is the illumination of MSS., which the calligraphers of the middle
ages in all countries throughout Europe carried to a very high
perfection. Perhaps the earliest example to be named is the Greek
MS. of Genesis in the LXX, now preserved in the Imperial Library at
Vienna, probably of the fourth century. The vellum is stained
purple, and the MS. is decorated with pictures executed in a quaint,
but vigorous style. In these, we find (as M. Labarte[19], a great
authority for medieval art, assures us) all the characters of Roman
art in its decline, such as it was imported to Constantinople by the
artists whom Constantine called to his new capital; and “they have
served,” as he adds, “for a point of departure” in the examination
which he has made of the tendencies and destinies of Byzantine art.
Compare the Vatican MSS. of Terence and Virgil. I cannot be expected
to enter into details about illuminations; they occur in MSS. of all
sorts, more or less, in Europe, down to the sixteenth century, but
especially in sacred books, such as were used in Divine service. I
need only call to your remembrance the beautiful assemblage
exhibited in the Fitzwilliam Museum and in the University Library,
to say nothing of the treasures possessed by our different colleges.
Footnote 19:
_Histoire des Arts au moyen âge._ Album. Vol. II. pl. lxxvii.
Paris, 1864.
There are many other objects of medieval art not unworthy of being
enlarged upon, which I intentionally pass over lightly, lest their
multiplicity should distract us; thus I will say little of its
pottery, its coins, or of its sculptures and bas-reliefs in stone.
With regard to the first of them, M. Labarte observes: “It is not
until the beginning of the fifteenth century that we find among the
European nations any pottery, but such as has been designed for the
commonest domestic use, and none that art has been pleased to
decorate.” These are objects which the middle ages have in common
with others; and they are objects in which a comparison will not be
favourable to medieval art. Still, we must take care that a love of
art does not blind us to the real value of such things; they are
always interesting for the _history_ of art, whatever their rudeness
or whatever their ugliness; and, moreover, they are often, as the
coins of various nations, of high historical interest. For examine,
on our own series of barbarous Saxon coins we have not only the
successions of kings handed down to us, in the several kingdoms of
the so-called Heptarchy and in the united kingdom, but also on the
reverses of the same coins we have mention made of a very large
number of cities and towns at which they were respectively struck.
For example, to take Cambridge, we find that coins were struck here
by King Edward the Martyr, Ethelred the Second, Canute, Harold the
First, and Edward the Confessor; also after the Conquest by William
the First and William the Second. We are thus furnished with very
early notices, and so in some measure able to estimate the
importance of the cities and towns of our island in medieval times;
though great caution is necessary here in making deductions; for no
coins appear to have been struck in Cambridge after the reign of
William Rufus. And this seems at first sight so much the more
surprising when we bear in mind that money was struck in some of our
cities, as York, Durham, Canterbury, and Bristol, quite commonly, as
late as the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. But, in truth, from
the twelfth century downwards, the number of cities and towns in
which lawful money was struck became comparatively small.
But I must not wander too far into numismatics. The art of
enamelling, peculiarly characteristic of the later periods of the
middle ages, is very fully treated of by M. Labarte, from whom I
derive the following facts. The most ancient writer that mentions it
is the elder Philostratus, a Greek writer of the third century, who
emigrated from Athens to Rome. In his _Icones_, or _Treatise on
Images_, the following passage occurs. After speaking of a harness
enriched with gold, precious stones, and various colours, he adds:
“It is said that the barbarians living near the ocean pour colours
upon heated brass, so that these adhere and become like stone, and
preserve the design represented.” It may, therefore, be considered
as established that the art of enamelling upon metals had no
existence in either Greece or Italy at the beginning of the third
century; and, moreover, that this art was practised at least as
early in the cities of Western Gaul. During the invasions and wars
which desolated Europe from the fourth to the eleventh century
almost all the arts languished, and some may have been entirely
lost. Enamelling was all but lost; for between the third and the
eleventh centuries the only two works which occur as landmarks are
the ring of King Ethelwulf in the British Museum, and the ring of
Alhstan, probably the bishop of Sherburne, who lived at the same
time. These two little pieces, however, only serve to establish the
bare existence of enamelling in the West in the ninth century. But
in this same century the art was in all its splendour at
Constantinople, and we possess specimens of Byzantine workmanship of
even an earlier date. I cannot enter into the various modes of
enamelling, which are fully described by M. Labarte; but merely
mention, without comment, a few of the principal specimens,
independently of the Limoges manufacture, which constituted the
chief glory of that city from the eleventh century to the end of the
medieval period. “This became the focus whence emanated nearly all
the beautiful specimens of enamelled copper, which are so much
admired and so eagerly sought after for museums and collections.”
