewise mainly in the form of gold plates used for sepulchral purposes, ornamented with embossed patterns impressed from stone moulds. Some of them are enriched with fine granulation. This particular process, however, which abounds in Etruscan work, is more frequent on Greek ornaments of the archaic epoch, which dates roughly from about the seventh or eighth century b.c. The types of these, generally semi-Oriental in character, show the influence of Phœnician art, with its traces of Egyptian and Assyrian feeling. Lions and winged bulls on some objects betray the Assyrian style; the treatment of the human figure displays on others the influence of Egypt. Among the best examples of this Græco-Phœnician jewellery are those found at Kameiros in Rhodes, and now in the Louvre and the British Museum. Between these and the fourth-century jewels from the Crimea to be described next, the only known Greek jewels are the quasi-Oriental ones from the tombs of Cyprus, which belong to about the fifth century.

The jewellery of ancient Greece, which requires more detailed consideration, is that worn from the close of the fifth century onwards. The jewellery of the Greeks at this epoch was, like all their other works of art, of surpassing excellence. Gold was wrought with a skill which showed how well the artist appreciated the beauty of its colour and its distinctive qualities of ductility and malleability. The Greek craftsman was ever careful to keep the material in strict subordination to the workmanship, and not to allow its intrinsic worth so to dominate his productions as to obscure his artistic intention. The Greek goldsmiths excelled in the processes of repoussé, chasing, engraving, {13} and of intaglio cutting on metal, and brought to great perfection the art of soldering small objects on to thin surfaces and joining together the thinnest metal plates.

Granulated work, in which they were rivalled by the Etruscans alone, the Greeks practised with success, but preferred filigree ornamentation, that is the use of fine threads of gold twisted upon the surface with very delicate effect. Precious stones were very rarely used in the finest work, though on many of the post-Alexandrine jewels, stones such as garnets were frequently employed. Colour was obtained by a sparing use of enamel. The value of Greek jewellery lies in the use of gold and the artistic development of this single material. The minuteness of jewellery did not lead the Greeks to despise it as a field of labour. Whatever designs they borrowed from others the Greeks made their own and reproduced in a form peculiar to themselves. In other respects they went straight to nature, choosing simple motives of fruit, flowers, and foliage, united with a careful imitation of animal forms and of the human body.

The objects we have to consider fall into two classes, according as they are either substantial articles for use or ornament in daily life, or mere flimsy imitations of them made only to be buried with the dead. As in the case of other nations of antiquity, the demands of Greek piety were satisfied if the dead were adorned with jewels made cheaply of leaves of stamped or bracteate gold. This course was followed mainly for the purpose of lessening expense; but it served also to obviate the chance of tombs being rifled by tomb-robbers or tymborychoi, who practised a profession which was common in ancient times and offered large and certain profits.

Jewels simply and entirely funereal occupy a prominent {14} position in every public and private collection of Greek jewellery. The rarity of jewels for actual use may be further explained by the fact that articles of that kind would only be associated with the grave of a person of wealth and distinction, and that the more important graves were the first prey of robbers.

The almost complete absence of specimens of jewellery from the mainland of Greece is due to those acts of pillage which continually took place at localities well known as cemeteries. Only in tombs concealed by their environment, or lost to sight in semi-barbarous countries, have sufficient ornaments been found for us to form an estimate of the perfection which this branch of the industrial arts then attained. The chief sources of these discoveries have been the Crimea, the Greek islands, the west coast of Asia Minor, and Southern Italy—known in ancient times as Magna Græcia. Of these districts by far the most important was that on the northern shore of the Black Sea, called formerly the Tauric Chersonese and now the Crimea, where in close proximity to the warlike Scythian tribes a Greek colony had settled as early as the sixth century before our era. Excavations made also in the adjacent peninsula of Taman have revealed numerous articles of gold, all belonging to the latter half of the century. The wealth of gold on the shores of the Black Sea, which is the basis of the early Greek legends of the Golden Fleece, had attracted merchant adventurers at an early date. And the Greek goldsmiths who settled there forwarded their productions both to their mother-country and to the neighbouring lands of the barbarians. Excavations undertaken by the Russian Government near Kertch, the ancient Pantikapaion, gave rise to an important discovery in 1831, when the opening of the celebrated tumulus Koul-Oba revealed a magnificent display of Greek jewellery. These treasures, and others which the enterprise of {15} the Russian Government has brought to light, are preserved at St. Petersburg in the Museum of the Hermitage.

Italy, less systematically ravaged than Greece, has proved exceedingly rich in finds of antique jewellery. Except for a few scattered fragments from Greece proper and the other sources mentioned above, public and private cabinets, outside Russia, are made up almost exclusively of the results of excavations in the burial-places of Magna Græcia.

In no ornament did the Greek jeweller exhibit his fertility of invention to a greater degree than in the variety and beauty of the forms given to earrings. They divide naturally into two classes. The first, the earlier, are ring-shaped, of two halves formed in a mould and united together. They terminate at one end with a human head—like that of a Mænad in a specimen in the British Museum—or more usually with the head of a lion, bull, or some other animal. To the second class belong those attached to the ear by a hook masked by a rosette or disc. From this hang one or more pendants of a variety of designs. In rare instances these consist of beads hung to little chains; but the logical sense of the ancients preferred for the purpose things that might be imagined as floating, such as a little figure of Eros, or a tiny Victory bearing a wreath. The place on the ring where the pendant is attached is almost invariably made prominent by a saucer-shaped rosette, a mask, or similar object ornamented with fine threads of gold. Opaque enamel, of white, blue, or green, is sometimes found applied thinly to the surface of the metal. Many earrings are of the most complicated design. When the ear-pendant was confined to a ring with a crescent-shaped lower part, this ornament would produce no effect except when the wearer was seen in profile. In order to make the ornament visible from the front, the idea suggested {16} itself to hang the crescent ring on to a smaller one. Wonderfully well executed are some of the later Greek earrings in which small figures are attached directly to the hook which is inserted into the ear. Among these are figures of Eros playing a musical instrument or holding a jug as if pouring a libation.

By the amplification of the appendages we find the simpler earrings assume such an immense increase in dimension as to make it impossible that they were attached to the lobe of the ear. It may be assumed that they were fastened to the diadem or frontlet, or to a plaited tress of hair, and hung over the ear, or more to the front over the temples. Naturally this species of ornament, owing to its weight and the many separate pieces of which it was made, would prevent the wearer from making any rapid movements, but was adapted to a slow and dignified pace in walking. It would also have the additional motive of increasing the commanding appearance of the individual. A splendid pair of head appendages of this character discovered at Kertch are now at St. Petersburg. They are composed of two large medallions representing the head of Athene, whose helmet is adorned with sphinxes and gryphons. From these are suspended several rows of amphora-shaped ornaments covered with fine filigree decoration.

The decorating of the head with wreaths was a very common practice among the ancients on festive occasions of every description. The wreaths with which the dead were adorned for burial, made in imitation of natural leaves, form a large portion of funereal jewellery. One of the most famous of this species, found in 1813 at Armento (S. Italy), and purchased about 1826 by Ludwig I, King of Bavaria, from Countess Lipona (formerly Queen of Naples and wife of Joachim Murat) is now in the Antiquarium at Munich. Here the wreath, formed of roses, narcissus, myrtle and oak leaves, is enlivened by small figures of {17} genii, while on the top is placed a statue with an inscription underneath it. This splendid specimen was probably employed for votive purposes. Dating from the third century b.c., and also from Magna Græcia, is the gold crown in the British Museum which was acquired from the collection of Count Tyszkiewicz in 1898 (Pl. V, 1). Being of more solid construction, though excessively light and elegant, this, and similarly elaborate crowns in the Louvre, were probably worn by ladies of high rank.

In addition to these diadems composed of many minute parts, the simplest and probably the most usual form is that of a flat band increasing in breadth towards the middle, and ending there sometimes in a blunt point marked by a palmette.

Pins that served the purpose of fastening up and decorating the hair vary in style, their heads being formed sometimes of flowers, and sometimes of animals or human figures, resembling those employed as pendants to earrings. Probably the most important is the handsome pin in the British Museum from Paphos in Cyprus (Pl. IV, 6). The head, surmounted with a bead of Egyptian porcelain with a pearl above, is in the form of a capital of a column. At the four corners are projecting heads of bulls, and between these are open cups or flowers, towards which four doves with outstretched wings bend as if to drink.

Typical necklaces of the best period consist of a chain about three-eighths of an inch in width, of closely plaited gold wire. From this are suspended numerous smaller chains, masked at the top by small rosettes and hung below with vases, spindle-shaped pieces, or a rhythmical combination of other ornaments covered with fine filigree. The British Museum possesses several superb necklaces. To the finest one, found in the island of Melos, colour is added by means of green and blue enamel (Pl. V, 3).

{18} Bracelets and armlets, which are rarer than necklaces, are of three forms: a fine plaited chain, like that of the necklaces, united by a clasp in the form of a knot; repoussé plaques hinged together; and a circlet of beaten gold of more solid construction.

The primary object of the finger ring was its use as a convenient method of carrying the engraved stone which was to serve as a signet. Hence in early times more attention was paid to the engraving of the gem set in the ring than to its mounting. Many early rings are entirely of gold and made generally of one piece, with a large flat bezel engraved like a gem. A great number of them, though apparently solid, are hollow, and formed of gold leaf punched into shape and then filled up with mastic to preserve the form. The ornamental rings of the later Greeks have been found chiefly in the luxurious colonies of Magna Græcia. One of the most charming designs is in the shape of a serpent which coils itself many times round the finger, with its head and tail lying along the finger. It is worthy of remark that though a number of Greek rings are in existence, never in Greek art, as in Etruscan and Roman, do we find any representation of the human figure with rings on the fingers.

In earlier times simple pins formed of gold wire appear to have been often employed to fasten the dress. Bow-shaped brooches were also worn, but few gold brooches are met with except those belonging to the later Greek ornaments. These are characterised by a small arched bow and a long sheath for the point of the pin decorated with designs in fine filigree.

The goldsmith's art is much more limited in its application to girdles than to head or neck ornaments; and yet, as is well known, girdles formed an important item in the dress of men and women. The girdle over which the long tunic hung in deep folds was often of simple cords with tassels affixed to the ends: thus {19} Homer speaks of Hera as wearing a "zone from which a hundred tassels hang." Girdles appear to have been mainly of soft ligaments, which probably, with the increase of luxury, were adorned with gold ornamentations. It is remarkable, at all events, that those species of gold ornament that can certainly be recognised as girdles are obvious imitations of textile fabrics.

Corresponding to the ornaments found at Mycenæ which were employed by the primitive Greeks for decorating their garments are thin plates of gold, termed bracteæ, pierced with small holes, which served the later Greeks for similar purpose. They are repoussé, and have clearly been stamped with dies, for the designs on them show constant repetition. They are of various sizes and shapes, and it is evident that some were meant to be worn as single ornaments, while others, sewn on in lines, formed regular borders or designs on the robes. It is possible that, like the ball-shaped buttons met with in many fanciful formations, some of more solid construction served the purpose of clasps that drew together the dress at intervals along the arm, and acted as fastenings at the neck or on the shoulder. Some attachments of this kind in the form of round discs, with their gold surface richly ornamented with filigree and also with enamel, may have been actual brooches and have had hinged pins affixed below.

{20}

ETRUSCAN JEWELLERY

THE Etruscans appear to have had a peculiar passion for jewellery. Even in early times, when the excessive use of personal ornament was considered a mark of effeminacy, they were famed for their jewels. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, speaking of the Sabines, says that "they wore bracelets on their left arms, and rings, for they were a gold-wearing nation, and not less effeminate than the Etruscans." Like most other nations of antiquity, the Etruscans dedicated to the service of the dead costly articles of adornment which they had worn when living; though the greater number of these jewels are flimsy objects made for mortuary purposes. On Etruscan sarcophagi the men have torques about their necks, while the women have sometimes torques, sometimes necklaces, long earrings, and bracelets, and both sexes have many rings on their fingers.

Though systematically rifled in former times, Etruscan tombs have yet preserved to the present day a large number of jewels, sufficient to prove that the possibilities of gold were never more thoroughly grasped than by the Etruscans. Their earlier jewellery—for the later is much coarser—shows extraordinary fineness and elaboration of workmanship. They possessed a peculiar art of fusing and joining metals by the use of solvents unknown to us, which rendered invisible the traces of solder. Surface decoration was produced by {21} the interweaving of extremely delicate threads of gold, by a sparing use of enamel, and particularly by the soldering together of particles or globules of gold of such minuteness and equality as to be scarcely perceptible to the naked eye. Animal or human forms were skilfully executed in relief by repoussé, or produced in the round with the assistance of solder. But the chief characteristic of their jewellery, and that which mainly distinguishes it from the Greek, is its ornamentation with grains of gold of microscopic size.

The method of decorating the surface of gold with fine granules, which is usually termed granulation, is one which was in favour among all ancient gold workers in the countries bordering on the Mediterranean. The "pulvisculus aureus," as it was called in Italy, came into common use towards the close of the Mycenæan Age, at a time when the Phœnicians were making their influence felt in Cyprus, Sardinia, and Etruria, where examples of this method of gold working particularly abound. We are probably right in assuming that this granulated work was indigenous to the Eastern Mediterranean, and that, as it has been found upon jewels of undoubted Phœnician origin, the Phœnicians were not uninstrumental in disseminating it along their trade routes. Cellini, in his description of the process of granulation in his Trattato dell' Oreficeria, speaks of each grain being made separately and soldered on, a technique probably practised by the ancient jewellers. But in the case of the minutest Etruscan work, it is not improbable that the grains—at first natural, though subsequently artificial—were sprinkled like dust over the parts of the surface which had to be covered. This fine granulation belongs only to the early and best Etruscan jewels. Larger grains were used for later work.

It is remarkable that the secrets of the old Etruscan goldsmiths have never been wholly recovered in Europe. {22} That the art of granulation, though mentioned by Cellini, was not generally practised by the goldsmiths of the Renaissance is evident from the examples of their work that have survived. In recent years attempts have been made to revive the art; but as the well-known productions of Castellani the elder, with his Alessandro the connoisseur and Augusto, and of Carlo Giuliano, are connected with the later history of jewellery, further reference will be made to them subsequently.

As might be expected, important collections of Etruscan jewellery are preserved in museums close to the sites where the objects themselves have been discovered. One of the most extensive of such collections is that in the museum of the Vatican, which was brought together by Pope Gregory XVI from the districts which till 1870 formed part of the papal domain. The British Museum, the Louvre, and the museums of Berlin and Munich all contain a large number of ornaments from the old cemeteries of the Etruscan races. The earliest Etruscan jewellery coincides roughly with Greek work of the late Mycenæan period, and betrays, from the religious symbols expressed on it, a marked Oriental or Egyptian influence. At a somewhat later date, that is from about 500 to 300 b.c., it is evident that the Etruscans largely followed Greek models, or imported from Greece, especially from Ionia, some of the finest artists in the precious metals. Etruscan jewellery can then be divided into three distinct styles: the primitive, somewhat Oriental in character, and of fine but not artistically attractive work; the later, when the primitive art had been subjected to Hellenic influence and produced work of the highest artistic and technical excellence; and the latest style, in which Greek art, still followed, but in a vulgarised form, results in ornaments noticeable for their size and coarseness of execution.

{23} The Etruscans appear to have paid particular attention to the decoration of the head. Following a custom in vogue throughout Greece, men as well as women adorned themselves with fillets; while women also wore highly ornate hair-pins, with heads shaped like balls, acorns, and pomegranates, decorated in granulation. Many of these pins must have served to fix the diadems and fillets for which the Etruscans appear to have had an especial liking. The latter are composed for the most part of the foliage of myrtle, ivy, and oak, in accordance with the symbolical ideas attached to these leaves. The greater number are of plate of gold, so thin and fragile that they can only have been employed as sepulchral ornaments—like the wreath of ivy leaves and berries of thin gold still encircling the bronze helmet from Vulci in the Room of Greek and Roman Life in the British Museum, and a similar wreath of bracteate gold around a conical bronze helmet in the Salle des Bijoux Antiques of the Louvre.

Earrings of the finest period bear a striking similarity to Greek ornaments of the same date. The first type is penannular in shape, one end terminating in the head of a bull or lion, and the other in a point which pierces the ear. To this ring is next attached a pendant. In the third type the hook which pierces the ear is hidden by a rosette or disc from which hang tassel-shaped appendages, and in the middle between them small animals enamelled white, such as the geese, swans, and cocks in the British Museum, and the peacocks and doves in the Campana Collection in the Louvre. Earrings of another class are saddle-shaped, formed like an imperfect cylinder, one end of which is closed by an open-work rose cap, which completely enclosed the lobe of the wearer's ear. The latest Etruscan earrings, of pendant form, are mostly of great size and in the shape of convex bosses.

{24} In examining the very primitive necklaces and other ornaments that have been discovered in various tombs in Italy, especially in Etruria and Latium, the extraordinary abundance of amber at once attracts attention. The amber of this ancient jewellery of Italy has accessories, sometimes of gold, and more frequently of silver, or else of an alloy of gold and silver termed electrum. A noteworthy early necklace of these materials found at Præneste, and now in the British Museum, is composed of amber cylinders, and pendent vases alternately of amber and electrum (Pl. VI, 2).

Though the majority of Etruscan necklaces aim at largeness of display, some are as delicate and refined as the best Greek ornaments. From a round plaited chain in the British Museum hangs a single ornament—-the mask of a faun whose hair, eyebrows, and wavy beard are worked with fine granulation; another pendant is a negro's head on which the granules are disposed with exquisite skill to represent the short woolly hair (Pl. VI, 5). Finer even than either of these—and a remarkable example of the combination of the two processes of filigree and granulation—is a neck pendant in the form of a mask of Dionysos (Bacchus) in the Campana Collection in the Louvre. On this the curls of hair over the forehead are represented by filigree spirals, while the beard is worked entirely in the granulated method.

A large number of necklaces have evidently been produced simply for sepulchral purposes, for they are composed, like the majority of crowns, of the thinnest bracteate gold in the shape of rosettes and studs strung together.

The chief characteristic of Etruscan necklaces is their ornamentation with pendent bullæ. The bulla, from the Latin word meaning a bubble, was usually made of two concave plates of gold fastened together so as to form a globe—lentoid or vase-shaped—within {25} which an amulet was contained. In Etruscan art both men and women are represented wearing necklaces and even bracelets formed of bullæ. Occasionally, instead of a bulla, is some such object as the tooth or claw of an animal or a small primitive flint arrow-head, which served as an amulet.

Of bracelets of primitive work are a famous pair in the British Museum, which were discovered in a tomb at Cervetri (Cære). They are composed of thin plates of gold measuring 8 inches in length by 2¼ inches in width, divided into six sections, ornamented with scenes thoroughly Assyrian in character, indicated by lines of microscopic granulations (Pl. VII, 4).

Etruscan fibulæ of gold are generally formed of a short arc-shaped bow and a long sheath for the pin decorated with minute granular work. Upon the upper surface are often rows of small models of animals. Upon the sheath of a large early fibula found at Cervetri (Cære), and now in the British Museum, is a double row of twenty-four standing lions (Pl. VII, 1). The bow of the later fibulæ is sometimes in the form of a single figure, as that of a crouching lion. A considerable number of small fibulæ of this type appear to have been worn in rows down the seam of the dress. Two series of these, the one numbering twenty-one and the other thirty-nine, both found in a tomb at Vulci, are in the Louvre.

The Etruscans appear to have had a special love for rings; every finger, including the thumb, was covered with them, and a considerable number have been discovered in the tombs. The majority are composed of scarabs mounted much in the same style as those of the Egyptians. One of the finest Etruscan rings in the British Museum is formed by two lions, whose bodies make up the shank, their heads and fore-paws and supporting a bezel in filigree which holds the signet stone—a small scarabæus charged with a lion regardant. {26} Another remarkable class of Etruscan rings has large oval bezels measuring upwards of an inch and a half across. These are set with an engraved gem, and have wide borders ornamented with various designs. An example in the British Museum shows a pattern formed of dolphins and waves.

{27}

ROMAN JEWELLERY

THE foundation of the designs of Roman jewellery is to be found among the ornaments of the ancient Latin and Etruscan races which Rome subdued. That there is considerable resemblance also between Roman and Greek jewellery is natural, for the Romans, having plundered first Sicily and Southern Italy, and then Greece itself, induced Greek workmen with more refined instincts than their own to eke out a precarious living as providers of luxurious ornaments. It is worthy of remark that, owing to various causes, Greek and Etruscan jewellery has survived in considerably greater quantity than has that from the much more luxurious times of the Roman Empire.

It is customary to associate Roman jewellery with a degree of luxury which has not been surpassed in ancient or modern times. Roman moralists, satirists, and comic poets refer again and again to the extravagance of their own day. The first named, from a sombre point of view, condemn the present to the advantage of the past; and the others, with a distorted view, study exceptional cases, and take social monstrosities as being faithful representations of the whole of society. Under the Republic nearly all ornaments were worn for official purposes, and the wearing of precious stones was prohibited except in rings; but in imperial times they were worn in lavish profusion, and successive emperors, by a series of sumptuary laws, attempted {28} to check the progress of this extravagance. Many instances might be quoted of excessive luxury in the use of precious stones, like that of the lady described by Pliny, who at a simple betrothal ceremony was covered with pearls and emeralds from head to foot. Yet Roman luxury was not without its parallel in later ages. For in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries we read how at court the women carried their whole fortunes in a single dress. Further, as far as can be judged, the personal ornaments of the ancients were for the most part subject to much less frequent change of fashion than is inevitable under the social conditions of more modern times.

With regard to ornaments of the head, diadems and fillets were much worn. Ladies of the Roman Empire dressed their hair in the most elaborate manner, and adorned it with pearls, precious stones, and other ornaments. For fixing their head-dresses, and for arranging the hair, they made use of long hair-pins. A gold specimen preserved in the British Museum is upwards of eight inches in length; it has an octagonal shaft crowned with a Corinthian capital, on which stands a figure of Aphrodite (Pl. VIII, 3).

Pearls were in particular favour as ornaments for the ears. Introduced into Rome about the time of Sulla, pearls were imported in large quantities during the Roman domination of Egypt. In Vespasian's time Pliny, referring to earrings, says: "They seek for pearls at the bottom of the Red Sea, and search the bowels of the earth for emeralds to decorate their ears." Perfect spherical pearls of delicate whiteness were termed uniones (i.e. unique), since no two were found exactly alike. Pear-shaped pearls, called elenchi, were prized as suitable for terminating the pendant, and were sometimes placed two or three together for this purpose. Thus worn, they were entitled crotalia (rattles), from the sound produced as {29} they clashed together. "Two pearls beside each other," Seneca complains, "with a third on the top now go to a single pendant. The extravagant fools probably think their husbands are not sufficiently plagued without their having two or three heritages hanging down from their ears." Earrings with single pendants were called stalagmia.

It is especially to be noticed that the shapes of all ancient jewellery and ornaments, particularly those of the Romans, were in a great measure decided by a belief in their magical efficiency. The wearing of amulets was most frequent among the Romans of all classes. They were generally enclosed in a bulla, and suspended from the neck. A remarkable specimen of a bulla, found at Herculaneum, and presented by the Court of Naples to the Empress Josephine, is now in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. The lentoid-shaped bulla was worn almost entirely by children, but other pendants, shaped like pendent vases, or in the form of a square or cylindrical box, were a not unusual ornament of the necklace of Roman ladies. They probably always possessed a symbolical meaning.

The simple neck-chain, whether supplied with the appendage or not, was called a monile; the luxury of latter times doubled or trebled the rows of chains. These were often of finely plaited gold or else of links. Other necklaces were composed of mounted precious stones, the fashion for which appears to date from the Oriental conquests of Pompey in the first century b.c. Vast quantities of precious stones were brought into Rome at that date; for the treasury of Mithridates, captured at Talaura, contained, besides many other precious objects, "jewels for the breast and neck all set with gems."

The Romans also wore necklaces (monilia baccata) composed of beads of various materials, both precious stones and glass, of many colours and various shapes. {30} Amber was largely employed for the purpose, and held in high estimation by Roman ladies, who regarded it not only as an ornament, but as a talisman for protection against danger, especially witchcraft. Amber in which small insects were enclosed was particularly prized: "the price," says Pliny, "of a small figure in it, however diminutive, exceeds that of a living healthy slave."

Both cameos and large intaglios were in frequent use as pendent ornaments, and in the most recent pieces of Roman jewellery imperial gold coins were employed for rings, bracelets, and especially for pendants to necklaces. For the latter purpose they are not infrequently found set in opus interrasile—the open-work characteristic of late Roman jewellery. The best example of cameos and coins mounted thus is a necklace in the Cabinet des Médailles at Paris.[3]

In the case of bracelets (armillæ) which were favourite ornaments among the Romans, two kinds have to be noticed. The first, termed dextrocherium, was meant to be worn round the right wrist, and follows the same rules of formation as the necklace, but no pendent motives are introduced. Other bracelets are formed of two rounded halves of solid character, hinged, and closed by a snap. The second kind of bracelet or armlet, worn on the upper arm, was the brachiale or torques brachialis; another was the spinther, which kept its place on the arm by its own elasticity. The difference, however, between the different Latin terms for the armlet is somewhat obscure. Originally of pure gold, bracelets were subsequently set with precious stones and engraved gems, and, like the specimen in the Imperial Cabinet at Vienna, with coins dating from the third century a.d. The serpent form appears to have been a favourite one among Roman ladies, and a fine pair {31} of armlets of this design are in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Pl. VIII, 11).

The Romans appear to have been more extravagant in their rings than any other people. Very few ornamental rings are earlier in date than the time of the Empire, when the passion for gold rings adorned with precious stones and engraved gems seems to have pervaded all classes; and it reached such extravagance that Martial speaks of a man who wore six on every finger, and recommends another who had one of monstrous size to wear it on his leg instead of his hand. Some individuals, we learn, had different sets of rings for summer and winter, those for the latter season being too heavy for hot weather. Their weight was sometimes very great, and it is not to be wondered that complaint was made of their liability to slip off when the finger was greasy at a meal.

Even until the latest times the ring retained its original purpose as a means of distinction or of recognition, and was used by its wearer to impress his seal on documents and private property. It continued also to be associated with the idea of power and privilege especially bestowed upon the individual. Thus the Roman paterfamilias wore on his finger a ring with a small key attached. Every Roman appears to have chosen at pleasure the subject or device for his signet—a portrait of a friend or an ancestor, or some subject from poetry or mythology. Each of these devices became associated with a particular person, and served, like the coat-of-arms of later centuries, as a mark of identification.

The commonest variety of ring is formed of a plain band of gold which widens and thickens towards the bezel, and is set with a small stone. The latter is generally engraved, but is often quite plain. The similarity of the convex sardonyx to an eye often struck the ancients, and may account for this stone {32} being frequently found unengraved in rings, and set in a collet, itself shaped into the form of a human eye. Such rings were no doubt worn as amulets. Rings containing stones set in this manner have sometimes a flattened hoop and open-work shoulders. Other distinctly ornamental rings, known by the Romans as polypsephi, are formed of two or more rings united together.

A large number of Roman rings are of bronze, and the key rings referred to are, with a very few exceptions, of this material. Iron and bronze rings were not infrequently gilded. Such rings, according to Pliny, were called Samothracian. Rings in the form of snakes were very popular, as were those shaped like a Herculean knot. Like other articles of jewellery, rings are sometimes set with gold coins of the late Empire. A few ornamental rings have high pyramidal bezels which were sometimes hollow, and were made to contain poison. Hannibal killed himself with a dose of poison which he carried about with him in his ring; so did the officer in charge of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. "Being arrested," says Pliny, "he broke the stone of his ring between his teeth and expired on the spot."

{33}

BYZANTINE JEWELLERY

THE peculiar interest of Byzantine jewellery lies, not only in its own composite nature, but in the great influence it exercised on European ornaments during the greater part of the Middle Ages. Byzantine jewellery is the result of a compromise between Oriental and Western influences. It retains the craftsmanship of ancient Rome and the dignity of classical traditions modified by Christian ideas, and to these it unites the skill in patient and exuberant decoration in which the Oriental workman excels.

The new era, inaugurated in 330 a.d. by the transfer by Constantine of the seat of empire to the old colony of Byzantium, was marked at first by a retention of the Greek and Latin influences; but the quantities of pearls and precious stones that passed through Constantinople, the highway of commerce between Europe and the East, soon rendered the workmen of the Empire susceptible to the magnificence of Oriental decoration. Owing to the irruption of Oriental ideas in the sixth century consequent on the sack of Antioch by the Persians and the conquests of Belisarius, splendour of material began to supersede the refinement of classical times. This tendency is admirably displayed on the rich mosaics of the period, especially those in the church of San Vitale at Ravenna in Italy, which represent the Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora. The Empress and her attendants are clothed in robes stiffened with gold {34} and set with precious stones; pearls, rubies, and emeralds encircle her neck and shoulders, and, entirely covering her head, hang down from the temples in rich festoons upon the breast. Justinian also has a diadem upon his head, and a purple and gold embroidered mantle fastened with a monstrous fibula hung with triple pendants.

The outbreak of iconoclasm in the eighth century had its influence on jewellery in causing the banishment of forms ornamented with the proscribed figures. But the iconoclastic movement was also of very great importance, since many goldsmiths driven from their country by the decrees of Leo III established themselves in Italy, Germany, and Gaul, carrying with them the processes and designs of Byzantine art.

The restoration of images by Basil the Macedonian in the ninth century opened an important period of revival of industry and art, which lasted until the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204. The active overland trade with India which had been kept up for many years, with no small influence on the ornaments of the West, was much augmented; while the commercial relations with Persia were maintained.

It was during the period from the tenth century onwards that the influence of Byzantine art was most strongly felt in the West, owing to the connection which was established between the German court and Constantinople, through the marriage of the Emperor Otho II with the Byzantine Princess Theophano, daughter of Romanus, in 972.

A considerable proportion of Byzantine ornaments, as shown by the mosaics, consisted of gems sewn upon the dress. Actual specimens of jewellery are naturally of considerable rarity. The British Museum contains a small but representative collection.[4] They show a {35} difference from the jewels of classical times chiefly in the substitution of coarse repoussé and open-work—the opus interrasile of later Roman work—for fine filigree and granulation; yet filigree was employed with skill, and exercised a considerable influence on the work of European craftsmen. In general form the ornaments of the Lower Empire retained the character of ancient work, but added to it fresh designs to suit the change of religion with its accompanying symbolism. Enamel and coloured stones, employed with a reserve in antique ornaments, now formed the chief artistic aspect of jewellery. Cloisonné inlay, that is to say the incrustation of glass or garnet in cells, was made use of, but cloisonné enamel was preferred. In the majority of ornaments, however, precious stones appear to have predominated.[5]

As ornaments for the head, wreaths were worn, especially upon festal occasions. From the earliest Christian times the bride and bridegroom at their wedding wore, as in some countries at the present day, crowns of gold, silver, green leaves, or flowers, which were afterwards returned to the church.

Early Byzantine earrings naturally follow the Roman patterns. Some take the form of a penannular wire loop holding a thimble-shaped cage of filigree, the flat end of which is closed, and has in the centre a setting for a precious stone. The majority of Byzantine earrings are, however, of a peculiar design. The most usual type, from the sixth century onwards, is crescent-shaped, formed of gold repoussé and open-worked in the form of a cross patée within a circle, supported on either side by peacocks confronted. Dating from the finest period, i.e. about the twelfth century, is a pair of earrings in the British Museum, in the shape of a segment of a circle, ornamented on both sides with figures of birds in blue, green, and white cloisonné {36} enamel. Upon the outer border of each segment are pearls fixed upon radiating pins, alternating with pyramids of pellets; on the inner is a disc decorated with similar enamels.

The cross is naturally the most favourite of pendants; yet this symbol does not appear to have been commonly worn on the person till about the fifth century. Among the most interesting pectoral crosses in the British Museum is one inscribed with a text from Galatians vi. 14; upon its arms and lower part are rings for pendent gems, and in the centre the setting for a stone. Another cross, ornamented with nielloed[6] figures of our Lord, the Virgin, and two angels or military saints, has the name of its owner inscribed at the back. Both date from about the tenth or eleventh century. One of the finest and the best known of such ornaments is the gold and enamelled pectoral cross in the Victoria and Albert Museum, known as the Beresford-Hope Cross. This remarkable specimen of Byzantine jewellery, dating from about the eighth century, is formed of two cruciform plates of gold, hinged so as to form a reliquary, and set in a silver-gilt frame of later workmanship than the cross itself. The figures upon it, executed in translucent cloisonné enamel, represent on one part the Saviour on the cross, with busts of the Virgin and St. John on either side, and on the other a full-length figure of the Virgin and the heads of four saints (Pl. IX, 8). Jewellery ornamented in this manner is of great rarity; being executed nearly always upon pure gold, it has seldom escaped the crucible.

Judging from the mosaics, as, for example, the portraits of Justinian in the churches of San Vitale and Sant' Apollinare Nuovo at Ravenna, brooches of the circular type appear to have been generally worn. Their chief characteristic was the presence of three chains set {37} with jewels attached to them by loops. Coins, as in Roman times, were frequently mounted as brooches in a beaded or open-work edging. Bow-shaped brooches were worn, but not after the sixth century. Three inscribed examples of the fourth century, one of them of gold, are in the British Museum.

Similar in workmanship to the crescent-shaped earrings described above, and of about the same date, is a remarkable gold bracelet in the Franks Bequest. It is formed of an open-work hoop decorated with swans and peacocks enclosed in scrolls issuing from a vase. A circular medallion with a repoussé bust of the Virgin forms the clasp.

Finger rings have survived in greater numbers than other Byzantine ornaments. The majority are figured with the beautiful symbolism of the Christian belief. Some are set with engraved gems, but on most the design is produced by the more simple process of engraving the metal of which the ring is composed. In early Christian times rings were often offered as presents, and were engraved with expressions of good-will towards the recipient, whose name is sometimes mentioned. The British Museum contains a somewhat extensive collection of these rare objects in gold. Bronze, often gilded, is naturally the commoner material. Silver appears to have been scarcely ever employed. The interest of the majority of Byzantine rings arises rather from the subjects with which they are associated, than from the quality of their workmanship. There is, however, in the British Museum a very beautiful example of pierced gold work in the form of a key ring with projecting tongue, of a kind much used in Roman times, which opened the lock by lifting a latch. Upon the front of a wide hoop are the words Accipe dulcis, in letters reserved in metal in a pierced ground. The remainder of the hoop is divided into compartments, each containing one letter of the {38} inscription Multis annis. Above the inscription, in front, is a rectangular projection, perhaps for insertion into a lock. It is finely pierced with a design in the form of Greek crosses (Pl. IX, 10).

The sack of Constantinople by the French and Venetians dealt the death-blow to Byzantine art. Until well into the thirteenth century the Byzantine goldsmiths continued to exercise an important influence on their contemporaries, and transmitted to the artists of mediæval Europe such of the processes and designs of antique art as they had preserved. Their intercourse was closest with Russia, whose jewellery for centuries, even up to the present day, has followed the designs of the old Byzantine workmen.

{39}

PREHISTORIC (CELTIC) JEWELLERY
ROMANO-BRITISH JEWELLERY

THE early ornaments of the greater part of Europe remained until late times entirely untouched by the culture prevalent in Italy and Greece. Though of great archæological importance, as revealing successive stages of culture, they do not at the present demand very detailed consideration.

The decoration of the earliest jewellery of Europe—that of the Bronze Age, which dates roughly from about a thousand years before the Christian era—is by means of spiral and zigzag patterns. Ornaments have free endings, bent in spiral, snail-shell coils. The earliest were cast, though the hammer was used towards the close of the period; solder was unknown, and rivets alone employed. Gold and bronze were the only metals employed, the latter being sometimes gilt by means of thin gold plates, while amber is often found used as a jewel.

Some idea of these early ornaments can be formed from the discoveries of objects worn by the ancient inhabitants of the British Isles. They are, however, not very numerous or important until after the Bronze Age, and until the Early Iron Age—known in England as the Late Celtic period—is reached.

The ornaments of the Britons—that is to say the Brythons or iron-using Celts—before they became subject {40} to Rome are somewhat rare, for few objects of value were buried in graves. Such as have been found comprise bronze pins, brooches, torques, and bracelets; beads of amber, jet, bone, and glass, and bracelets also of jet.

Golden ornaments, like those laid bare by Schliemann at Mycenæ, concealed either as votive offerings or for the sake of security, have been brought to light from time to time, occasionally in England and more frequently in Ireland. Celtic literature and legend are full of references to these golden ornaments, and classical writers often make mention of them.

The simplest types of gold ornaments discovered in England are rings formed of a rounded bar of equal thickness throughout, bent into a circular form, and the extremities left disunited. Their material is gold, so pure and flexible that the rings can be easily opened to be linked into a chain or strung upon a thin gold wire. They were very probably employed for barter, and are generally known as "ring-money." Other rings, crescent-shaped, with ends tapering towards their extremities, may have served both as ornaments and substitutes for money. Others, again, are of gold wire shaped into a sort of rope, or else formed of a simple bar twisted in an ornamental manner. It has been suggested that the simple penannular rings were nose-ornaments, and when linked or strung together were worn as necklaces; also that the more decorative rings were earrings. But it is quite impossible to determine their actual use as personal ornaments.

Massive torques employed by the Celts for the purpose of adorning the neck are occasionally found of pure gold. They consist of a long piece of metal {41} twisted and turned into the form of a circle, with its ends either terminating in a knob, or doubled back in the form of a short hook, or swelling out into cup-like terminations. Some are formed of a square bar of gold twisted spirally, others of a flat bar twisted in a lighter manner, or of more than one bar twisted together.

Gold ornaments for the arms, known by the term armillæ, are sometimes of the same thickness throughout. It is more usual to find them plain, though twisted work was also applied to them. The majority have dilated ends, or ends slightly concave. With others, again, these cavities assume the form of a cup so expanded as to present the appearance of a trumpet or the calyx of a large flower. On ornaments somewhat resembling the latter the dilated extremities are flat plates, while the connecting part, diminutive in proportion to their exaggerated size, is striated longitudinally. These objects are usually described as dress-fasteners, but the exact purpose for which they were employed is still a matter of doubt.

Advanced skill in the art of enamelling is one of the most notable features of the Late Celtic period, which itself extended from the prehistoric Age of Iron and over the period of the Roman occupation. This enamel, executed by the champlevé process on copper and bronze, served for the decoration of massive bronze penannular bracelets, and for bronze pins with wheel-shaped heads. In addition to brooches—all of the safety-pin type—of an immense variety of design, other primitive bronze ornaments, usually of the spiral form characteristic of Celtic work, include torques, armlets, and anklets. The torques are mostly penannular and have enlarged terminals; the armlets are often complete rings.

For the most extensive representation of the prehistoric gold ornaments of the British Isles one must look, not to England whose inhabitants generally assumed the types of ornament in use among their Roman conquerors, but to Ireland, where the Celtic traditions were continued, and which has revealed vast hoards of golden treasure. In Celtic England during the {42} Bronze and Early Iron Ages the majority of personal ornaments are of bronze; in Ireland, however, at the same periods the greater number are of gold. The objects belonging to the Royal Irish Academy in the Dublin Museum—perhaps the largest collection in Europe of prehistoric gold ornaments—represent merely a fraction of what, during the last few hundred years, has been discovered and consigned to the crucible.

Usually described as head-ornaments are certain crescent or moon-shaped plates of thin gold, generally decorated with engraved designs in parallel lines, with angular lines between them, and having their extremities formed into small flat circular discs. These gold lunettes or lunulæ are considered to have been worn upright on the head and held in position by the terminal plates set behind the ears,[7] but they were very probably worn round the neck. The finest at Dublin is of pure gold, weighing upwards of sixteen ounces, and is richly ornamented with rows of conical studs.

Torques are the most frequent of ancient Irish ornaments. The largest known, over 5 feet long and upwards of 27 ounces in weight, is supposed to have been worn over the shoulder and across the breast. It is the property of the Royal Irish Academy. In addition to torques and gorgets, neck-ornaments were also formed of beads of gold, and some of these have been found accompanied by beads of amber. Besides torque-shaped armlets, are bracelets composed of perfect rings; but the penannular type, terminating mostly with bulbous or cup-like ends, is commonest.