The principal earlier examples then are these; the crown and the
sword of Charlemagne, of the ninth century, now in the Imperial
Treasury at Vienna; the chalice of St Remigius, of the twelfth
century, in the Imperial Library at Paris; the shrine of the Magi in
Cologne, and the great shrine of Nôtre Dame at Aix-la-Chapelle,
presented by the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa in the latter part of
the same twelfth century. Also the full-length portrait (25 inches
by 13) of Geoffrey Plantagenet, father of our Henry II., which
formerly ornamented his tomb in the cathedral, but is now in the
Museum at Le Mans. The British Museum likewise contains two or three
fine examples; and among them an enamelled plate representing Henry
of Blois, Bishop of Winchester, and brother of King Stephen.
Very fine also are the extant products of the goldsmith’s art in the
middle ages; which date principally from the eleventh century, when
the art received a new impulse in the West; those of earlier date,
with very few exceptions, now cease to exist. They are principally
chalices, reliquaries, censers, candlesticks, croziers and
statuettes.
Nor can I pass over in absolute silence the armour of the middle
ages. Until the middle of the ninth century it would appear to have
resembled the Roman fashion, of which it is needless to say
anything; but in Carlovingian times the hilts and scabbards of
dress-swords were very highly decorated; and about this period, or
rather later, the description of armour used by the ancients was
exchanged for the hauberk or coat of mail, which was the most usual
defensive armour during the period of the Crusades. The first
authentic monument where this mail-armour is represented is on the
Bayeux tapestry of Queen Matilda, representing the invasion of
England by William Duke of Normandy in 1066; the most famous example
of medieval tapestry in existence, though other specimens are to be
seen at Berne, Nancy, La Chaise Dieu, and Coventry. The art of the
_tapissier_, however, in the eleventh century, when the Bayeux
tapestry was made, would appear to have been on the decline. In the
beginning of the fourteenth century plate-armour began to come into
use; and by and by this was decorated with Damascene work, a style
of art applied to the gate of a basilica in Rome, which was sent
from Constantinople, as early as the eleventh century, but which did
not become general in the West till the fifteenth. To this I may
just add, that sepulchral brasses, on which figures in armour are
often elaborately represented by incised lines, are a purely
medieval invention of the thirteenth century. Sir Roger de
Trumpington’s brass at Trumpington is one of the very earliest
examples. But time forbids me to say more of sepulchral brasses, a
class of antiquities almost confined to our own country, of which we
have some few specimens as late as the seventeenth century, or to do
more than allude to the beautiful sepulchral monuments in stone of
the medieval period, with which we are all more or less familiar.
The most remarkable art to which the middle age gave birth was
oil-painting, the very queen of all the fine arts, though it was to
the age of the Medici that its immense development was due.
Previously painting had been subordinated to architecture; but now,
while mosaics, frescoes, and painted glass remained still
subservient to her, the art of painting occupies a distinct and
prominent rank of its own. It used commonly to be said that the
invention of painting on prepared panel was due to Margaritone of
Arezzo, who died about 1290, and in like manner that John van Eyck
invented oil-painting in 1410. Both these errors have been
propagated by the authority of Vasari. But it is now well known, and
has been conclusively proved, both by M. Labarte and by Sir C.
Eastlake, that these modes of painting are mentioned by authors who
lived more than a century before Margaritone, in particular by the
monk Theophilus, who in the twelfth century composed a work entitled
_Diversarum artium schedula_. Paintings in oil either are or lately
were in existence anterior to John van Eyck; for example one at
Naples, executed by Filippo Tesauro, and dated 1309. We must ascend
to much earlier times to discover the true origin of portable
paintings, and we shall find it in the Byzantine Empire. The Greeks,
about the time that the controversy respecting images was rife,
multiplied little pictures of saints; these were afterwards brought
over in abundance by the priests and monks who followed the
crusades, and from the study of them, schools of painting in tempera
arose in Italy, in the twelfth century, at Pisa, Florence and other
places. The Byzantine school, M. Labarte tells us, reigned paramount
in Italy until the time of Giotto, _i.e._ the beginning of the
fourteenth century, and also in the schools of Bohemia and Cologne,
the most ancient in northern Europe, until towards the end of the
fourteenth century. In this country we have two very early
paintings, one of the beginning and the other of the end of the same
fourteenth century, in Westminster Abbey. The former, probably a
decoration of the high altar, is on wood; it represents the
Adoration of the Magi and other Scriptural subjects, and is declared
by Sir C. Eastlake to be worthy of a good Italian artist of the
fourteenth century, though he thinks that it was executed in
England. The latter is the canopy of the tomb of Richard II. and
Anne, his first wife, representing the Saviour and the Virgin and
other figures. The action and expression are declared by Sir C.
Eastlake to indicate the hand of a skilful painter. In 1396, £20 was
paid by the sacrist for the execution of the work. These remarks
must suffice for a notice of medieval painting; the glorious period
of its history belongs rather to the Renaissance, or post-medieval
age.
The only archæological monuments of great importance which remain to
be mentioned are those of architecture, in connection with the
accessories of mosaics, frescoes, and painted glass. The two former
descended from classical times, the last is the creation of the
middle age. Mosaics having been originally used only in pavements,
at length were employed as embellishments for the walls of
basilicas, and, by a natural transition, of churches. Constantine
and his successors decorated many churches in this manner, and in
the East a ground of gold or silver was introduced below the glass
cubes of the mosaics, and a lustre was by this means spread over the
work which in earlier times was altogether unknown. Thus the
tympanum above the principal door of the narthex of the Church of St
Sophia, built by the Emperor Justinian at Constantinople, is adorned
with a mosaic picture of the Saviour seated, the cubes of the
mosaics being of silvered glass; it is accompanied by Greek texts.
This and other later mosaics are figured by M. Labarte, in his last
and most splendid work, entitled _Histoire des Arts au moyen âge_;
among the rest a Transfiguration of the tenth century. The Byzantine
art, with its stiff conventionality, prevailed every where till
Cimabue, G. Gaddi, and Giotto imparted to its rudeness a grace and
nobleness which marked a new era. In the vestibule of St Peter is a
noble mosaic, partly after the design of Giotto, representing Christ
walking on the water, and the apostles in the ship. But the very
masters who raised the art to its perfection brought about its
destruction. Painting, restored by these same great men, was too
powerful a rival; and after the sixteenth century, when it still
flourished in Venice under the encouragement of Titian, we hear
little more of mosaics on any great scale.
Passing over frescoes, which were much encouraged by Charlemagne,
and by various sovereigns and popes during the middle ages, because
the ravages of time have either destroyed them altogether or left
them in a deplorable condition, as for example in some
parish-churches in England, I will make a few remarks on painted
glass, so extensively used in the decoration of the later churches.
The art of painting glass was unknown to the ancients, and also to
the early periods of the middle ages. “It is a fact,” says M.
Labarte, “acknowledged by all archæologists, that we do not now know
any painted glass to which an earlier date than the eleventh century
can be assigned with certainty.” Two specimens, and no more, of this
century, are figured by _M. Lasteyrie_. The painted windows of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries are nearly of the same character.
They consist of little historical medallions, distributed over
mosaic grounds composed of coloured (not painted) glass, borrowed
from preceding centuries. Fine examples from the church of St Denys
and La Sainte Chapelle at Paris, of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries, are figured by M. Lasteyrie, and also by M. Labarte, who
has many beautiful remarks on their harmony with the buildings to
which they belong, on the elegance of their form, the richness of
their details, and the brilliancy of their colours. In the
fourteenth century, when examples become common, the glass-painters
copied nature with more fidelity, and exchanged the violet-tinted
masses, by which the flesh-tints had been rendered, for a reddish
gray colour, painted upon white glass, which approached more nearly
to nature. Large single figures now often occupy an entire window.
The improvement in drawing and colouring is a compensation for the
more striking effects of the brilliant yet mysterious examples of
the preceding centuries; and the end of the fourteenth century is
one of the finest epochs in the history of painted glass. Painting
on glass followed the progress of painting in oils in the age which
followed; and artists more and more aimed at producing individual
works; and in the latter half of the fifteenth century buildings and
landscapes in perspective were first introduced. The decorations
which surround the figures being borrowed from the architecture of
the time have often a very beautiful effect. But the large
introduction of _grisailles_ deprives the windows of this period of
the transparent brilliancy of the coloured mosaics of the earlier
glass-painting. In the sixteenth century, however, glass was nothing
more than the material subservient to the glass-painter, like canvas
to the oil-painter. Small pictures very highly finished were
executed after the designs of Michael Angelo, Raffaelle, and the
other great painters of the Renaissance. “But,” as M. Labarte truly
says, “the era of glass-painting was at an end. From the moment that
it was attempted to transform an art of purely monumental decoration
into an art of expression, its intention was perverted, and this led
of necessity to its ruin. The resources of glass-painting were more
limited than those of oil, with which it was unable to compete. From
the end of the sixteenth century the art was in its decline, and
towards the middle of the seventeenth was” almost “entirely given
up.” Our own age has seen its revival, and though the success has
been indeed great, we may hope that the zenith has not yet been
reached. “It is,” says Mr Winston, “a distinct and complete branch
of art, which, like many other medieval inventions, is of universal
applicability, and susceptible of great improvement.” I have been a
little more diffuse on glass-painting than on some other subjects,
as it is a purely medieval art, and one which has now acquired a
living interest. Various examples of the different styles will
easily suggest themselves to many, or, if not, they may be studied
in the splendid work of M. Lasteyrie, entitled _Histoire de la
Peinture sur Verre d’après ses monuments en France_, and on a
smaller scale in Mr Winston’s valuable _Hints on Glass-painting_.