A considerable number of the prehistoric dress-fasteners, known as mammillary fibulæ, have been discovered in Ireland. A slight enlargement of the ends of the penannular ring develops into a cup-like expansion, {43} which increases to such a size that the ring becomes simply the connecting link between the terminations. The latter when flat are generally plain, and when cup-shaped are often highly ornamented. The finest of these fibulæ at Dublin is 8⅜ inches long, and is of the extraordinary weight of 33 ounces.

Among other gold ornaments are certain circular flat plates of thin gold, usually about 2¼ inches in diameter, somewhat similar to the plates discovered at Mycenæ, in that they were evidently employed for sewing upon the dress. In the middle of the plates are small holes as if for attachment. As regards "ring-money," and similar rings employed possibly as ornaments for the ears or fingers, nothing more need be said, as they usually follow the designs of those in use among the Celts of Britain.

In a country like Ireland, which is famed for its golden treasures, many strange stories of discoveries have been recorded, yet few have excited greater interest than the now famous Limavady treasure, which in the year 1896 was ploughed up at Broighter, near Limavady, in the county of Londonderry, in a field not far from the shores of Lough Foyle. This hoard—probably the most important which has ever been unearthed of objects of this period—has been fully described by Dr. A. J. Evans in Vol. LV of Archæologia. It includes the following personal ornaments: two gold chains, a torque formed of thick twisted wires, and collar of very remarkable workmanship. This collar consists of a hollow cylinder formed of two plates soldered together, and fastened at the end by a T-shaped projection and slot. The ornament is repoussé work, in the trumpet pattern of the Late Celtic period. The style of work upon these ornaments, particularly that of the collar, associates them with an artistic period which probably dates from the first century a.d.

{44} The year following its discovery the whole find was purchased by the British Museum, where its presence at once figured as "another injustice to Ireland"; while through the Press and in Parliament numerous attempts were made to obtain its removal to Dublin. The Irish claimed it as treasure-trove and maintained that its legal home was the National Museum at Dublin. The British Museum authorities replied that Dublin had missed an opportunity of obtaining it in open market, while they themselves, having acquired it in the ordinary course of business, were precluded by statute from parting with it. They further contended that the ornaments were not necessarily of Irish workmanship, but might with equal likelihood have been produced in Britain. Thus for several years the dispute dragged on, until in the summer of 1903 the case came up in the Chancery Division of the Courts of Law (Attorney-General v. Trustees of British Museum. The Times Law Reports, XIX, p. 555.) Notwithstanding the ingenious defence of the British Museum, judgment was given that the ornaments were treasure-trove, and by virtue of the Prerogative Royal must be surrendered to the King. They were accordingly delivered to the Crown authorities and presented to the Irish National Museum by His Majesty.

ROMANO-BRITISH

Whatever races settled under the banner of Rome, they accepted unreservedly its ornaments, dress and manners, as well as its language and its laws. Hence the jewellery which dates from the Roman occupation of Britain (i.e. from about 43 a.d. to about 410 a.d.) follows for the most part the Italian designs, and at the same time differs but little from that brought to light among the remains of Roman colonisation elsewhere.

The majority of Romano-British personal ornaments {45} are of bronze—in most cases probably once gilt. Comparatively few objects of gold have been found. Among the articles of female adornment that occur in the greatest abundance are pins, which were used for fixing the hair in a knot behind the head, though some may have been employed as dress-pins. They range from 3 to 9 inches in length, and have heads of various designs, terminating in some instances in a bust or in a figure. The majority are of bone, many are of bronze, and a few are composed of coloured glass or jet.

A few necklaces of gold and bronze have been found, but by far the greater number appear to have been composed of beads of glass—in the manufacture of which the Romans displayed remarkable skill. These necklaces differ considerably in form and colour. The commonest beads are spherical and pierced with a large hole. They are usually of one colour, generally blue, but some are of compound colours exquisitely blended, and a few have a serpentine ornament fused into the glass. Beads of amber, pearls, and glazed earthenware have also been found.

A characteristic of Roman jewels executed in Britain is their ornamentation with enamels. The metal employed is generally bronze, the surface of which is ornamented by the champlevé process; that is to say, it is incised or grooved out (though sometimes stamped or cast) in such a manner as to leave floral or geometrical patterns in relief, and into the sunk spaces thus formed are fused opaque enamels, principally red, yellow, green, blue, and white.

This enamelling is generally found upon brooches both of the circular and of the bow-shaped type. The fronts of the circular brooches are flat, or raised like a shield into several compartments of different colours. The pin, which is hidden, moves freely on a pivot, and its point is held by a catch. The finest specimen, discovered in London, was formerly in the collection of {46} Lord Hastings, from whom it was acquired by the British Museum. It is a circular flat plaque, the pattern on which consists of four quatrefoils with blue centres on a red ground, and four small circles of yellow enamel between them. In the centre is the revolving figure of a dolphin (Pl. XI, 7). Brooches enamelled in a somewhat similar manner have been found in France at Mont Beuvray, near Autun, and are preserved in the Musée des Antiquités Nationales at St. Germain.[8]

Quite different are certain ornaments set with slices cut from rods of millefiori glass, which were executed for the most part during the decline of the Roman power. One of the most elaborate is a brooch found at Pont-y-Saison, near Chepstow, Monmouthshire, in 1861, and preserved among other Romano-British antiquities in the British Museum. It has an elaborate pattern of chequered squares of red, white, and blue (Pl. XI, 6). Brooches of the Gallo-Roman and early Merovingian period appear to have been also decorated in this manner.

Of bow-shaped brooches, or fibulæ, there exists a considerable number of varieties. Among these we may distinguish the T-shaped fibula with long cylindrical head, and a wide flat bow with sunk designs filled with enamel. In another variety the bow passes through a horizontal disc in its centre and assumes a form resembling a tassel. Another common variety is the crossbow form, either with a spiral or hinged head. In many Roman fibulæ the pin works on a hinge, but in the variety known as the harp-shaped, the sheath of the pin is filled in with a triangular plate, pierced or solid, and the head is slightly expanded to suit the coils of a spring.

In addition to the more formal types of brooches, {47} many fancy devices, probably of Celtic origin, appear to have been in vogue among the Roman colonists of Great Britain. These are in the shape of birds, fish, and all kinds of animals, brilliant with various coloured enamels, which are often so disposed as to indicate the spots or markings of the animals. A remarkable series of brooches of this kind is in the possession of Sir John Evans.

Bracelets and armlets, usually of bronze, have survived in large numbers. They consist generally of a simple narrow ring, such as could be slipped over the wrist. Some are pennanular with tapering ends, others are closed with a hook and eye, while a few have their ends so twisted together that they can slide over one another and so be taken on and off. Armlets of glass, chiefly of a deep transparent blue, have also been found.

Most of the varieties of finger rings already recorded appear to have been worn in Britain. The extent of the Roman civilisation can be measured by the number of engraved stones enclosed in their settings or found apart, the majority of which must have been executed by lapidaries on the spot.

Many articles, such as rings, armlets, beads, buttons, and amulets, were formed of jet or Kimmeridge shale, turned on a lathe. In the Island of Purbeck round flat pieces of jet have been found pierced with holes, which are clearly refuse pieces of the turner—the nuclei of rings and other articles. This material appears to be the same as that termed by Pliny gigates. According to him, it was supposed to possess the virtue of driving away serpents; and personal ornaments made of it were particularly prized. There seems little doubt that the use of ornaments of Kimmeridge coal or shale by the Romano-Britons was nothing more than a survival of the Neolithic or Stone Age. "Great Britain," writes M. Fontenay in 1887, with reference to {48} the ancient practice of wearing ornaments of jet, "remains faithful to its early customs; for at the present day English ladies delight in adorning themselves with jet jewellery." Fashion changes rapidly, but it will be long, one hopes, before it again decrees the general use of ornaments of this unattractive material.

{49}

BARBARIC JEWELLERY OF EUROPE
(THE GREAT MIGRATIONS)

DURING the period of the great migrations, when hordes of barbarians swept like waves across Europe over the tracks of Roman civilisation, all traces of classical art rapidly vanished, save in Constantinople, which remained, as it were, a corner of the antique world. The forms of classical jewellery in natural course either totally disappeared or underwent a complete transformation, and there appeared instead a new process for the decoration of personal ornament, which in earlier times was practically unknown, save to the goldsmiths of ancient Egypt.

Just as the desire to imitate precious stones led to the introduction of enamel, so the Gothic nations who hailed from the south-east corner of Europe brought into jewellery the Oriental love for colour. Coloured stones, usually garnets, or red glass, cut in slices, were inlaid on a metal surface, or were placed side by side, separated only by intervening strips of metal. This process of inlay or incrustation is of great importance, since almost every species of jewellery in Europe from the third till about the eighth century is thus decorated.

The Goths invented no new jewellery, but adapted a style which had long been in existence. And though the forms of their jewellery may be due to the growth {50} of local traditions, its decoration is clearly the result of influences connected in some way with the East. Originating, as it doubtless did, in Persia or in the further East, this process of inlay was adopted by the Gothic nations during the earlier centuries of the Christian era, and made its first appearance among them in the districts of the Caucasus and in the Crimea. From thence it passed to the Lombards in Italy, to the Burgundians in Austria and Switzerland, the Visigoths in Spain, the Merovingians in Gaul, the earlier Scandinavians in Denmark; and by the Saxon tribes in Northern Germany it was carried to England, where it attained its highest perfection in the superb circular brooches that have been brought to light in Kent.

By the discovery of specimens of Asiatic and Germanic jewellery ornamented in this manner, the path of the migratory tribes can thus be traced right across the Continent. Yet for the reason that conditions of property and nationality became altered from one generation to another, the question to which of the nations numerous pieces of jewellery are to be ascribed, is difficult to solve. They are often connected with misunderstood Hellenistic and Asiatic traditions, while at the same time showing workmanship with barbaric ideas of form.

There are, as has been pointed out,[9] two very distinct forms of inlay, one of which is possibly the outcome of the other. One has been termed plate inlaying, the other cloisonné inlaying. The first is represented in the east of Europe by the fibulæ and gorget in the celebrated treasure of Petrossa, and in the west by the crown of Svinthila in the equally famous treasure of Guarrazar. In these objects a gold plate is pierced, and into the holes thus formed stones are fixed by mastic, and supported from behind by a second plate of gold. This form of inlaying seems to {51} merge naturally into the other, for at a certain point it may have occurred to the goldsmith to abandon the continuous upper sheet of metal and to cut it into strips to be placed edgewise between the stones. Thus appeared the second form of inlaying, in the cloisonné manner. It is represented in its journey from the East by the "Oxus treasure." In Europe it is illustrated by numerous specimens of Teutonic jewellery from Southern Europe, by the ornaments discovered in the tomb of Childeric I, and finally by the splendid Anglo-Saxon jewellery from the Kentish cemeteries. Numbers of articles of jewellery dating from the fifth century until the general introduction of Christianity have been discovered in various localities in Europe. But the above-mentioned hoards of treasure demand special consideration, as being, not only the most characteristic examples of the methods of inlay, but also types of the utmost luxury of the period in the way of personal ornaments. Beyond these no general account of European jewellery need here be given, since excavations in the Anglo-Saxon graves have revealed examples of jewellery which may be taken as fairly representative of the articles then in use upon the Continent as well.

A description may now be given of some of the principal and most typical of these European treasure-hoards, dating from what are known as the "Dark Ages." But attention must first be drawn to the important Asiatic treasure found near the River Oxus, in Bactria, in 1877. This "Oxus treasure,"[10] belonging for the most part to the fourth century b.c., seems to supply the missing link in the chain of evidence which unites the ornamentation of European jewellery with clearly defined Oriental methods. The chief articles of jewellery in the hoard are two massive penannular bracelets of gold, one in the British Museum, the other {52} at South Kensington. They are ornamented at each end with a winged monster or gryphon in full relief. The surface of the wings and necks of the figures is covered with gold cloisons, once set with coloured stones or pastes. The form and decoration of these and the other articles of the treasure in the Franks Bequest in the British Museum seem to indicate the Persian origin of this inlaid work.

The "treasure of Petrossa," dating from the fourth century a.d., contains some of the earliest examples of inlaid jewellery in Europe. Few treasures of which record has been preserved are equal to it in archæological interest. It was discovered in 1837 by peasants on the banks of a tributary of the Danube, near the village of Petrossa, about sixty miles from Bucharest. Much of it was broken up shortly after its discovery. What remained was seized by the Government and conveyed to the Museum of Antiquities at Bucharest, where it is now preserved. The treasure includes a gold torque with hooked ends, like the Celtic torques from the British Isles; a crescent-shaped collar or gorget of gold with its surface pierced in the manner of plate inlay, and set with garnets and other stones; three bird-shaped fibulæ; and a larger ornament, also in the shape of a bird, intended probably as a breast-plate. The heads and necks of the birds are inlaid in the cloisonné manner; their lower parts are ornamented with plate inlay.[11]

Dating from the Merovingian period are the treasures of King Childeric I in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris. The founder of the Merovingian dynasty died in 481, and was buried at Tournai, in Languedoc, surrounded by his treasures and robes of state. In the {53} year 1653, when all memory of the place of his interment had perished, a labourer accidentally uncovered the royal grave and brought to light the treasure it contained. The regalia consisted of a sword, a bracelet, fibulæ, buckles, about three hundred gold bees—the decoration of a mantle—and a signet-ring of gold. This ring was not set with a gem, but had its oval gold bezel engraved with a full-faced bust holding a spear. It bore the legend childirici regis. On the night of November 5, 1831, the Bibliothèque was broken into by burglars. An alarm being given, they fled, and threw their spoil, which included, amongst other objects, Childeric's regalia, into the Seine. The river was dredged, and a great part of the treasure was recovered. The ring, however, was never found; but its design is preserved in Chiflet's Anastasis Childerici I, while the signet itself has been reconstructed from an impression of the seal in wax, found in the Bodleian Library in a copy of Chiflet's work, once the property of the great antiquary, Francis Douce. Except on this jewel, the traditional surface decoration of Teutonic jewellery is admirably represented. Every item of the treasure is inlaid with thin slices of garnet or red glass, arranged in the cloisonné manner between gold partitions.[12]

The most wonderful, probably, of all treasures-trove is the famous "treasure of Guarrazar," discovered in 1858 at a place called La Fuente de Guarrazar, near Toledo.[13] It included eleven crowns of pure gold set with precious stones. The peasants who unearthed the treasure broke up the crowns and divided the spoil. But the story of the discovery became known; and having been pieced together, most of the crowns were conveyed to the Musée Cluny at Paris, and the remainder placed in the Real Armería at Madrid. The {54} most important of those at Madrid is the crown of King Svinthila (621-631). Its surface is pierced with holes arranged in rose-shaped patterns, and set with large pearls and cabochon sapphires. From the lower rim hangs a fringe of letters set in the cloisonné manner with red glass paste, suspended by chains. The letters form the inscription svintilanus rex offeret. The chief crown in the treasure at Paris is that of King Reccesvinthus (649-672). It consists of a broad circle of gold, 8 inches in diameter, mounted with thirty huge Oriental pearls and thirty large sapphires, all set in high collets and separated by pierced open-work. The margins are bands of cloisonné work with inlays of red glass. Suspended below by twenty-four chains are letters of gold inlaid like the borders forming the words reccesvinthus rex offeret. Attached to each letter is a square collet hung with a pear-shaped sapphire. The crown is suspended by four chains from a foliated ornament encircled with pendent pearls and sapphires, and surmounted by a capital of rock crystal. A massive cross 4¼ inches long and 2½ inches wide hangs below the crown. It is set with eight enormous pearls and six large and brilliant sapphires, the latter mounted in high open bezels. From its foot and limbs hang three paste imitations of emeralds, with pear-shaped sapphires below. The combination of the pure gold with the violet sapphires and the somewhat faded lustre of the pearls produces an exceedingly harmonious effect of colour.

The majority of these crowns were votive offerings to a church, to be hung above the altar; the larger ones may have been actually used at coronations, and afterwards suspended in some consecrated building and the dedicatory inscriptions attached in remembrance of the ceremony. They certainly appear to be native work {55} of the Spanish Visigoths, executed under the influence of the style prevailing in the Eastern Empire. At a date not long after their production, the use of this particular species of decoration of jewellery, owing probably to the revival of the art of enamelling, rapidly declined in western Europe; and though it continued to be practised in the East, it had virtually disappeared at the close of the Merovingian period—by about the year 800, when Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the West.

{56}

ANGLO-SAXON JEWELLERY (FIFTH TO SEVENTH CENTURY)—
MEROVINGIAN JEWELLERY

UPON the invasion of Britain by the Teutonic races in the fifth century personal ornaments lost their Roman character, and assumed a peculiar type which betrays the impress of a fresh nationality on design and workmanship.

A near alliance by origin and geographical position existed between the Jutes, Angles, and other kindred tribes commonly known as the Saxons, who settled in Britain, and the Franks, who stationed themselves in Gaul. The ornaments of all these tribes bear on this account a close similarity. Hence Anglo-Saxon jewels may for the most part be taken as representative of all the rest; and the only contemporary Merovingian ornaments to be noticed will be those that differ from the Anglo-Saxon types.

In England as well as in France this remarkable group of jewellery belongs to the period which immediately followed the extinction of the Roman power in both countries, and extends from the fifth to the middle of the seventh century. Personal ornaments in England were the last in Europe to receive a characteristic species of surface decoration: for Kent and the Isle of Wight form the extreme limit of the geographical area in which jewellery ornamented with cloisonné inlay has been found. The process attained here the highest point of excellence.

{57} Anglo-Saxon jewellery occupies an exceedingly important position in the history of the goldsmith's art. Its beauty lies in its delicate goldwork and peculiarly harmonious blending of colours. So remarkable is the fertility of fancy with which each jewel is adorned, that scarcely any two are exactly identical in ornamentation. However complicated the system of knotwork, and however frequently the same form might require filling in, each workman appears to have been eager to express his own individuality, and to originate some fresh method of treatment or new variety of design.

In common with other Teutonic nations, the Anglo-Saxons were peculiarly fond of personal ornaments. They held in high esteem both the smith—the producer of weapons—and the goldsmith who manufactured the rings and bracelets employed as rewards of valour. A passage in the "Exeter Book," which dilates on the various stations in life and the capacities required for them, refers thus to the goldsmith: "For one a wondrous skill in goldsmith's art is provided: full oft he decorates and well adorns a powerful king's nobles, and he to him gives broad land in recompense."

The graves or barrows of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors have proved singularly prolific in personal ornaments. Extensive cemeteries have been discovered in the midland, eastern and southern counties, and particularly upon the downs of Kent, Sussex, and the Isle of Wight. The barrows of Kent have revealed personal ornaments of greater wealth and refinement than those of any other parts.

The majority of Anglo-Saxon pins were no doubt employed for fastening up the hair. They often have as a head the figure of a bird or grotesque animal, ornamented with garnets, like similar pins from the Continent. One of the best, which comes from the Faversham graves in Kent, is in the Gibbs Bequest, now in the British Museum. It is of silver, formerly gilt; {58} its upper part is flat and in the form of a bird set with cut garnets. Gothic tribes had a great predilection for the bird as a decorative subject.[14]

A certain number of earrings have been found, but they are not common. They are generally a ring of silver wire, plain, or twisted into a spiral form, and hung sometimes with beads of coloured glass or clay. The earrings worn by the Franks during the contemporary Merovingian period are of a type unrepresented in Anglo-Saxon jewellery. They differ in size, but are nearly all of the same pattern, and have a plain hoop. One end is pointed to pierce the ear, and on the other end is a polygonal metal cube, each side of which is set with a slice of garnet or red glass.

Anglo-Saxon necklaces are composed of beads of many varieties. The commonest, of glass, of numerous colours and shapes, are very similar to the Roman beads. Beads of amethystine quartz, probably of Transylvanian or German origin, and particularly beads of amber from the Baltic, are found strung on necklaces, or were hung singly from the neck. When one remembers the superstitious respect which was universally paid to precious stones, and especially to amber, in early times, it is probable that these were regarded as amulets. The more sumptuous necklaces, which must have been worn by ladies of rank, are composed of gold beads or of precious stones in delicate settings of twisted or beaded gold.

The pendent ornaments hung to the necklaces are very beautiful. Some are formed of large, finely coloured garnets cut into triangle or pear shapes and mounted in gold. Others, generally circular, are of pure gold worked in interlaced or vermiculated patterns and set with precious stones. A striking group of pendants is formed of coins of foreign origin, {59} Roman or Byzantine, or rude copies of them made in England by Anglo-Saxon goldsmiths. In the British Museum is an elaborate necklace of glass and terra-cotta beads with pendent gold coins of the seventh century, which was found, together with a splendid brooch, at Sarre, in Kent. Three of the pendants are coins of Emperors of the East—Mauricius and Heraclius—and the fourth is a coin of Chlotaire II of France. The central pendant, also circular, is ornamented with a section from a rod of Roman millefiori glass set in gold.

Besides coins—the frequent use of which in late Roman jewellery has already been noticed—there exists a well-known class of personal ornaments known as nummi bracteati, bracteate coins, and sometimes as "spangle money." They are thin discs of metal stamped in a die, so that the design appears in relief on the face and incuse on the back. They are generally of gold, have a beaded edging, and are supplied with loops, also of gold, for suspension.

Fibulæ or brooches are the most numerous of all Anglo-Saxon ornaments. They are remarkable both for their beauty and their excellence of workmanship. Probably more than one was usually worn; and four or five have been found in the same grave on different parts of the body. The different types of brooches from various districts of England are sufficiently clearly marked to permit their classification as the ornaments of distinct peoples. For the present purpose it is convenient to divide them into three main classes, each class consisting, naturally, of many varieties. (1) Circular jewelled brooches found among the remains of the Kentish Saxons, and of the Jutes of the Isle of Wight. (2) Brooches of the sunk or concave circular type worn by the Saxons of Berks, Oxford, and Gloucestershire. (3) Cruciform brooches—a type of the elongated form of brooch. They are {60} peculiar to the Angles who formed the population of Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria.

(1) The circular jewelled brooches found in the cemeteries of Kent and sometimes in the Isle of Wight, but scarcely ever in other parts of England, may be subdivided again into three classes. The first of these, and the most numerous, is composed of a single piece of metal decorated with chased work and set with jewels. The second group comprises those formed of a disc of bronze or silver, decorated with a disc of gold foil covered with inlaid cells forming triangles and circles, with three bosses grouped round a central boss. This type is rarer than the first, and is often of great beauty. The third group, the finest and rarest, is distinguished by being formed of two plates of metal joined by a band round the edges, the upper part being prepared in the cloisonné manner for the reception of stones or pastes, while the pin or acus is fixed to the lower. Brooches of this type, in which the stones, mostly garnets, are set upon hatched gold foil between delicate gold cloisons, represent at its utmost perfection the process of inlaying already described. Three of the finest circular jewelled brooches are: the Kingston brooch in the Mayer Collection at Liverpool, the Abingdon brooch in the Ashmolean Museum, and the Sarre brooch in the British Museum. The first, which is certainly the most beautiful, is 3³⁄₁₆ inches in diameter. The front is divided into compartments subdivided into cells of various forms, enriched with vermicular gold, with turquoises and with garnets laid upon gold foil. Concentric circles which surround a central boss are treated alternately in coloured stones and worked gold.[15] The Abingdon brooch is divided into four compartments, each decorated with interlaced gold wire, and mounted with a boss of ivory, horn or shell, with a fifth boss in the centre of the brooch. The {61} rest of the ground is decorated with garnets upon hatched gold foil.[16] The Sarre brooch, 2⅝ inches in width, is ornamented in a similar manner, and has a large central and four smaller bosses composed of a substance resembling ivory, set with carbuncles[17] (Pl. XI, 1).

(2) The next main class of brooches comprises the concave circular, known also as the cupelliform or saucer-shaped, found in the West Saxon cemeteries. They are of bronze or copper, thickly gilt, and very rarely decorated with jewels. They have a plain edge, and a centre covered with interlaced and other ornamental patterns.

(3) Cruciform brooches form the last and most widely distributed group. They have trefoil or cruciform tops; but must not be held to have any connection with Christianity because they approach the form of a cross, for they are found in purely pagan graves. Some varieties are found in other parts of England besides Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria, but they are rare in Kent. These cruciform Anglian brooches are of cast bronze, generally gilt, but sometimes plated with silver. They are often of enormous size, and covered with rude and elaborate patterns such as are found upon early Scandinavian objects. Since the patterns were added after the brooches were cast, it happens that, though forms are frequently identical, decorations differ on nearly every specimen. With the rarest exception, they are never garnished with precious stones. This kind of brooch appears to have been evolved about the fourth century.

There are other brooches somewhat of the same form, but not usually found in England. Amongst these is a type which, instead of having a trefoil ornament at the {62} top, is square-headed. Though not unknown in France and Germany, brooches of this design are chiefly Scandinavian. An important series of both of the types last mentioned is preserved in the British Museum; while the fine collection belonging to Sir John Evans contains many splendid specimens.

Another variety is known as the "radiated" brooch, from the fact that its upper part, which is rectangular or semicircular, is ornamented with obtuse rays. The finest example of this type, and the largest known (it measures 6¼ inches), is in the Bavarian National Museum at Munich. It dates from about the sixth century; and was found in a rock tomb near Wittislingen on the Danube in 1881. It is silver, gilt upon the upper side, enriched with a cloisonné inlay of garnets in a variety of patterns, and further ornamented with interlaced gold filigree (Pl. XII, 7). A Latin inscription on the under side contains the name uffila. Radiated brooches, which Mr. Roach Smith[18] considers to be prior in point of date to all other Anglo-Saxon types, extend over the greater part of Europe. But they are rare in England, though a few have been found in Kent and are preserved among the Gibbs Bequest.

There is yet another type of Anglo-Saxon brooch, annular in shape. It consists of a plain ring, with a pin travelling round it attached to a small cylinder. This annular brooch is comparatively rare in Saxon times. Its interest lies in the fact that it is the parent of a much more important brooch worn throughout the Middle Ages.

In common with all primitive peoples, the Saxons held rings in less esteem than other ornaments. The few that have been found are simple bronze hoops. Rings were more frequent, however, among the Merovingians. The chief feature in Merovingian rings, which are often of gold, is that the bezel is for the {63} most part large and circular. It is either roughly engraved in the manner of Childeric's signet, or else is ornamented with cloisonné inlay. Other rings have a high projecting bezel.

Buckles of gold, silver, and bronze, used to fasten the belt or girdle, or employed on some other part of the dress, are particularly abundant in Kentish graves. They vary considerably, many being of particularly good design, set with garnets and ornamented with gold filigree. The largest examples can be assigned to the girdles of men, the smallest and richest to those of women. Some of the best are in the Gibbs Bequest.

One of the finest examples of Anglo-Saxon jewellery is the magnificent gold buckle discovered in a grave near Taplow, Bucks, and now in the British Museum. The base of the tongue and the oval ring are inlaid with glass pastes upon gold foil; while the buckle plate, enriched with three garnets, is bordered with many graduated rows of finely twisted gold wire, and has its centre filled with a sort of vermiculated pattern upon repoussé ground (Pl. XII, 6).

Women's graves have generally yielded a number of objects of personal use as well as of adornment. Articles of toilet, such as tweezers, etc., are found by the side of the skeleton, and resemble the modern chatelaine. There exist, in addition, curious bronze pendants sometimes shaped like a pot-hook, which, found in pairs near the waists of female skeletons, are known generally as girdle-hangers. Their exact purpose was for a long time a mystery, but archæologists are now mostly of the opinion that they were fastenings for bags or purses suspended from the girdle.

With the exception of the brooch-pin, which is always made of iron, Anglo-Saxon jewellery is almost invariably composed of gold, silver, or of some alloy, {64} and is very rarely of iron like the buckles found in the Frankish cemeteries. These iron buckles, owing to the perishable nature of their material are often much disfigured by rust, but many are sufficiently well preserved to exhibit a beautiful and elaborate inlay of silver, sometimes accompanied by gold. Many examples of them are preserved in the museums of France and Germany. Some are of extraordinary size. The buckle and plate alone of one in the museum at Berne measures no less than 8⅝ by 4½ inches and half an inch in thickness. Buckles of this kind have never been found in England.

{65}

LATE ANGLO-SAXON JEWELLERY (SEVENTH TO NINTH CENTURY)

AFTER the landing of St. Augustine in 597 and the baptism of Ethelbert, King of Kent, the conversion of the upper classes in England appears to have been rapid, and by the third decade of the seventh century the greater part of the country had accepted Christianity. Old customs, however, with regard to burial and the adornment of the corpse, were slow in disappearing, and even as late as the time of Charlemagne (742-814) we hear of orders being issued that the Saxons were no longer to follow the pagan mode of burial, but to inter their dead in consecrated ground.

The general abandonment of the custom of burying ornaments with the dead is responsible for the small number of the later Anglo-Saxon jewels now extant. But the few examples surviving from the period which terminated at the Norman Conquest are of exceptional merit.

There can be no doubt that the introduction of Christianity produced a profound change in the character of personal ornaments. New forms and methods, due to closer association with the Continent, were introduced into the goldsmith's productions by the Church, which at the same time fostered the splendid traditions of the older English jewellers.

{66} The characteristic of the finest pieces of Saxon jewellery of the Christian period is their ornamentation by means of cloisonné enamel. It has already been noticed that Anglo-Saxon jewels were decorated with gold wires, some twisted or beaded, or rolled up and plaited together, and soldered on to a thin gold plate; while others were flattened into strips forming compartments, which were filled with pieces of garnet or coloured glass cut to shape. When the spaces between strips, so disposed as to make up the outlines of figures or ornament, were filled with enamel paste and fired, the result was enamel of the cloisonné type. This cloisonné enamel naturally resulted as soon as the Saxon jeweller had mastered the art of fusing vitreous colours upon metal. From whom did he learn this art? Was enamelling introduced by the followers of Augustine from Rome or Byzantium, or did the Irish missionaries bring afresh into England an art of which the Celts were past masters? The question is one that cannot be answered; but it is not without interest to note the great influence of the Irish craftsmen on the art productions of the time.

A remarkable development of goldsmiths' work in Ireland succeeded the introduction of Christianity. Enamel was largely employed in the decoration of early objects of ecclesiastical metal-work, and attained perfection in the translucent cloisonné enamel of the Tara brooch and the Ardagh chalice. The far-reaching influence and extraordinary activity of the Irish missionaries, many of them no doubt skilled goldsmiths, are well known. "Irish missionaries laboured among the Picts of the Highlands and among the Frisians of the northern seas. An Irish missionary, Columban, founded monasteries in Burgundy and the Apennines. The canton of St. Gall still commemorates in its name another Irish missionary."[19] The processes of their artistic metal-work {67} must have made themselves felt wherever these Irish missionaries penetrated. The wandering scholars and artists of Ireland left both their books and their art-apprentices in England, as they had left them along the Rhine and the Danube. At Glastonbury, St. Dunstan, the patron saint of English smiths, lingered as a youth among the books with which the Irish missionaries had endowed the monastery, and associated doubtless with the monastic craftsmen who had learned the arts of their Celtic predecessors.

Every priest was trained in some handicraft, and many monks became excellent goldsmiths. St. Dunstan (924-988), like St. Eloi of France (588-659), at once a goldsmith and a royal minister, himself worked in the precious metals; and he appears to have been a jeweller as well, for we find in old inventories, entries of finger rings described as the productions of the great prelate. In the Wardrobe Account of Edward I, in 1299 (Liber Quotidianus, p. 348), is "Unus anulus auri cum saphiro qui fuit de fabrica Sancti Dunstani ut credebatur"; and in the inventory of that mediæval fop, Piers Gaveston, 1313 (Rymer, Fœdera, II, i. p. 203), is: "Un anel d'or, à un saphir, lequel seint Dunstan forga de ses mayns."

The artistic traditions of the old Saxon jewellers became almost the sole property of the clergy; and the Venerable Bede, writing at the commencement of the eighth century, alluding to the monastic jewellers of his day, describes how "a skilled gold-worker, wishing to do some admirable work, collects, wherever he can, remarkable and precious stones to be placed among the gold and silver, as well to show his skill as for the beauty of the work." The description of these stones as "chiefly of a ruddy or aerial colour" would seem to indicate that garnets and turquoises had not even then been entirely supplanted by enamels. Certain it is that the earlier Christian jewels retained for a {68} time the technique of those of pagan Saxondom. For example, the gold cross of St. Cuthbert (d. 687), discovered in his tomb in Durham Cathedral in 1827 and now preserved in the Cathedral Library, is inlaid with garnets in the cloisonné manner (Pl. XIII, 3).

The internecine wars of the Saxons and the early ravages of the Norsemen, from which England was delivered by Alfred during the ninth century, can have left the country little repose for the cultivation of the jeweller's art. Yet, in spite of the unhappy condition of England, the art, judging from inscribed jewels noticed hereafter, was still practised, and needed only some presiding genius to awaken it to new life.

There is little reason to doubt that jewellery was among the foremost of the arts which Alfred is known to have encouraged; indeed, his interest in such work is asserted by a well-sustained tradition. And if the world-famed jewel to be described is, as seems probable, to be associated with Alfred of Wessex, he must then have personally supervised the production of other contemporary jewels. The Alfred jewel, the finest example left of Anglo-Saxon craftsmanship, and the most famous of all English jewels, is preserved in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. It was found in 1693 at Newton (or Petherton) Park, three miles from the Isle of Athelney, Somerset, whither Alfred had fled from the Danes in the year 878, and was presented to the museum in 1718 by Thomas Palmer, grandson of Colonel Nathaniel Palmer, near whose estate it was found. The jewel is 2 inches long, 1⅕ wide, and half an inch in thickness. It somewhat resembles a battledore in shape; it is flat front and back, while the other parts of its surface are rounded. The obverse is of rock crystal, beneath which is a plaque of semi-transparent cloisonné enamel of blue, white, green, and brown, representing the figure of a man. Upon the reverse is an engraved gold plate. The smaller end of the {69} oval is prolonged into the form of a boar's head, from the snout of which projects a hollow socket. Around the sloping sides of the jewel, from left to right, runs the legend aelfred mec heht gewyrcan (Alfred ordered me to be made), in gold letters, exquisitely chiselled in open-work upon the band which encircles the enamel and its crystal covering. The whole of the goldwork is beautifully executed in filigree and granulation (Pl. XIII, 1, 2).

There is considerable doubt as to the actual use of this precious jewel. Professor Earle has placed it among the category of personal ornaments, and holds that it was executed under the personal supervision of Alfred the Great, and formed the central ornament of his helmet or crown.[20] The enamelled figure is probably intended for that of Christ, represented, as is frequently done in early ecclesiastical art, holding two sceptres. The gold setting of the jewel, it is generally agreed, was made in England, and in the opinion of many the enamel is of native origin.[21]

Somewhat similar in shape to the Alfred jewel, and probably employed for the same purpose, is a jewel known as the Minster Lovel jewel, which was found half a century ago in a village of that name near Oxford, and is now preserved in the Ashmolean Museum. It is 1¼ inches in length, circular above, with a projecting socket below. The upper part is ornamented with a cross-shaped design in cloisonné enamel.

Another remarkable jewel, preserved in the British Museum, is termed the Dowgate brooch, or the Roach Smith nouche (or brooch), in memory of the learned and energetic antiquary whose property it once was. {70} The brooch was found near Dowgate Hill in Thames Street, London, in 1839. It is composed of a circular enamel representing a full-faced head and bust, enclosed in a border of rich gold filigree covered with beaded ornament and set at equal distances with four pearls. The fine cloisons of the enamel work are arranged so as to mark the outlines of the face, a crown upon the head, and the folds of the drapery of a mantle or tunic. The dress is classical in appearance, and seems to be fastened on the right shoulder[22] (Pl. XIII, 4).

Two other enamelled brooches of the same kind of workmanship, also in the British Museum, are the Townley brooch, also known as the Hamilton brooch, which is said to have been found in Scotland, and the Castellani brooch, formerly in the collection of Signor Castellani, and stated to have been found at Canosa, Italy (Pl. IX, 9, 11).

The latter brooch is set with a circular enamel representing the bust of a royal personage wearing large earrings, and upon the front of the dress a circular brooch with three pendants hanging below it. At the lower part of the gold and enamel frame of the Castellani brooch itself are three loops, which must have held pendants exactly similar to those attached to the brooch worn by the enamelled figure. Pendants of this kind are represented, as has been seen, on the Ravenna mosaics, and appear to be characteristic of Byzantine brooches. And it is probable that this, as well as the Townley brooch, as explained in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries (2nd Series, Vol. XX, p. 64), is of Continental origin.

Though similar in some respects to the other enamelled jewels, these two brooches differ considerably from them. "These differences," says a recent writer, "seem to accentuate the difficulty of tracing the origin of this enamelled work. It may well be that some of {71} it was executed in this country by the craftsmen in the employ of King Alfred; but it may fairly be assumed that on the journeys to Rome and elsewhere, undertaken by Ethelwulf, Alfred, and Ethelswitha, they and their suites would acquire jewellery of this class, which must have been comparatively common in Rome, and in other important centres at that time."[23]

The rings dating from the time of pagan Saxondom are few and unimportant; those, on the other hand, that belong to this later period, though rare, are more numerous, and are of considerable historical and artistic interest. It is somewhat curious that the finest date almost exclusively from the ninth century, and that most of them are inscribed. It is to this fact, doubtless, that they owe their preservation.

No Anglo-Saxon rings, as far as we are aware, are ornamented with enamel. Many are enriched with inlays of niello. Gold rings thus inlaid sometimes have the appearance of having been enamelled, for the niello seems to have a bluish tinge, but this may be due, as Mr. Davenport suggests (Anglo-Saxon Review, Vol. V), to some optical effect caused by the yellow gold.

The most important inscribed Saxon rings, three in number, are historical relics of the highest order. They belonged respectively to Alhstan, Bishop of Sherborne (824-867); Ethelwulf, King of Wessex (836-858), father of Alfred the Great; and Ethelswith, Queen of Mercia, and sister to King Alfred.

The ring of Alhstan, at once the earliest episcopal finger ring and the first in chronological order of these inscribed gold rings, was found in 1753 at Llys-fæn, in the county of Carnarvonshire. It was one of the chief treasures of the famous collection of finger rings formed by the late Edmund Waterton, and is now {72} in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The initials of its owner are inscribed in niello upon four circular compartments, separated by four lozenge-shaped compartments also inlaid with niello (Pl. XIII, 9).

The most famous of all English rings—"une pièce excessivement précieuse," says M. Fontenay, "par son originalité et son caractère"—is that of Ethelwulf, King of Wessex. It is in the form of a bishop's mitre with only one peak, and bears the inscription above which are two peacocks pecking at a tree. The legend and subject are reserved in gold upon a nielloed ground. The ring was picked up in its present bent condition in 1780 by a labourer in a field at Laverstoke, near Salisbury, where it had been pressed out of a cart-rut. It is now in the British Museum (Pl. XIII, 5).

The third of this remarkable series of inscribed rings is that of Ethelswith, Queen of Mercia, daughter of Ethelwulf. It has a circular bezel, in the middle of which is a rude representation of an Agnus Dei engraved in relief with a background of niello. The inner side of the bezel is incised with the inscription eathelsvith regna. This beautiful ring was found near Aberford, in Yorkshire, about the year 1870, and came into the possession of Sir A. W. Franks, who bequeathed it to the British Museum (Pl. XIII, 7).

Several other Saxon rings are preserved in the British Museum. Among them is one with a plain hoop and beaded edges, bearing around it in gold letters on a nielloed ground an inscription recording the name of the owner, Ethred, and the maker Eanred. It was found in Lancashire, and bequeathed to the museum by Sir Hans Sloane in 1753. Another ring (found near Peterborough in the River Nene) is peculiar for having two bezels opposite each other. Both sides of the hoop and each bezel are engraved with interlaced designs inlaid with niello. The bezels are each flanked {73} by three small beads of gold—a characteristic ornamentation of a certain class of Teutonic and Merovingian rings, termed by the French bagues à trois grains. In the Victoria and Albert Museum is a silver ring of unusual form. It has an oval bezel 1¼ inches in length, engraved with convoluted ornament in five divisions, the centre being filled with a serpent-headed monster. It was found in the Thames at Chelsea in 1856. A type of ring which occurs more than once is formed of a hoop, which widens gradually into a large oval bezel ornamented with bands of rich plaited goldwork. One of these rings, found at Bossington, near Stockbridge, is in the Ashmolean Museum. It has in the centre a male portrait surrounded by the inscription, nomen ehlla fid in xpo (My name is Ella; my faith is in Christ).

More remarkable, perhaps, than any of the above, on account of the peculiar beauty of its workmanship, is a gold ring in the possession of Lord Fitzhardinge, and preserved, together with the Hunsdon jewels, at Berkeley Castle. It has a large bezel of quatrefoil form. In the centre is a raised circular boss ornamented with a cross or wheel-shaped design in beaded gold. Radiating from this centre are four heads of monsters, inlaid with thin lines of niello, and having projecting eyes formed of dots of dark blue and dark brown glass or enamel. The hoop of the ring, of considerable girth, is hexagonal in section. At the junction of its ends at the back of the bezel, immediately behind the monsters' ears, it is finished with a graduated wire of filigree, terminating with three small balls. The ring dates from about the tenth century. Nothing is known concerning its discovery. It is probably Saxon, but may be of Irish origin (Pl. XIII, 10).

Beyond these finger rings and the enamelled jewellery, we possess few other examples of later Saxon ornaments; yet there exist a small number, which, {74} though executed somewhat after the manner of the older jewels, probably belong to this later period of Saxon art. Among such ornaments is a necklace from Desborough, Northants, and now in the British Museum. It is formed of beads of spirally coiled gold wire. Circular pendants, having one side convex and the other flat, alternate with gold pendants of various shapes and sizes, set with garnets. From the centre of the necklace hangs a cross (Pl. XII, 1).

One other ornament in the British Museum, particularly worthy of attention, is a beautiful set of three ornamental pins of silver gilt, which were found in the River Witham, near Lincoln. The three pins have heads in the shape of circular discs, and are connected together by two oblong pieces of metal with a ring at each end. The pins average four inches in length. The interlaced ornament on their circular heads (described in detail in the Reliquary, 2nd Series, Vol. X, p. 52), is arranged in four panels separated by radial divisions.

The penannular brooch, known as the Celtic brooch, so common in other parts of the British Isles about this period, has rarely been found in England. A few examples occur in close proximity to undoubted Anglo-Saxon remains, but they are confined mostly to the north of England. Its extreme rarity leads one naturally to the conclusion that it found but little favour in England. In Scotland and Ireland, however, where it was almost universally worn, this type of brooch attained, as will shortly be shown, the highest degree of excellence both in design and workmanship.

{75}

THE CELTIC BROOCH

IN order to understand the condition of the arts in the more remote parts of the British Isles, subsequent to the introduction of Christianity towards the middle of the fifth century, one must remember the situation created by the invasions of the Teutonic tribes, whereby nearly the whole of northern and western Europe relapsed into paganism, while Ireland and the western highlands of Scotland alone remained faithful to the Christian Church. During the earlier centuries of this period, the designs and processes of the Celtic crafts, nurtured in these parts of the British Isles by the Church, undisturbed by invaders, and free from outside influences, were brought to a state of high perfection.

The introduction of Christianity into Ireland by St. Patrick, who doubtless brought with him European craftsmen, had greatly encouraged the production of metal-work; and though changes in design resulted, the spiral patterns characteristic of Celtic art were retained for a considerable length of time—longer in fact than in any other quarters. It is unfortunate, however, that while a number of objects of early Christian art from Ireland and the Scottish highlands have survived, there is scarcely a single article of jewellery which is prior in date to about the ninth century a.d.

The chief personal ornaments belonging to this later period, i.e. the ninth century onwards, are a number of remarkable objects known as Celtic brooches. The {76} Celtic brooch, as far as its origin and development are concerned, shows no kinship with the bow or disc-shaped brooches already described, though, like them, it probably originated among the primitive Celts of the Danubian region. One theory derives its evolution from what is known as a ring-pin, that is a simple pin, the head of which, primarily solid, was afterwards pierced and fitted with a ring, which in course of time increased in size and became highly ornamented. Another theory traces the Celtic brooch from a combination of a long pin with the ancient dress fasteners—penannular rings furnished with knobs—such as are found in prehistoric graves, and are even now worn by the natives of West Africa. This penannular brooch has been found not only in Scotland and Ireland, but as far east as Livonia, and is actually still in use in Algeria at the present day. Its peculiarity consists in the great size of its pin—one in the British Museum measures 22½ inches—the length of the pin being supposed to have corresponded to the rank of its owner.[24] In some of the earlier forms the ring is of the same breadth all round, and merely cut across in one place for the passage of the pin. But as a rule this penannular ring terminates in knobs, and when the pin which travels round the ring has pierced the portions of the garments it is intended to unite, the ring is pushed a little to one side and prevented by the terminal knobs from becoming unloosened.[25]

The developments in the form of this brooch show its evolution from a penannular to an annular ring. In some—probably the earliest—examples, the ring and the head of the pin terminate in bulbous knobs, or in spherical ends ornamented with Celtic designs and {77} animals' heads. In others the ends of the rings and the pin-heads are broadened, in order to provide space for an elaborate surface decoration of interlaced work and zoomorphic and anthropomorphic designs similar to those upon the Irish manuscripts. Finally, the opening is closed and the ring becomes annular.

The finest examples of these brooches are preserved in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy in Dublin, the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland in Edinburgh, and the British Museum. Among the earliest—which are not, however, prior to the later Anglo-Saxon period, and make their appearance about the ninth century—are those with a plain penannular ring, formed of a solid cylindrical rod of silver, terminating with bulbous knobs furnished with expansions, and often covered with a peculiar prickly ornamentation like thistle-heads. Specimens of this style of brooch have been found in Ireland, Scotland, and in the north of England.

The simplest of the silver penannular brooches with discoidal terminations in the museum at Edinburgh is one from Croy in Inverness-shire. It has ends expanding into circular discs with amber settings. The most elaborate, one of two known as the Cadboll brooches, found at Rogart in Sutherlandshire, has four raised heads of birds, two upon the circumference of each disc, and two upon the ring. The collection in the Royal Irish Academy contains several splendid brooches of a similar type, notably the Kilmainham brooch from Kilmainham, Co. Dublin, the surface of which is ornamented with compartments of thin plates of gold tooled with interlaced patterns.

The terminations of the penannular ring soon become so expanded that they fill up exactly half the ring. Upon these flattened plaques, which have just space enough between them for the pin to pass, a serpent {78} or dragon form is a frequent ornament, as well as the intertwined triple ornament, or triquetra, while the surface is set at intervals with bosses of amber. The most remarkable examples of this type are the University brooch in the collection of Trinity College, Dublin, and the Clarendon brooch found in Co. Kilkenny, and now in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy.

The main characteristic of the Celtic brooch is that it is penannular, that is, its ring has an opening, if not real, at least apparent, between its two ends. For even when the narrow opening left between the enlarged ends is closed by a bar, or is finally closed altogether, the flattened plaques are ornamentally treated as if they were still disunited. Of this class of brooches with continuous rings there have survived two world-famed examples, one from Ireland and the other from Scotland. The first of these, known as the Tara brooch, was found in 1850 on the seashore near Bettystown, Co. Louth, and received the title of "Tara" on account of its beauty, and after the celebrated hill of that name. It is composed of white bronze thickly gilded. The ring and expanded head of the pin are divided into a number of panels ornamented with examples of nearly every technical process, being enriched with enamel-work, niello, and inlaid stones; while the metal is hammered, chased, and engraved, and filigreed with extraordinary delicacy. The enamels, of the cloisonné kind, have been made separately and mounted like gems. Attached to the brooch on one side is a finely plaited chain; a similar chain upon the other side has been lost. The reverse of the brooch is unadorned with settings, but decorated with a divergent spiral ornament known as the Celtic trumpet pattern, executed with very great perfection. The probable date of this extraordinary jewel is the tenth century. It is now the chief treasure of the museum of the Royal Irish Academy, for which it was bought in 1867 for the sum of £200.

{79}

The finest after the Tara brooch, and the most famous of Scottish brooches, is known as the Hunterston brooch. It was found in 1826 on the estate of Mr. Robert Hunter, of West Kilbride, Ayrshire, and is now in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland. It is somewhat similar to the Tara brooch, and of the same gilt metal, but rather less ornate, and unprovided with enamels, glass pastes, or chain. Its main ornamentation consists of varieties of interlaced work in fine gold filigree, of singularly beautiful design and of remarkable execution. The back is decorated with the trumpet pattern, and engraved with Runic characters.

The presence of the trumpet pattern upon the backs of these two famous brooches determines their date as prior to the eleventh century; for the old Celtic pattern disappears from brooches and from most Irish and all Scottish metal-work after the year 1000 a.d., and is succeeded by varieties of interlaced work and zoomorphic designs.[26] The later Celtic brooches differ besides in form, for the pin is longer in proportion to the size of the ring, and its head is hinged upon a constriction of the ring, which itself becomes partly filled up.

The Celtic brooch is distinct in itself, and does not merge into any other form. It disappears entirely about the thirteenth century, and is succeeded by a totally different type of brooch, which belongs to the ornaments of the later Middle Ages.

{80}

THE JEWELLERY OF THE MIDDLE AGES
(TENTH TO FIFTEENTH CENTURIES)

MEDIÆVAL JEWELLERY

INTRODUCTION

TO the student of jewellery the Middle Ages offer far greater problems than the periods of classic antiquity. The main reason for this is to be found in the fact that throughout mediæval and later periods ornaments were more closely associated with dress, and dress itself became subject to the most marked changes and constant divergences of fashion. In the days of antiquity, so far as our knowledge goes, the idea of fashion, in the present sense of the term, did not exist. But in the Middle Ages, as Luthmer points out, it becomes an important factor in the history of civilisation. The duration of each prevalent fashion tended to become shorter and shorter, and the new mode was usually an absolute contrast to the preceding one. Though ornaments, owing to their higher material value, did not alter with each successive change in dress, nevertheless they underwent rapid variations of style.

The custom of burying objects in graves, which continued for a considerable time after the introduction of Christianity, affords a tolerably clear idea of the various ornaments worn during the earlier periods of the Middle Ages. Coming to a later period, from the time of the first Crusade onwards, discoveries in the {81} graves are extremely rare, and one has to look in many directions for information respecting the articles then in use. Though there seems to have been an immense production of personal ornaments throughout the whole of Europe, their intrinsic value has been too great to allow of their preservation; and the artistic qualities of those that have survived cause one to regret all the more the wholesale destruction that must have occurred. The jewels of the period are, in fact, so few in number, and furnish such striking varieties, that it is impossible to give an exhaustive synopsis of the different changes that took place in their form. The utmost that can be attempted is to take single characteristic pieces and allow them to stand as types of the whole epoch.

Personal ornaments at this time began to have a wider significance than that of being merely decorations pleasant to the eye. Their material value comes more in the foreground. They began to form the nucleus of family and household treasures. The uncertain conditions of life made it desirable for the individual to have his most precious possessions in a portable form. An unfortunate war or royal displeasure might cost a prince or baron his land or his castles; but his movable goods, consisting of precious stones and gold and silver ornaments, were not so easily exposed to the vagaries of his superiors. Thus the numerous inventories of household goods that have come down from those times show an astounding increase in the matter of jewels and treasures among the great and lesser grandees, both secular and ecclesiastical; while there is a corresponding advance at the same time in craftsmanship. To this change in the significance of ornaments is to be attributed their rarity in graves. Jewellery had, in fact, assumed the character of money passed from hand to hand, and was constantly, so to speak, recoined; for even if held in steadfast possession it had to submit to changes of {82} fashion and undergo frequent resetting.[27] Particularly was this the case at the period of the Renaissance, when almost everything Gothic was remodelled.

Tombs, then, supply little or no information; and for the present purpose one may make shift to use the chance descriptions of romancers, and such pictorial representations of jewellery as are presented by effigies on brasses, tombstones, and other monumental sculpture, and also by illuminated manuscripts. Monumental effigies show a number of accurately executed personal ornaments, which, belonging as they do mainly to sovereigns and individuals of wealth and distinction, may be taken as the highest types of those then worn. The miniatures and decorations of manuscripts executed towards the end of the period under review also afford considerable assistance; for illuminators were intensely fond of introducing jewels among the plants, flowers, birds, and butterflies minutely depicted on ornamental borders. The inventories of personal effects made for various purposes, and often full of graphic details, throughout the whole of the period supply absolutely trustworthy evidence as to contemporary ornaments. Pictures, which are among the chief sources of information, are not at one's disposal until towards the termination of this epoch, but such as were produced during the later Gothic style, particularly in Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries, furnish numerous examples of jewellery painted with loving care and minute detail.

Even from these sources of information, however, one could form but an inadequate idea of the precise character of mediæval jewellery. But, while the various reasons mentioned have resulted in the general destruction of articles made for secular use, among precious objects consecrated to religious uses a small number of personal ornaments have been preserved. This may be due, perhaps, to the sanctity of the places containing {83} them, or perhaps to the precautions of their guardians, who have hidden them in time of trouble. They have survived many and strange vicissitudes, and their safety is now secured by a new-created archæological value, in place of the religious devotion which was their former guardian. In the treasury—an edifice attached to the church—there was kept in early times, among the vestments and plate used in its services, a vast collection of reliquaries and jewels gradually brought together, and preserved as memorials of the piety of the faithful. In numerous cases the treasury must have constituted a veritable museum, exhibiting examples of jewellery of each successive style. Some idea can be formed of the immense scope, as well as of the magnificence of its contents, from the early inventories which archæologists of recent years have taken pains to gather together and publish.

The relative abundance of jewellery of Merovingian and Frankish times, and the great rarity of jewellery from the ninth century onwards, are phenomena observable in every museum. The reason for this lies in the fact that until the time of Charlemagne (742-814) the dead were buried with their weapons and with every article of jewellery. The Emperor forbade this mainly as a heathen practice, but largely because he saw the disadvantage of so many costly objects being withdrawn from circulation, with consequent loss to the national resources.

This almost complete absence of examples renders it difficult to estimate precisely the style of ornaments then in use. But as far as can be judged, Byzantine influence seems to have affected all forms of jewellery. It is known, at all events, that until about the twelfth century active commercial transactions between France and Germany on the one hand, and Byzantium on the other, were carried on by way of Venice. Not only did Byzantine workmen settle in the great seaport of {84} the Adriatic, but imitations of work from the Eastern Roman provinces were probably made there at an early date by native artists. Such traffic appears to have been particularly active during the Carlovingian period; while the close friendship of Charlemagne with Haroun al-Raschid, the celebrated caliph of the Saracens, renders it further probable that models of Oriental art abounded in the West in the ninth century. These were not merely confined to articles of jewellery and other goldsmith's productions, but included also sumptuous dress materials interwoven with threads of gold, embroideries studded with gems and pearls, and other objects which the splendour of the rulers of the West and the princes of the Church borrowed from the magnificence prevalent in the East and at the Byzantine Court.[28]

The Eastern influence which during the fourth and fifth centuries had come westwards by way of Byzantium, and had acquired new power owing to the sovereignty of the Arabs in Spain and Sicily during the eighth and ninth centuries, increased considerably at the time of the Crusades. The knights and princes of the West brought back not only impressions of culture from Syria and Palestine, but also actual specimens of gold ornaments and precious stones. There then began an invasion of skilled workmen from the towns of Asia Minor, and a regular importation of such treasures by the merchants of the Italian republics, to wit, Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, who, under the banner of the Cross, re-established their trade with the East.[29]

Until about the twelfth century ornaments followed for the most part the style of those in use in the Eastern Roman provinces. Some were adorned with cloisonné enamel introduced from Byzantium, and first executed by Continental workmen about the eighth {85} century. Cloisonné, however, was, in turn, abandoned for champlevé enamel, the manufacture of which upon the Lower Rhine had been encouraged by the Church, through the instrumentality of the Greek monks.

By the beginning of the twelfth century, the West seems to have become lastingly independent of the East, even with regard to its ornaments, as may be inferred from various remarkable productions in gold and silver, and particularly in gilded copper adorned with champlevé enamel, such as shrines and other sacred objects. Many of these are still preserved in the ecclesiastical treasuries of Germany, while museums at home and abroad all possess beautiful examples.

Though the personal ornaments of this period are now almost entirely lost to us in the original, there has yet been preserved a treasure of inestimable value in the form of a technological manual handed down from the Middle Ages. The work referred to is the famous treatise of Theophilus entitled Schedula Diversarum Artium, which describes the technical processes of almost all the industrial arts cultivated eight centuries ago—the treatise being written shortly before the year 1100.[30] After describing his workshop, Theophilus mentions his tools, and proceeds to describe minutely the various processes necessary for the metal-worker to understand; and shows how the goldsmith was required to be at the same time a modeller, sculptor, smelter, enameller, jewel-mounter, and inlay-worker. Altogether, to judge from the directions there given, more especially those relating to the technical work of the goldsmiths, these Schedulæ would seem to reflect the ancient knowledge and practices of Byzantine workmen, of which, however, the goldsmiths of the twelfth century appear to have become completely independent.

The perfection of artistic work attained by the monasteries led to the production of sumptuous objects {86} to meet the requirements of the Church in connection with its services, while costly shrines were made to contain the numerous relics brought home by pilgrims from the Holy Land. During the period of the Romanesque and early Gothic styles personal ornaments became objects of lesser importance than articles for ecclesiastical use.[31] The enamel-work for the decoration of ornaments was mostly executed at Limoges, which was then rising to importance as the chief centre for the production of enamels. The process employed was champlevé, generally upon copper. Such ornaments as buckles, and brooches or morses, for the belts of knights or the vestments of ecclesiastics, were produced in considerable numbers at Limoges, and found their way all over the north-west of Europe. The trade-guilds of Limoges were probably more active in this kind of enamel than those situated upon the banks of the Rhine, whose work seems to have been devoted principally to shrines and objects for the use of the Church. Ornaments of the above types were executed during the greater part of the twelfth century and throughout the thirteenth, but their manufacture ceased in the century following, when Limoges was sacked by the Black Prince.

From the beginning of the thirteenth century a change takes place with the appearance of the Gothic style. Forms become slighter and more elegant, and exhibit greater delicacy and detail in their workmanship. Hitherto goldsmith's work, however beautiful from the cumulative effect of precious stones and enamels, was little more than conventional, nay, almost barbaric, in its representations of the human figure; but the revival in the art of figure sculpture led to a considerable use being made of the human figure executed in full relief. Just as in the Romanesque period, so during the time when Gothic art reigned supreme, {87} architecture left its impress on every work of art; and jewellery and other goldsmith's work, as well as ivories, seals, and even shoes, were ornamented with the designs of Gothic architecture and with pierced open-work patterns, like the window tracery of the great cathedrals—termed "Paul's windows" by the masses. Improved skill in design and workmanship became incompatible with the retention of the older and coarser enamel-work, and without relinquishing a medium which by the brilliancy of its colouring was eminently suited to the works of the goldsmith, the thirteenth-century craftsman obtained the desired result by the use of translucent enamel upon metal, usually silver, chased and modelled in low relief.

The beauty of this basse-taille enamel, producing, as it were, transparent pictures, enabled the artist frequently to dispense with coloured gems, and retain only pearls, whose delicate hues harmonised better with his work. Occasionally, however, pearls, precious stones, and translucent enamels were employed together with brilliant effect.

Gothic ornaments of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries show a peculiar love for figurative and architectural motives which exhibit astonishing technique and beauty of form. Towards the middle of the fourteenth century there came into use enamel on full relief (émail en ronde bosse). In the inventories of the time, where it is frequently mentioned, this enamel, usually opaque white, is termed émail en blanc. So charming was the contrast of white, marble-like figures by the side of gold, bright coloured stones, and polychrome enamels, that for upwards of three centuries goldsmiths continued to apply this species of enamel to jewels. It was particularly characteristic of the fifteenth century. Several brooches ornamented with it will be referred to later (p. 143); but the most remarkable example of its use is the wonderful votive jewel of French workmanship {88} termed "Das Goldene Rössel," in the treasury of the abbey church of Altoetting, in Bavaria, which dates from about 1400.[32] The minute repoussé figures on sixteenth-century jewels were usually coated with white enamel; and jewellery émaillée de blanc is often alluded to in inventories. This species of enamel was discarded in the seventeenth century, when figures in relief went out of fashion for jewellery.

Though towards the close of the Middle Ages the art of cutting precious stones and even diamonds was certainly practised, yet it is to be observed that throughout the whole period jewellery is set as a rule with stones en cabochon, i.e. with their surfaces rounded and polished in a convex shape, but not faceted. The stone treated thus preserves its own character and individuality; and much of the charm of early jewellery is due to this very fact.

From the middle of the thirteenth century enamel in general, though applied to jewels of commoner kinds, is chiefly limited to the more sumptuous ornaments of the clergy. But with the beginning of the fourteenth century the delight in jewellery enriched with enamels and precious stones is again revealed in the costumes of the laity. At the French Court of John II (le Bon, d. 1364) and Charles V (d. 1380), where the princes of the royal blood strove to outrival one another in luxurious display, personal adornments attained an extraordinary degree of splendour, and were worn to an excess of ostentation.[33]

This extravagance of fashion declined for a time owing to the wars with England, but attained its full {89} development in the dress of the Burgundian Court. The splendour of the Burgundian dukes, outshining that of their feudal lieges the kings of France, and casting into the shade the rude grandeur of the German emperors, gave a new impetus to the use of articles for personal decoration, and for a time set the fashion for every country of northern Europe in all matters of style as well as of ornament. Outside of Italy, which perhaps excelled in point of culture, the Court of the dukes of Burgundy during the fifteenth century was the richest and most luxurious in all Europe. The sway of this powerful House extended over the Low Countries, whose ports after Venice were the centres of Oriental commerce and whose inland towns, such as Arras, Brussels, and Ghent, vied with one another in weaving the products of the East into all manner of rich stuffs. Not only silks, but pearls and precious stones of all descriptions, found an entrance through the great port of Bruges; and hardly a garment is depicted by the Flemish masters which, particularly in the case of the ecclesiastics, is not thick-sewn with Oriental pearls and stones. A survey of records containing descriptions of personal property,[34] and an examination of contemporary pictures—always the most fascinating document in regard to personal ornament—reveal a widespread luxury. Not only at Court, but in the everyday life of street and mart, costumes formed of magnificent stuffs were habitually worn, which required to be set off by jewels of an equally rich description. The warmth of the Italian climate demanded no such wealth of apparel as was essential to comfort in the more northerly countries; hence profusion of personal ornament was less generally indulged in throughout {90} Italy during the same period. This special love of jewellery and consequent taste and skill acquired by the goldsmiths was shared by the painters of the day. With a high degree of finish and brilliancy, they introduced into their pictures faithful representations of all the rich ornaments then in vogue. Unfortunately actual examples of the splendid jewels of this time are now of the utmost rarity, but such as have survived, chiefly in the form of rich enamelled brooches, reflect in their execution the technical perfection and in their design the whole-hearted realism which display themselves to the full in the paintings of the early Flemish school.

Collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, made in 1432 by John Peutin of Bruges, jeweller to Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. (From the portrait of Baldwin de Lannoy by John van Eyck at Berlin.)

{91}

MEDIÆVAL ENGLAND

A FEW brooches and finger rings are almost the only surviving examples of English jewellery of the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries. Yet there is evidence from existing records of an abundance of the most beautiful objects as accumulated in the ecclesiastical treasuries, and the great shrines, like that of St. Thomas of Canterbury, or of Our Lady of Walsingham Priory, which not even the Santa Casa at Loreto, or the shrine of St. James at Compostella, could surpass in renown, or equal in the reception of rich and costly gifts. Vast quantities of jewelled objects, which must have been in great part native productions, have also been tabulated in the inventories of our monarchs, princes, guilds, and corporations. Judging from extant examples of English painted glass, sculpture, and particularly embroidery, some estimate can be formed of the high quality of the goldsmiths' work, which was scarcely excelled in the Middle Ages by that of any other country in Europe. The English goldsmiths, in fact, after the Norman Conquest seem to have lost none of the skill which is displayed on their earlier productions.

A love of finery seems to have characterised the Court of William the Conqueror and his successors. The jewellery of the ladies became exceedingly extravagant, and is bitterly inveighed against by the religious {92} satirists. Neckam, an Anglo-Latin poet, towards the close of the twelfth century, accuses them of covering themselves with gold and gems and of perforating their ears in order to hang them with jewels.

Henry I had the tastes of a collector. That he collected gems is known from a letter written by a prior of Worcester to Edmer, Anselm's biographer, in which he suggests that for money Henry might be persuaded to part with some pearls.[35] King John was greatly attached to his jewels, and their loss in the Wash is commonly supposed to have hastened his death. The record is preserved concerning the loss on an earlier occasion of certain of his precious stones "which we are wont to wear round our neck." The stones must have been credited with miraculous powers, for their finder was very liberally rewarded.[36] Henry III, one of the most indigent of monarchs, made such extravagant presents of jewellery to his wife, that he was afterwards obliged to pawn not only his regalia, but a considerable portion of the jewels and precious stones accumulated at the shrine of Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey.

Dating first from about this period are a number of inventories of personal ornaments; and it is by a perusal of the inventories of the most wealthy, and particularly those of sovereign princes, that an estimate can be obtained of the nature of every type of ornament in use at the period, in its most elaborate form. Among the earliest and most important royal inventories that have been published are those preserved in the Wardrobe Account (Liber Quotidianus) of Edward I, for the year 1299.[37] The jewels (jocalia) include a large number of morses or clasps (firmacula) given by the king to bishops, and restored after their deaths, and similar {93} objects offered by the king or queen to various shrines; while among other jewels are brooches or nouches (noucheæ), many rings (anuli), a pendant (pendulum), belt (zona), bracelet (braccale), and baldrick (baudre). About this time masses of precious stones, the spoils of the Crusades, began to find their way into this country, and to be employed for "broidering" or sewing upon the garments. Edward II and his extravagant favourites, such as the worthless Piers Gaveston, loaded themselves with precious stones. Lists of jewels belonging to Gaveston on his attainder in 1313,[38] and to the king in 1324, show the magnificence of their ornaments, and the vast sums at which they were valued. The king's jewels,[39] described in considerable detail, are inventoried under the following headings: (a) Stones and other objects, (b) Crowns of gold and silver, including cercles and chapeletz, (c) Brooches (fermails) of gold, (d) Fleures de liz, (e) Rings (anelx) of gold, (f) Girdles (ceintres) and diadems (tressoures). From this time onward there is an increase of such documents and of wills, and also of sumptuary laws specially connected with personal ornaments.

The brilliant reign of Edward III[40] was favourable to the full display of jewellery. New luxuries were imported in great abundance, and there was hardly a lady of position who had not in her possession some portion of the spoils of plate and jewels from cities beyond the sea; while those who, like the Knight of Chaucer, had been at Alexandra "when it was won," returned with cloth of gold, velvets, and precious stones. In the thirty-seventh year of this reign (1363) the Parliament held at Westminster enacted several sumptuary laws against the extravagant use of personal adornment. {94} These state what costume is suited to the various degrees of rank and income, and are of value for the information they supply on the prevailing fashions in jewellery. Restrictions of this kind, re-enacted from time to time, and apparently of little effect, seem to have been intended not so much to prevent the gratification of an instinctive desire for bravery and splendour, as to make different classes proclaim their rank and station by their dress.

Chaucer in the Prologue of his Canterbury Tales affords in a charming manner additional information about the personal ornaments of the different grades of English society of his time. He gives detailed description of the brooch of the yeoman and the nun, and pictures the merchant with his richly clasped shoes, the squire with short knife and gypcière (purse) at his girdle, the carpenter's wife with her collar fastened by a brooch as "broad as the boss of a buckler," and various tradesmen who, in spite of sumptuary laws, wore pouches, girdles, and knives of silver:—

The passion for personal ornaments, or "bravouries" as they were termed, reached its zenith in England during the reign of the elegant and unfortunate Richard II, whose courtiers outvied one another in such extravagances. An anonymous writer of the period quoted by Camden in his Remaines concerning Britain speaks of hoods, even those worn by men of moderate means, as commonly set with gold and precious stones, while "their girdles are of gold and silver, some of them worth twenty marks." The king, in constant want of money, was obliged on several occasions to deposit the royal jewels with the Corporation of London as security for loans, and detailed lists {95} of the objects selected for the purpose are preserved in the inventories of the Exchequer, and among the city archives.

In spite of attempted restrictions, and notwithstanding the disastrous Wars of the Roses, immense demands appear to have been made upon the productive powers of the jewellers throughout the whole of the fifteenth century. The remarkable list of Henry IV's jewels in the inventories of the Exchequer, and the most important of royal English inventories of the Middle Ages, that taken after the death of Henry V in 1422 (Rotuli Parliamentorum, IV, pp. 214-241), serve to show that until the end of the century, which may serve as the termination of the period, extraordinary extravagance in the style and nature of ornaments as well as of costume was the order of the day.

Every one who had acquired wealth, or even a modest competence only, displayed a magnificence far beyond his means. It was a time when wealth was required in a compact and tangible form. Owners did not hesitate to melt down their jewels when desirous of employing them for other purposes. The change of taste which shortly came about tended towards similar destruction; while the Wars of the Roses involved the breaking up of much that was most sumptuous in material and beautiful in workmanship.

Throughout the whole of the Christian Middle Ages the highest efforts of the goldsmith were directed to the enrichment of the Church and the adornment of its ministers, and the magnificence which the ritual of the Church fostered found expression in the jewelled ornaments of ecclesiastic vestments. In Norman times ecclesiastical jewellery was extremely luxurious and costly, and the illuminations of the period show the cope and chasuble richly bordered with precious stones. St. Thomas à Becket wore an extraordinary profusion {96} of jewels, and descriptions are preserved of the magnificence of his own person and of his attendants during a progress he once made through the streets of Paris. Innocent III, memorable in this country as the Pope to whom the pusillanimous John surrendered his crown, is recorded to have commented on the richness of the costumes and ornaments of the English clergy, with a hint at the possibility of extracting further sums for the increase of the papal revenue. The early inventories all record the splendour of the vestments used in public worship, and show how pearls, precious stones, and even ancient cameos, all rendered more beautiful by exquisite settings, were employed for their enrichment. No bishop, indeed, was suitably equipped without a precious mitre with delicate goldsmith's work and inlaid gems, without a splendid morse or brooch to fasten his cope, and without a ring, set with an antique gem or a stone en cabochon, to wear over his embroidered glove.

Of all these rich ornaments scarcely any examples have survived save a number of rings recovered from the graves of ecclesiastics. All the more precious, therefore, are the jewelled ornaments bequeathed in 1404 by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, to New College, Oxford, where they are still preserved as relics of its munificent founder. These unique examples of mediæval jewellery date from the closing years of the fourteenth century—the period of transition from Decorated to Perpendicular architecture: a time when Gothic art had reached its climax; and not only the architect, but the painter and the goldsmith were still devoting their utmost efforts on behalf of the Church, the centre of the whole mediæval system.

The New College jewels originally decorated William of Wykeham's precious mitre (mitra pretiosa). Portions of the groundwork of the mitre sewn with seed pearls, and its original case of cuir bouilli or boiled leather, stamped with fleurs-de-lis and bound with iron straps, {97} are still preserved in the College. Among the jewelled fragments are hinged bands of silver gilt, formed of plates of basse-taille enamel representing animals and grotesques, which alternate with settings of dark blue pastes and white crystals surrounded by radiating pearls. These bands probably went round the lower part of the mitre, and also perhaps ran up the middle of it, before and behind. The crests of the mitre were edged with strips of exquisitely chased crocketing in gold. The other fragments include two rosettes of beautifully executed Gothic foliation set with white crystals, together with two quatrefoils in silver gilt and a cruciform gold ornament set with turquoises.

The chief treasure of the New College collection is an exquisite gold jewel, a monogram of the Blessed Virgin, the patron saint of the "College of St. Mary of Winton in Oxford." It is a crowned Lombardic M; and might be the rich capital of some mediæval manuscript, with its gorgeous colouring faithfully translated into gold, enamel, pearls, and precious stones. In the open parts of the letter are figures of the Virgin and the Angel of the Annunciation in full relief, the angel's wings being covered with enamel of translucent green. The space above the head of each figure is occupied with delicate architectural work of open cuspings. In the centre of the jewel is a large ruby in the form of a vase, from which spring three lilies with white enamelled blossoms. On each side of the vase are three small emeralds. Remarkable taste is shown in the arrangement of the precious stones: fine emeralds and rubies, en cabochon, mounted alternately in raised settings round the jewel. Two stones, a ruby on the left and an emerald on the right, are missing. The rest of the mountings are Oriental pearls somewhat discoloured by age (Pl. XV, 1).

It is generally considered that the jewel adorned and occupied a central place on the mitre, and its dimensions {98} (2 by 2¼ inches) render its employment in that position probable. As, however, there are no indications of such an ornament on contemporary representations of mitres, and above all on the mitre figured on the founder's own tomb at Winchester, there remains the possibility of the jewel having been employed as a brooch or nouche on some other part of the vestment.

This remarkable jewel stands quite alone in point of excellence. It goes far to justify the contention that English jewellers at this period, as well as in Saxon times, equalled, if they did not outstrip, the craftsmen of other nations in the successful cultivation of the goldsmith's art.

{99}

THE MYSTERY OF PRECIOUS STONES

ONE of the most curious and interesting facts in connection with the jewellery of the Middle Ages is the peculiar respect which seems to have been paid to precious stones. "In a scientific age," says Mr. Paton, "it is difficult to apprehend and sympathise with the state of mind which endowed natural objects with the properties of charms and fetiches. Before it was the habit to trace phenomena to natural causes, faith in occult powers was strong, and credulity exercised a marked influence on the habits and actions of the people."[41] Precious stones, on account of the mystery and romance attaching to most things of Eastern origin, had long attracted to themselves a superstitious reverence; so that their choice and arrangement, which appear to us merely arbitrary nowadays, had in the Middle Ages a distinct meaning consecrated by traditions dating back from very ancient times. Every stone, like those which enriched the breast-plate of the High Priest, and those which in St. John's vision formed the foundations of the Heavenly Jerusalem, was supposed to possess special powers and virtues. Abundant proof of this is exhibited in the mediæval inventories, where the beauty or rarity of a stone counted for infinitely less in the estimation of its value than the reputed talismanic virtue, such as {100} the toadstone, for example, was supposed to possess. The mediæval literature of precious stones,[42] wherein is expounded their medicinal virtues or their supernatural powers in baffling evil spirits, is based on a classical poem of about the fourth century a.d., entitled Lithica, which claims to be a statement of their magic properties made by the seer Theodamas to the poet Orpheus. Similar belief in the virtues of precious stones was still in existence in the sixteenth century, and finds an exponent in Camillus Leonardus, physician to Cæsar Borgia, in his work entitled Speculum Lapidum, published at Venice in 1502. Even as late as the following century the use of precious stones as charms was more than half sanctioned by the learned, and in his Natural History Bacon lays it down as credible that "precious stones may work by consent upon the spirits of men to comfort and exhilarate them." The learned lawyer and philosopher, indeed, was not in this much superior to the plain and simple folk who still imagined that every precious stone had some mystic value communicable to the wearer. About the same time De Boot, or Boethius, the learned physician to the Emperor Rudolf II, published his famous Lapidary, which Mr. C. W. King recommends as a work worthy of especial study for the properties of stones, and mentions how it "draws a distinction that curiously illustrates the struggle then going on between traditional superstition and common sense."[43]

With the advance of Christianity the representation {101} of the subjects of pagan mythology was forbidden by law; but the old ideas were retained for many years, and small objects like cameos or intaglios were carried about concealed upon the person. Later on, when all knowledge of classical art had sunk into oblivion, such stones became prized not only for the subjects engraved on them, which their mediæval owner seldom understood, but also for the fact that they were supposed to possess special talismanic virtues. The majority of these gems were mounted as rings or as seals of secular and ecclesiastical personages of rank.

Preserved among the Harleian MSS. in the British Museum is a thirteenth-century MS. (quoted by Mr. Wright in Archæologia, Vol. XXX), which contains instructions for the wearing of various stones, and for the composition of the different metals of the rings in which they were to be set. A proof of the firm establishment of the Romans in Britain is afforded by the number of their gems brought to light in mediæval times; while the decay of the art of gem-engraving in the Middle Ages is shown by the fact that the Harleian MS. always refers to these gems as objects "to be found and not made.... A stone engraved in one manner you should suspend about the neck, as it enables you to find treasures, the impression in wax of another stone will cause men to speak well of you." The engraving of a dove with a branch of olive in its mouth should be mounted in a silver ring, and another gem should be placed in a ring of lead.

From these and similar writings it is clear that one of the objects aimed at by the mediæval authors was to define the different virtues of the sigils engraved upon precious stones. Such ideas, not previously unknown, as, for example among the Gnostics, were no doubt stimulated by the Crusades, whereby the study of alchemy and the interest in Oriental mysteries became spread throughout Europe. Leonardus, as late as the sixteenth {102} century, observes that stones "if engraved by a skilful person or under some particular influence, will receive a certain virtue.... But if the effect intended by the figure engraved be the same as that produced by the natural quality of the stone, its virtue will be doubled, and its efficacy augmented." We see thus that the talismanic ideas respecting precious stones were attached as much to their engraving as to the stones themselves.

Owing to the complete decline of the glyptic art in the Middle Ages, antique cameos and intaglios, on account of some fancied assimilation in subject or idea to Christian symbolism, were occasionally used for devout subjects. Together with the general ignorance of classical art, and the consequent attempts that were made to give the pagan representation upon antique gems a Christian signification—frequently in a very forced and curious manner—there appears to have been a certain appreciation of their beauty. When small relics, such as particles of the wood of the cross, or larger relics, as bones of the saints, were enclosed either in portable reliquaries or in costly shrines, such receptacles were not infrequently encrusted with ancient cameos and intaglios, as representing the very choicest objects which the fervent devotion of the age could select for this sacred purpose. The Shrine of the Three Kings at Cologne[44] and the Treasure of Conques[45] are still enriched with many fine examples of the gem-engraver's art, and the magnificent gold shrine of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey, long since despoiled, was formerly mounted with numerous cameos, all probably antique.[46]

The history of the glyptic art has been sufficiently {103} encroached upon here to demonstrate the prominent place occupied by antique gems in the personal ornaments of the Middle Ages. Their use for signet rings will be referred to again; but attention must be drawn to the three most remarkable examples of their application to other articles of jewellery—the Jewel of St. Hilary and the Cameo of Charles V in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris, and the Schaffhausen Onyx, preserved among the archives of the town of Schaffhausen in Switzerland (Pl. XVI).

The Jewel of St. Hilary contains a fine cameo head in profile of the Emperor Augustus on a sardonyx. It is enclosed in a frame of silver gilt set with large rubies, sapphires, and pearls. The jewel was formerly employed as a pectoral or breast-ornament upon a silver reliquary bust of St. Hilary preserved in the Treasury of St. Denis. On the dispersal of the Treasury in 1791, the jewel was removed to the Bibliothèque Nationale. The framework dates from the twelfth century. It measures 3½ by 2½ inches.[47] The Cameo of Charles V of France, a sardonyx of three layers, dating from Imperial Roman times, represents a full length figure of Jupiter. It is mounted in the gold frame in which it was presented to the Treasury at Chartres by the King. Such prophylactic verses[48] as are found frequently side by side upon amulets and in cabalistic formulæ of the Middle Ages, are inscribed round its edge on a ground of blue and red enamel, together with the opening words of St. John's Gospel, which were supposed to serve as a protection, particularly against demons and thunder. The figure of Jupiter with the eagle probably passed for a representation of the evangelist. At the lower part is a crowned escutcheon bearing the arms of France, and on the crown is an inscription recording the presentation of the jewel by Charles V in the year 1367.[49] {104} This beautiful example of French jewellery of the fourteenth century is 6 inches in length and 3 in width.

Of slightly later date than the Jewel of St. Hilary, and of far more elaborate workmanship, though perhaps less well known on account of its somewhat remote situation, is the Schaffhausen Onyx. The stone, a fine sardonyx, is a Roman cameo of a female figure carrying a cornucopia and caduceus, and intended to represent Peace. Its setting, a superb specimen of mediæval goldwork, is mounted with figures of eagles and lions, chased in full relief and arranged in regular order between high bezels set with garnets, sapphires, pearls, and turquoises. The outside measurement of the jewel is 6 by 5 inches, and that of the stone 3½ by 3.[50]

The large part played by superstition in the ornaments of the Middle Ages need not be further enlarged on. The virtues of charms were not only associated with gems and precious stones; for mystic letters, cabalistic inscriptions, and other devices were among the chief features of mediæval jewellery. Such devices lingered long after the Renaissance of learning had partially dispelled the mysticism of the Middle Ages; while similar superstitions in respect to precious stones are even now not entirely extinct, in spite of the assurances of modern science.

{105}

MEDIÆVAL HEAD-ORNAMENTS AND NECKLACES

HEAD-ORNAMENTS from the tenth to the sixteenth century belong for the most part rather to the general history of costume than to that of jewellery proper; and it will be unnecessary to follow those extravagances of fashion which, especially during the fifteenth century, were presented by the head-dress of women. More germane to the subject are the fillets, bands, and chaplets worn throughout the Middle Ages by women when their heads were uncovered, and during a more limited period by men also. The original form of these was a ribbon, which encircled the brow, held back the hair from the face, and adjusted the veil; while wreaths, either of natural flowers or of plain gold, were a frequent decoration for young women. Hence the bands or chaplets, which took their motives from those more simple ornaments, were made either wholly of metal (cercles), or of gold flowers sewn upon an embroidered band (described in inventories as chapeletz), both forms being enriched with pearls and precious stones. The fillet later on became a heavy band composed of separate pieces of metal joined by hinges, and showed such close resemblance to the broad belts of the knights, that in the inventory of Edward II, quoted above, tressoures and ceintures are entered together under one heading. The wearing of such head-ornaments was not confined exclusively to the nobility, for {106} the receipt of a sale of jewels by Agnes Chalke, spicer of London, to a certain John of Cambridge in 1363, includes a "coronal of gold, wrought with stones, that is to say, with rubyes, saphirs, emeralds, and pearls."[51] Exquisite circlets set with these gems are worn by the choir of singing and music-making angels on the wings of the Van Eycks' famous "Ghent Altar-piece" in the Berlin Museum. The fillet, whether a complete circle or hinged, received about the fourteenth century additional enrichments in the form of trefoils, fleurs-de-lis, crosses, and foliations, erected on cuspings upon its upper edge. A simple but charming example of a circlet, dating from the fourteenth century, is preserved in the Musée du Cinquantenaire at Brussels. It is of silver gilt, formed of hinged plaques, each mounted with from three to four collets set with pearls, and with pastes in imitation of precious stones, while additional ornaments in the form of fleurs-de-lis are fixed erect upon it (Pl. XVII, 9).

From the diadem of this character originated the coronets worn by those of high or noble rank; the use of these, amid the ceremonies of later courts, crystallised into a system of class privilege. Such diadems or coronets approach the form of the regal crown, which in England, as early as the eleventh century, was enriched with rays and floriations. The regal crown, with which we are not immediately concerned,[52] by the addition of arches, was converted about the fifteenth century into what is technically known as the "close" crown.

Round the helmets of knights in the fifteenth century ornamental wreaths called orles were worn; these, originally composed of two bands of silk twisted {107} together were afterwards richly jewelled. One of the most famous of jewelled hats was that of Charles the Bold, thickly encrusted with huge pearls and precious stones, which was captured by the Swiss after his death at the battle of Nancy in 1477.[53]

Of female ornaments of the same period it need only be stated that the elaborate head-dresses, such as the cornette, escoffion, and henin—it is sometimes difficult to imagine how women had sufficient strength to keep them balanced on their heads—were profusely adorned with pearls, gold spangles, and precious stones, and in some cases with crowns or crown-shaped combs of elaborate goldwork enriched with gems. The Italians, with more refined taste, seem, as will be observed (p. 171), to have escaped from such extravagances sooner than the rest of Europe, and to have been content for the most part with a simple bandeau encircling the forehead.

Among the most interesting varieties of personal ornaments in the Middle Ages are certain jewels or brooches worn in the hat and known as enseignes. From the lead signs or ornaments worn by pilgrims there was gradually evolved a special class of jewels on which the great artists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries exercised their utmost skill, and which at the present day are among the most highly prized of all early articles of personal jewellery.

Rivers near large cities have supplied us with much of the knowledge we possess of the manners and habits of those who in former times dwelt upon their banks. Whenever dredging or digging disturbs the beds of such rivers, objects of antiquity, which seem to have gravitated there, are sure to be discovered. The municipal museum of many a city of ancient foundation preserves choice works of antiquity recovered from its river's bed.

{108} Among the most remarkable objects brought to light in this manner are certain curious mediæval ornaments, which belong to the age that has bequeathed exceedingly few examples of articles for personal use. The ornaments referred to are the small badges or signs of lead, given or sold, as tokens, to mediæval pilgrims to the shrines of saints or martyrs, and known as "Pilgrims' Signs." They were obtained from the attendants at shrines and exhibitions of relics, who kept ready a large variety bearing the effigy or device of some particular saint, or the symbol that had reference to his acts of worship. Each sign or token was pierced with holes, or more frequently had a pin cast in one piece with it, making it available as a brooch. It was thus fastened to the hat or other portion of the pilgrim's dress as a testimony of his having visited the particular shrine indicated by the token. These badges, which date from about the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, were manufactured at the churches or monasteries to which pilgrimages were made. Moulds for casting them are preserved in the British Museum and the Guildhall Museum; and a forge was found at Walsingham Priory where the sacristan melted the metals employed for their manufacture.[54]

It will be outside the present purpose to enumerate all the varieties of form assumed by these interesting and historically most valuable objects. Important collections of them are preserved in the British Museum and Guildhall Museum in London, and in the Musée Cluny, Paris (Pl. XVII, 1-4).

In England the most popular relics were those of Our Lady of Walsingham Priory, and particularly {109} those of St. Thomas of Canterbury, whose signs, according to a statement of Giraldus Cambrensis, were worn as early as the twelfth century. The anonymous author of the supplement to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales speaks of the purchase of signs by Chaucer's party on the occasion of their pilgrimage to Canterbury, and remarks that on their departure from the Cathedral "they sett their signys upon their hedes, and som upon their capp." And Erasmus, in his Colloquy of the pilgrimage for religion's sake, notes that pilgrims were "covered on every side with images of tin and lead." Judging from the number and variety of the badges relating to the murdered archbishop, Becket, his shrine must have enjoyed a widespread popularity, though the scallop-shell of St. James of Compostella was perhaps more universally recognised as a pilgrim's sign than any other.

These signs or signacula were worn not only on a pilgrimage, but also formed a customary decoration for the hat. Some, even in early times, perhaps as early as the thirteenth century, though partaking of a religious character, do not seem to have had reference to any particular shrine, and referred simply to incidents in popular religious legends. Others were merely symbols or emblems; yet, like the majority of mediæval trinkets, they nearly all displayed religious motives and were supposed to possess talismanic powers. Louis XI, the cruel and superstitious King of France, commonly wore such signs, particularly those of the celebrated Notre-Dame d'Embrun, stuck round his hat; and on a visit to Henry, King of Castile, he wore, so Philip de Comines informs us, a very old hat with leaden images upon it.

It is very evident that we have here the origin of the hat-ornaments or enseignes of gold and silver, and enriched with precious stones and enamels, which, coming first into use in the fifteenth century, became {110} extremely popular in the sixteenth, and were worn on almost every man's hat, and sometimes on those of women, until the middle of the seventeenth century. Like those obtained at the shrines, they bore at first the figure of a saint—generally a patron saint—or a figure of the Virgin. Of signs such as these, some came to represent the actual badge of the wearer or of some one to whom he was affectionately attached, while others took the form of badges of livery, and were worn in the hats of the retainers of great families. Philip de Comines records that Lord Bourchier, Governor of Calais, 1470, wore a ragged staff of gold upon his bonnet. This was the badge of the Earl of Warwick, and all his attendants had ragged staves likewise. A leaden enseigne of a bear and ragged staff (the House of Warwick), a crowned ostrich feather (Duke of Norfolk), a hound (Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury), and a dolphin (badge of the Dauphin—afterwards Louis XI—and his faction, the Armagnacs), together with others of a similar nature, are in the British Museum (Pl. XVII, 5-8). The badges of the Kings of England were employed in the same manner: and among the British Museum collection is a hart lodged—the badge of Richard II, and in the Guildhall a broom-pod (genista) of the Plantagenets, and a crown of fleurs-de-lis—the badge of Henry V.

A considerable number of small shield-shaped bronze and copper pendants, enamelled with coats of arms, and having a ring above for suspension, seem also to have served as badges. There is the possibility that some were worn by the servants of nobility as enseignes upon the hat, or perhaps on the left arm or breast. But the majority appear to have been employed for the decoration of horse-harness.[55]

Mediæval hat-badges of gold are of extreme rarity. The Franks Bequest in the British Museum contains {111} a choice example. It is a fifteenth-century Flemish jewel of gold, representing a "pelican in her piety" standing upon a scroll, and set with a ruby and a small pointed diamond (Pl. XVII, 11). In the Victoria and Albert Museum is a circular gold enseigne of open-work enriched with Gothic foliations. The outer rim is set with seven small rubies. In the centre is an antique onyx cameo representing a lion. It is Spanish work of the second half of the fifteenth century (Pl. XVII, 10).

These two jewels are clearly hat-ornaments; but it is often difficult to distinguish between a brooch or nouche intended to be worn upon the dress and a hat-brooch, though the latter can, as a rule, be distinguished by its form or by its subject. The enseigne was sometimes employed like a brooch for fastening a plume decoration, but as a rule served as an independent ornament, and appears on the paintings, sculpture, and tapestry of the fifteenth century attached to the side of the head-gear. It became a jewel of still greater importance in the sixteenth century, and will be further dealt with among the jewellery of the Renaissance.

The talismanic properties associated with the signacula procured at the shrines were extended to many objects of base metal, as brooches and finger-rings, which had been placed in contact with relics of saints, or blessed at their shrines. Brooches and rings also of gold and silver bear talismanic inscriptions. A common inscription is the names of the Three Kings—as on the Glenlyon brooch—which originated in pilgrimages to the shrine of the Kings of the East in the church of Sant' Eustorgio at Milan, or more probably to that in Cologne Cathedral. The names of the "Three Kings of Collein" were considered to be a charm against epilepsy or the "falling sickness." Many personal ornaments of base metal, however, are quite unconnected with any religious practice or with pilgrims' signs; for objects of pewter are often merely replicas {112} of more precious jewels in gold and silver, and must have been worn by the poorer classes. The fact that several are plated or washed with silver shows that they were intended to pass for the real objects. Yet they are of considerable importance, since we find among them types of ornaments which do not exist in the precious metals. It may be suggested that some were made as models for real articles of jewellery; but we are, unfortunately, not in possession of evidence (such as can be produced in connection with the jewellery of the Renaissance) which can offer any likelihood that this is actually the case with these mediæval ornaments.

EARRINGS

Though common in the Merovingian and Carlovingian epoch, earrings appear to have been worn only to a limited extent, and that at the commencement of the period at present under discussion. Pendants formed of quadrilateral prisms set on each side with cabochon garnets and hung with small strings of garnet beads are attached to the ears of the tenth-century figure of St. Foy in the treasury at Conques; though it is not impossible that these, like many of the gems that adorn the statue, may be of earlier workmanship. That the Byzantine style of earring, of crescent form, was worn during the eleventh and twelfth centuries is evident from a twelfth-century bronze ewer, in the shape of a head of a woman, of Flemish work, in the Museum of Budapest.[56] Earrings, however, enjoyed no great popularity during the Middle Ages, and the cause of this must be traced to the fashion which prescribed for women a style of coiffure by which the hair fell down at the sides, or was covered by a veil, which {113} would have effectively hidden any ornaments for the ear. It was only at the end of the fourteenth century that fashion again allowed the hair to be worn high. Pendent rings of gold for ladies' ears are mentioned in the Roman de la Rose, and statues occasionally exhibit short earrings, pearls attached to the lobe of the ear, or stones in the form of drops. Earrings, indeed, did not come into very common use until the close of the fifteenth or the beginning of the sixteenth century.

NECKLACES AND COLLARS

The custom of wearing necklaces and neck-chains was much more limited during the Middle Ages than it had been in antiquity and at the time of the great migrations. Women's necklaces can hardly be proved to have been in general use before the end of the fourteenth century, and during the Middle Ages seldom attained the exaggerated style they exhibited at the period of the Renaissance. They consisted mostly of plaited cords of gold wire, and probably of single or double chains of pearls. These originally encircled the throat, but at a later date were worn more upon the breast. Though many forms of personal ornament are mentioned in early wills and inventories, we rarely meet with a reference to the necklace until the fourteenth century; nor is it pictured on monumental effigies or brasses until the beginning of the century following. If worn at all prior to this date, it must simply have served the purpose of supporting pendants of various forms known as pentacols.

These neck-chains, or collars as they were termed, soon began to receive additional enrichment, and the inventories of the fifteenth century contain frequent descriptions of necklets adorned with enamels and precious stones. Eleanor, Countess of Arundel (1455), {114} bequeathed to her daughter "a golden collar for the neck, with a jewel set with precious stones hanging thereat." The fashion for rich necklaces was especially in vogue at the luxurious Court of the Dukes of Burgundy; nor had the Court of Richard II been behindhand in the display of this species of ornament, for the magnificent wedding presents of his wife, Isabella of France, included a collar of gold set with precious stones of immense value.

The word carcanet seems to have come into use about this time for rich necklaces of precious stones, and to have been applied a little later to the bands of jewels commonly entwined in ladies' hair.

Though never so generally worn as in the sixteenth century, a considerable number of these jewelled ornaments are represented in the exquisite paintings of the fifteenth century. One of the most elaborate of all is the superb gold necklet, brilliantly enamelled with small and many-coloured flowers, shown on the portrait of Maria, wife of Pierantonio Baroncelli, in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, by an unknown Flemish painter of the latter part of the fifteenth century. Close by, in the same gallery, is Van der Goes' celebrated triptych, presented to the Spedale di Santa Maria Nuova by Tommaso Portinari, agent of the Medici in Bruges. Upon the right wing is Maria, wife of the donor, with her daughter. The former wears a magnificent necklace of exquisite design, its interlacing goldwork shaped into the form of roses enamelled red, white, and blue, each set respectively with a sapphire, a ruby, and a large pearl. The latter is adorned with a necklace composed of a double row of pearls connected by oval jewelled ornaments; beneath is hung a trefoil-shaped pendant set with rubies, to which is attached a large drop-pearl (p. 117). A precisely similar ornament is seen in another work by Van der Goes, painted about 1473—the well-known portrait of Margaret, {115} queen of James III of Scotland, now at Holyrood.[57] This picture was probably executed in Flanders from material supplied by the donor, and the artist appears to have adorned Queen Margaret with the same beautiful necklace, probably of Florentine workmanship, which he had seen round the neck of Signorina Portinari.

Jane Shore, the beautiful and unfortunate mistress of Edward IV, and wife of the rich jeweller of Lombard Street, is represented in her two portraits, one at King's College, Cambridge, and the other at Eton, wearing elaborate necklaces. Around her throat are two strings of pearls, with a necklet below of circular pieces of Gothic pattern, supporting a lozenge-shaped pendant of similar design adorned with pearls. Among sculptured representations of the necklet the most interesting is that on the monument of Sir John Crosby (d. 1475) and his wife in St. Helen's Church, Bishopsgate, where the latter wears a very handsome necklace of roses, to which is attached a cluster of three roses with three pendants below. Sir John's collar is somewhat similarly formed of rosette-shaped ornaments. An early instance of a heavy neck-chain of gold, worn upon the breast, is to be seen upon the famous tapestry, considered to represent Henry VI and his Queen, in St. Mary's Hall, Coventry.

Collars of extraordinary richness seem to have been worn by Henry IV; for among the miscellaneous documents preserved at St. Paul's Cathedral[58] is a list of various jewels set with diamonds both large and small, with balas rubies, sapphires, and clusters of pearls, which were to be employed for making collars for the king and queen. The Inventories of the Exchequer contain frequent reference to what is termed the Iklyngton Coler. This magnificent collar, which {116} was frequently pawned by Henry VI, was enriched with four rubies, four large sapphires, thirty-two great pearls, and fifty-three pearls of a lesser sort.[59]

In addition to the purely ornamental necklaces, collars or chains of "livery"—bearing the heraldic devices of the day—were assumed by various royal and noble families, and were bestowed as marks of favour or friendship on persons of various ranks, and both sexes, who wore them as badges of adherence to those families. An instance of the bestowal of a chain of this kind occurred in 1477 after the siege of Quesnoy by Louis XI, who, witnessing a great feat of gallantry on the part of Raoul de Lannoy, is reported to have placed on his neck a chain of great value, and to have thus wittily addressed him: "Mon ami, vous êtes trop furieux en un combat; il faut vous enchaîner, car je ne veux point vous perdre, désirant me servir encore de vous plusieurs fois."

Richard II, as shown by the Earl of Pembroke's remarkable picture of that monarch at Wilton, wore, in addition to his device the white hart, a collar of broom-pods. Henry IV employed the well-known collar of SS, derived from his father John of Gaunt. The collar of Edward IV was composed of two of his badges, the sun in its splendour, and the white rose; while a third, the white lion of March, was added as a pendant. Richard III retained the Yorkist collar, substituting for the lion pendant a boar.[60] Private family collars were also worn, and an early instance of one occurs in the brass of Thomas Lord Berkeley (1417) in the church of Wootton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire; the band round the neck being charged with mermaids, the badge of the Berkeleys.

The SS collar is the best known of all. It is composed of the letter S in gold repeated indefinitely, either fixed on velvet or some material, or forming {117} the links of a chain. The letters are generally united by knots; they sometimes terminate with portcullises and have a pendent rose. The collar is still worn by the Lord Chief Justice, the Lord Mayor of London, and the chief heralds—that belonging to the Lord Mayor being an original and beautiful example of English jewellery of the sixteenth century. Despite all that has been written upon the SS collar no conclusive explanation has been offered as to its origin and meaning.[61] Several representations of livery collars appear upon monumental effigies of the latter half of the fifteenth century, and there is frequent mention of them in the inventories of the same period, but, with the exception of the SS collar, they are not met with at all in the sixteenth century.

Necklace worn by the daughter of Tommaso Portinari in Van der Goes' triptych in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

{118}

MEDIÆVAL PENDANTS, ROSARIES, AND POMANDERS

THE wearing of religious emblems in the form of pendants by the Christians of the Middle Ages was possibly, in the first place, the unconscious perpetuation of pagan superstition. The demand for a convenient mode of carrying a reliquary may account in some degree for the use of necklaces in early times.

Relics of the saints and of the Passion of our Lord were most eagerly sought after by mediæval Christendom, and whenever a relic of unusual importance was obtained, all the resources of the art of the time were employed to give it a worthy setting. The most famous of early pendent reliquaries was that worn by the Emperor Charlemagne, which contained relics from the Crown of Thorns and the True Cross, presented to him by Haroun al-Raschid. The reliquary was buried with him in 814, and found at the opening of his tomb at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1169. In 1804 it was given to the Emperor Napoleon by the clergy of Aix, and was afterwards the property of Napoleon III; but it disappeared during the troublous times that terminated the Second Empire. The relics were enclosed under a large sapphire magnificently set in gold and precious stones[62] (Pl. XVIII, 4). Another historical relic of the early Middle Ages was the enamelled gold cross suspended {119} from a chain, which was stolen from the tomb of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey in 1685 and given to James II. It was only lost sight of in the early part of the nineteenth century.[63]

Portable reliquaries in former times were often made of two plates of rock crystal or other transparent stones hinged together so as to form a box. An exquisite example of this style of ornament, and one of the most remarkable mediæval jewels, is the so-called reliquary of St. Louis in the British Museum. It is of gold, set with two large bean-shaped amethysts which act as covers to an inner case with a lid, enclosing what purports to be a spike from the Crown of Thorns. The back of this receptacle, as well as the insides of the covers, is enriched with minute translucent enamels representing the Crucifixion and other scenes from the Passion and the life of Christ (Pl. XVIII, 5). The jewel is said to have been given by St. Louis (who bought the Crown of Thorns from Baldwin, King of Jerusalem) to a king of Aragon, but the style of the work is somewhat later than the time of St. Louis, and dates from about the year 1310. It was formerly in the collection of Baron Pichon, and was presented to the British Museum by Mr. George Salting in 1902.

The pendent ornaments of the Middle Ages not only served as receptacles for relics but also took the form of crosses, medallions, votive tablets, and monograms. Though these do not attain the same importance as the pendants of the Renaissance, their extraordinary variety is proved by the inventories of the thirteenth to the fifteenth century, while their beauty is attested by the few examples that have fortunately been preserved. Small votive tablets, that is to say diptychs or triptychs with hinged wings, were exceedingly {120} popular as personal ornaments, judging by their frequent occurrence in the inventories under the title of tableau or tabulet. They were suspended from the girdle or neck-chain. Some are painted with delicate translucent enamels, others contain figures in high relief wrought in metal, or carvings in boxwood of minute dimensions. The last are generally Flemish, while the others of which there are several splendid examples in the Victoria and Albert Museum, are mostly of French or of English workmanship. A very remarkable silver-gilt pendant in the form of the Devil of temptation, with the forbidden fruit in one hand and a crozier, signifying power, in the other, is shown on Plate XIX, 9. It is Burgundian work of the second half of the fifteenth century, and is the property of Mrs. Percy Macquoid.

An interesting class of pendants is formed by a somewhat extensive series of silver and silver-gilt ornaments produced by German craftsmen of the fifteenth century. The National Museum at Munich, where several fine examples of this kind are preserved, possesses one of more than ordinary interest. It is of silver-gilt, about five inches in length, composed of elaborate Gothic tracery, in shape not unlike the tall Gothic tabernacles of South Germany, of which that by Adam Kraft in St. Lawrence's Church at Nuremberg is perhaps the finest example. A niche on each of its four sides contains the figure of a saint and above, half hidden among the tracery, are four female figures. The jewel is surmounted by the Virgin and Child, and has three rings above for suspension and one below (Pl. XIX, 1). Other examples of South German goldsmith's work of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century take the form of small pendent charms picturing some religious theme. The figure of a saint was naturally a favourite subject, since it was supposed to possess special prophylactic powers. The variety of the subjects {121} thus represented can be admirably judged from an important series of such pendants at South Kensington. In addition to these, which are mostly of cast silver, other pendants of the same period include silver plaques, nielloed, engraved, or in relief; and likewise fine cameos or reliefs of mother-of-pearl, and carvings in ivory and wood, set in coronets of silver-gilt.

Mediæval neck-pendants were, as has been observed, known as pentacols. In the inventory of Edward III in 1339[64] we find a pentacol composed of a large Scotch pearl (perle d'Escoce) and an image of Our Lady in enamel; and "un pentacol dor od. iiij. petites ameraldes et iiij. petites rubies environ, et une camahue en mylieu." In mediæval inventories and wills the Latin word monile signified not only a necklace, but jewels hung at the neck. The same term was also employed for the morse, particularly when the latter had a ring for suspension. Many pendants generally provided with quatrefoil rings, come from South Germany (like one shown on Plate XVIII, 1) and especially from Bohemia—there is a good collection of them in the cathedral treasury of Prague.[65] The majority are silver-gilt, and set with a plaque of mother-of-pearl or crystal, and are usually hollow, to contain relics. The term monile was further applied to brooches or nouches; and the nouches described in such detail in the English inventories of the fifteenth century, which will be mentioned later when the subject of brooches is dealt with, may in part have been employed as ornaments for the necklace.

Various monilia or pendants, containing small relics, verses from the Bible, the names of Christ or the Virgin written upon vellum or upon metal, and perhaps also ancient magic spells—all possessing the virtues of talismans, were worn by chains or cords round the neck, {122} and in some instances very likely hidden under the upper garment. The early Church, in many an edict, declared itself against this form of superstition, yet such pendants or phylacteries—a term applied to any amulet worn about the person against evil of all kinds—appear to have been extensively used. Another and popular pendant from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, which is frequently cited in inventories, but now rarely met with, takes the form of a small circular box or capsule bearing in front an Agnus Dei in niello or repoussé, surrounded by a corded edging. Such boxes were intended for the preservation of a roundel of wax moulded from the remains of the Paschal candle at Rome with an impression of the sacred Lamb, and blessed by the Pope for distribution to the faithful. The cases, of silver-gilt, have occasionally a covering of transparent horn on the back and front. An example of this kind, of fifteenth-century German workmanship, is in the Victoria and Albert Museum (Pl. XIX, 3). The wax it contains bears the name of Pope Urban VI (1378-1389). An original stamp of bronze, of Italian origin, dating from the fourteenth century, which was used for making these wax impressions, is preserved in the British Museum along with other moulds for casting medals and small articles of jewellery.

In addition to the precious and semi-precious stones already mentioned, other objects, accounted specially efficacious for certain purposes, were worn. The peres de eagle, also called ætites, supposed to be found in the nest of the eagle, were particularly valuable during childbirth. Glossopetræ, the fossilised teeth of certain kinds of shark, which passed as serpents' teeth, were much used, as well as primitive arrowheads. They were hung round the neck of infants in the belief that they assisted dentition and kept off frights. Of great value also was the bezoar stone, which, like glossopetræ, at one time occupied a prominent {123} place in pharmacopœia. Coral, which has always been popular, is first mentioned in English wills and inventories in the fourteenth century. It was used for rosaries, and, above all, as a charm—a ring of gold or silver being attached to its stalk. The Romans tied little branches of it round their children's necks to ward off the evil eye; and the infant Saviour in many an early Italian picture is represented wearing a piece of coral in a similar manner.[66]

A fear of poison, common for centuries in royal courts, was responsible for the custom of testing meats and drinks by methods founded upon certain ancient and groundless beliefs. In order to neutralise or detect the presence of poison, certain objects were placed in contact with food or were dipped into liquids. The touching-pieces (tousches) or proofs (espreuves) employed for the purpose, and considered especially efficacious against poison, were toadstones, glossopetræ, serpentine, jasper, agate and particularly the unicorn's horn. What was foisted upon the credulous public as the horn of the fabled animal was in reality the horn or tusk of a fish—the narwhal or sea-unicorn of the northern seas. Being an object of very great value, the horn was only occasionally kept entire, like the one preserved to this day at New College, Oxford. It was more usually cut into pieces and used as "proofs."

These and other objects, when worn upon the person, as was generally the practice, were mounted at one end, or surrounded by a claw-like band of silver.

{124} Another object which occupied an important position in the Middle Ages and often received special attention at the hands of the goldsmith was the rosary. It was suspended occasionally from the neck, but was more often worn upon the wrist, at the girdle, or attached to a finger ring, and was formed of a string of beads of various sizes and materials representing Aves, Paternosters, and Glorias: each bead receiving the name of the prayer it represented. The rosary, as at the present day, was divided into decades of Aves, each decade being preceded by a Paternoster and followed by a Gloria. The materials of which they were composed are well illustrated in the inventory[68] of the jewels belonging to Adam Ledyard, a London jeweller in 1381. It includes: "4 sets of paternosters of white amber; 16 sets of paternosters of amber; 5 sets of paternosters of coral and geet [jet]; 6 sets of aves of geet, and paternosters of silver-gilt; 38 sets of aves of geet, with gaudees of silver-gilt; 14 sets of aves of blue glass, with paternosters of silver-gilt; 28 sets of paternosters of geet; 15 sets of paternosters of mazer; and 5 sets of paternosters of white bone for children."

The makers of these beads were termed paternosterers; and Paternoster Row and Ave Maria Lane were so called from the "turners of beads" who resided there. In Paris, as early as the thirteenth century, the commerce in rosaries was a most flourishing one, and it was customary there to divide the makers or dealers in these articles into three categories—paternosterers of bone and horn, of coral and mother-of-pearl, and of amber and jet. In England the rosary makers do not seem to have been so specialised.

The larger beads were sometimes of gold, silver, and silver-gilt, of open-work, beautifully chased and engraved, and of boxwood and ivory exquisitely carved. {125} The "gaudees" or "gauds" in the above quotation, the ornaments or trinkets attached to the rosary, were commonly in the form of a crucifix, while the small German charms mentioned above (p. 120) were mostly employed for the same purpose. Of the spherical-shaped gauds or nuts pendent to the rosary, called in French grains de chapelet and known in Germany as Betnüsse, many fine examples exist in boxwood. They have often an open-work case which opens with a hinge, and displays two hemispheres filled with a number of carved figures of minute proportions.

Among the many forms assumed by mediæval pendants were those of fruits—generally apples or pears. These fruit-shaped pendants, containing either figures or relics, were exceedingly popular. They were carried in the purse or attached to the rosary or to the girdle, or in the case of men, were hung from the neck by a cord or chain; and were constructed so as to be opened during devotions. One of the most remarkable examples is in the Waddesdon Bequest at the British Museum.[69]

The use of perfumes prevailed at all periods of the Middle Ages. They were enclosed in various receptacles, and especially in those shaped like a pear or apple. These pendent scent cases or pomanders, worn like other pendants of the same form, were in general use throughout the whole of the period extending from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century. Pomander in early inventories is often spelt pomeambre, indicating its derivation from pomme d'ambre, a perfume apple or ball; the word pomme being used for any object resembling an apple in shape, and ambre[70] for perfume in {126} general. Primarily the pomander seems often to have designated a ball composed of various highly scented substances which served the purpose both of counteracting the smells which must have been particularly general and offensive in olden days, and also of protecting against infection. It was enclosed in a rich metal case, opening across the centre, and perforated so as to allow the scent to escape. The title "pomander"—originally meaning simply a scent or perfume ball—was given to the case which contained it. In many instances, the perfumes, instead of being mixed together into a ball, were placed in the pomander case each in a separate compartment, the lids of which are found inscribed with the names of the contents. These compartments, varying in number from four to as many as sixteen, are formed like segments of an orange. They are hinged below, and united at the top by a screw or pin, which being removed, allows the segments to open out (Pl. XVIII, 3).

{127}

MEDIÆVAL BROOCHES—THE RING-BROOCH

THE brooches or fibulæ hitherto considered have been constructed either with a spring pin or acus, which was held in its place by a hook or catch, or with a hinged acus, which, having pierced the material, was fixed similarly by a catch, and prevented by the weight of the garment from becoming unloosened. The term fibula, generally employed by archæologists to denote all early brooches, has so far been applied only to the dress-fasteners of classical times; and though the word brooch (from the French broche, meaning a spit) was not introduced into England until after the Norman Conquest, it is for the sake of clearness used here to describe what are generally known among Anglo-Saxon ornaments as fibulæ.

In later Roman times, and among the Irish and Anglo-Saxons, the ring-brooch was sometimes formed with an opening on one side, and the pin or acus, which was not hinged, but moved freely to any part of the ring, having been passed through the tissue, was brought through this opening. The ring was then turned till the pin rested upon its rim.

At the time of the Norman Conquest the opening of the brooch is closed, the ring becomes flat and has a pin of the same length as its diameter. Instead of running loosely, the pin is hinged upon a constriction of the ring and it either traverses the tissue which has {128} been brought through the latter, or a band is passed over it from beneath the sides of the ring. When the portions of the garment thus connected are drawn back, the pin falls across the front of the ring and is held securely in its place. This ring-brooch was known as the fermail (Latin firmaculum, signifying a clasp)—a term employed both in old French and old English inventories.

The ring-brooch was worn by both sexes. It appears on the monumental effigy of Richard Cœur de Lion at Rouen, on that of Berengaria his queen at Le Mans, and on several of the thirteenth-century sculptures on the west front of Wells Cathedral. It served to gather up the fulness of the surcoat on the breast of the knight, as shown by the effigy, known as that of William Mareschel the Elder, Earl of Pembroke, in the Temple Church; but was generally used to close the opening in the robes at the throat of either sex and is seen thus on many effigies of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.[71]

Among the few examples of mediæval jewellery that have survived, brooches and finger rings predominate. Brooches differ slightly according to the nationality to which they belong: those of English origin forming of themselves a class of considerable variety and extent. The earliest were circles of small diameter and narrow frame, either plain, or decorated with simple designs. Mystic words and letters were subsequently added; but as the brooch became larger, amatory mottoes took their place. Religious formulæ were also employed, particularly in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the brooch reached its full development.

The various inscriptions and designs engraved on mediæval brooches are of great interest. The majority of inscriptions are mottoes in French, such as were frequently employed as posies upon rings and other {129} love-gifts. An inscription which occurs more than once is io . svi . ici . en . liev . dami. Another chanson, reading thus in modern French—Je suis ici, à toi voici, is found on several brooches in the British Museum.

The dainty Prioress, Madame Eglentine, in the prologue of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales wore—

The popularity of this last motto on the personal ornaments of the Middle Ages may be attributed to its supposed influence as a love-charm. A considerable number of legends are of a religious character, with allusions to the Virgin and Saviour while a few are talismanic, and contain inscriptions such as the names of the Kings of the East.

Ring-brooches, though generally circular, show a variety of other shapes, such as hearts, trefoils, lozenges, etc. A heart-shaped brooch of fine workmanship in chased and engraved gold is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It appears to be French and of the fifteenth century. Upon its back is the inscription—Nostre et tout ditz a vostre [d]esir.

The brooches worn by the wealthy are often magnificent examples of jewellery, enriched with gems set in delicate goldwork. A number of the existing brooches are of such diminutive size—less than half an inch in diameter—that they could only have been employed for fastening the very thinnest tissue. The larger gold ring-brooches, of fine workmanship and set with precious stones, are of great rarity. In the British Museum are several choice specimens: the finest, formerly in the Londesborough Collection, dates from the fourteenth century. It is mounted with pearls, cabochon sapphires and emeralds, arranged in a variety of settings, and further enriched with four bosses carved {130} and pierced in the forms of dragons and cockatrices. A remarkable brooch of the thirteenth century, also from a well-known collection, that of Baron Pichon, is preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is a circular gold ring two inches in diameter, enriched with four sapphires and six rubies in high cone-like settings formed of simple sheets of metal wrapped round the stones. The bases of these collets are hidden on the inner side by an encircling wreath of vine leaves delicately cut and stamped in gold. The back is ornamented with a leaf design in niello. There is a somewhat similar brooch, though only a fragment, in the Gem Room of the British Museum.

A gold brooch also dating from the thirteenth century, and, like the majority, of French workmanship, is in the Carrand Collection in the Museo Nazionale (Bargello), Florence. This fine example, formerly in the Debruge Collection, is decorated with exquisite Gothic foliage in naturalistic style, and with figures of two lions in full relief. It is set with two large rubies and four small emeralds. In the same collection is an extremely interesting brooch, likewise French, and of the fourteenth century. A flat ring of gold 1¼ inches in diameter is ornamented with concentric rings of enamel, the two outer being blue and the inner white. Upon the latter, in letters reserved in the gold, is the inscription iesus autem traisiens per med.,[72] which occurs also on the cameo of Charles V at Paris, and was held by those who bore it to possess a prophylactic virtue. The brooch is further ornamented with four vernicles[73] engraved with exquisite feeling at equal distances upon its surface (Pl. XX, 2).

Though comparatively many existing brooches are {131} of gold, a great quantity were formerly produced not only in silver, but in baser metals, such as iron, copper, and lead or pewter. How large was the demand for brooches of these materials can be gauged from a French writer of the thirteenth century, Jean de Garlande, a poet and grammarian, who in his Latin vocabulary refers to brooch-makers as a special class of craftsmen, who, apart from goldsmiths, were sufficiently numerous to bear the title of fermailleurs[74]—makers of fermails. To about the end of the fifteenth century belongs a satirical poem printed in London with the title Cocke Lorelles Bote, where "latten workers and broche makers" are specially mentioned among the London crafts or trades. The manufacture of the finest brooches, however, was always reserved for the goldsmiths—a fact indicated by the quartering of brooches on the arms of the Goldsmiths' Company.

There would be no justification for any general reference to mediæval ring-brooches that omitted to give some account of those worn in Scotland. Brooches formed an indispensable accessory to the Highland dress of both sexes, in that they served to fix upon the shoulder an invariable article of clothing of the Highlanders—the Scottish plaid. In the latest development of the Scottish brooch of the Celtic type, the pin, as has been observed, is hinged upon the ring, and after piercing the garment is held in its place by a catch at the back of the brooch. Upon the introduction of the ring-brooch with a pin equal to the diameter of the ring, this mode of fastening was only in very few cases retained, and preference in general was given to the English manner of adjustment.

The earliest form of the Scottish ring-brooch, which dates from about the thirteenth century, is a flattened circular ring, upon which talismanic inscriptions in Latin, generally of a religious character, almost invariably {132} appear. These, together with some traces of Gothic design, last throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. After this period the knowledge of Latin seems to decrease, for it is rendered so barbarously on the sixteenth-century brooches as to be almost unintelligible. On the later brooches the decoration is purely ornamental, with interlaced work and foliaceous scrolls, and brooches of this type, on which the character of an earlier period is retained, were made as late as the eighteenth century. The designs of the silver brooches were produced by engraving accompanied by niello work; those of the brass brooches usually by engraving alone.

The National Museum of Antiquities at Edinburgh possesses a large and important collection of Scottish brooches, while a few Highland families have preserved for many generations massive silver brooches of elaborate workmanship. Formerly in the possession of the Campbells of Glenlyon, and now in the British Museum, is a brooch known as the Glenlyon brooch. It dates from about the fifteenth century. It is about 3½ inches in width, and is formed of a flat ring set with pearls on tall cone-shaped turrets, alternating with crystals and pieces of amethyst. Across the centre is a richly decorated bar, upon which rest the points of two pins attached to the edge of the ring. On the back of the brooch, in black-letter, is the favourite inscription of mediæval amulets: caspar . melchior . baltazar . consumatum. The last word, the declaration of the dying Saviour, "It is finished," was often inscribed upon brooches and other ornaments of the Middle Ages, as were likewise the Angelic Salutation, the titulus i.n.r.i., and other so-called caracts, all of which were considered to possess some talismanic efficacy.

In many cases the open space in the middle of the ring, as in modern brooches, was filled up, and in the {133} early examples was sometimes occupied by a turret-like ornamentation set with a crystal, while obelisks rising from the ring of the brooch were set with polished stones such as cairngorms (still popular on Scottish jewellery), or with Scottish pearls.

The finest examples of this type of brooch are known as the "brooch of Lorn," the "Ugadale brooch," and the "Loch Buy brooch." The brooch of Lorn, still in the possession of the lineal descendants of the Macdougals of Lorn, dates from the fifteenth century. It consists of a disc of silver 4½ inches in diameter, enriched with filigree. In the centre is a raised capsule crowned with a large rock crystal, and round the ring of the brooch a circle of eight obelisks. The Ugadale brooch, the property of the Macneals of Firfergus, is of somewhat similar nature, save that the turrets, eight in number, are towards the centre of the brooch and arranged close round the raised crystal. The Loch Buy brooch, of more elaborate workmanship, is likewise surmounted by a cabochon crystal on a raised dais. On the ring, within a low border, are ten tall turrets, each surmounted with a Scottish pearl. This famous brooch, long in the possession of the Macleans of Loch Buy in the Isle of Mull, came later into the collection of Ralph Bernal, one of the first and most eminent of latter-day connoisseurs, at whose sale in 1855 it was purchased by the British Museum.

In addition to the Highland circular brooches, a considerable number in the shape of hearts have been found in Scotland, sometimes surmounted with a crown, and in a few instances set with jewels (p. 165). They were mostly love-tokens and betrothal gifts, and many of them bear on the reverse the word love. Brooches of this form are known as "Luckenbooth" brooches, from their having been commonly sold in the Luckenbooths, the street stalls around St. Giles' Church on the High Street, Edinburgh.

{134} The use of the word Luckenbooth calls to mind the fact that the goldsmiths of Paris also worked and dwelt in booths, which as late as the fourteenth century were situated on the Pont du Change and the Pont Nôtre Dame. In this connection it is worth noticing that in England, as well as in France and Scotland, the working goldsmiths, like the followers of other trades, occupied distinct quarters by themselves, and they had in London one part of the Chepe set apart for them to dwell and trade in. The custom of the various crafts thus confining themselves to particular quarters, which is of remote antiquity, greatly facilitated the formation and government of trade guilds.

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MEDIÆVAL BROOCHES (continued)—PECTORALS