With regard to the architectural monuments of the medieval world, I
may, in addressing such an audience, consider them to be
sufficiently well known for my present purpose, which is to give an
indication, and little more, of the archæological remains which have
come down to our own days. Medieval architecture is in itself a
boundless subject; and as I have not specially studied it, I could
not, if I would, successfully attempt an epitome of its various
forms of Byzantine, Saracenic, Romanesque, Lombardic, and of
infinitely diversified Gothic. For a succinct yet comprehensive view
of all these and more, I must refer you to Mr Fergusson’s _Handbook
of Architecture_. Yet when we let our imagination idly roam over
Europe, and the adjoining regions of Asia and Africa, what a host of
architectural objects flits before it in endless successions of
variety and beauty! Think of Justinian’s Church of St Sophia, which
he boasted had vanquished Solomon’s temple, and again of St Mark’s
at Venice, as Byzantine examples. Think next of the mosque of the
Sultan Hassan, and of the tombs of the Memlooks mingled with lovely
minarets and domes at Cairo; of the Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem;
of the Alhambra in Spain, with all the witchery of its gold and
azure decorations. Float, if you will, along the banks of the Rhine
or the Danube (as many of us have actually done), and conjure up the
majestic cathedrals, the spacious monasteries and the ruined
castles, telling of other days, with which they are fringed. Let the
bare mention of the names of Milan, Venice, Rome; again of Paris,
Rheims, Chartres, Amiens, Troyes, Rouen, Avignon; and in fine those
of Antwerp, Louvain, and Brussels, suggest their own stories. Yet
the magnificent structures, secular and ecclesiastical, which I have
either named or hinted at, need not make us ashamed of our own
country. We are surrounded on all sides by an archæology which is
emphatically an archæology of progress, and we may justly be proud
of it as Englishmen. In this University and its immediate
neighbourhood we have fine specimens of Saxon, Norman, Early
English, Decorated, and Perpendicular styles of Gothic architecture;
and as regards the last of them, one of the most splendid examples
in the world. In the opinion of competent judges the English
cathedrals, while surpassed in size by many on the Continent, are in
excellence of art superior to those of France or of any country in
Europe. “Nothing can exceed the beauty of the crosses which Edward
I. erected on the spots where the body of Queen Eleanor rested on
its way to London.” Some of these, Waltham for example, are quite
equal to anything of their class found on the Continent. “The vault
of Westminster Abbey” (says Mr Fergusson, on whose authority I make
almost every statement relating to medieval architecture) “is richer
and more beautiful in form than any ever constructed in France;” the
triforium is as beautiful as any in existence; and its
appropriateness of detail and sobriety of design render it one of
the most beautiful Gothic edifices in Europe.
I thus conclude my sketch, such as it is, of the archæology of the
world. Its aim has been to bring under review the rude implements
and weapons of primeval man; the colossal structures of civilised
man in Egypt and India; the strangely-compounded palace-sculptures
of Assyria and Babylonia; the exquisitely ornamented columns of
Persian halls; the massive architecture of Phœnicia; the Gothic-like
rock-tombs of Lycia; the lovely temples, and incomparable works of
art of every kind, great and small, of Greece; the military impress
of Roman conquest; the medieval works of art in ivory, in enamel, in
glass-painting, as well as its glorious architectural remains,
connecting the middle ages with our own times. It has been drawn, as
I observed at the outset, under very adverse circumstances, and must
on that account venture to sue for much indulgence. It is open, no
doubt, to many criticisms: I expect to be charged with grievous sins
of omission, and perhaps of commission also: nor do I suppose that I
could entirely vindicate myself from such charges. Worse than all
perhaps, I have exposed myself to the unanswerable sarcasm that I
have talked about many subjects of which I know but little. If,
however, I have been able to compile from trustworthy sources or
manuals so much respecting those particular branches of archæology
which I have not studied, as to bring before you their salient
features in an intelligible manner, that is enough for my purpose. I
want no more, and I pretend to no more; and I am conscious enough
that even this purpose has been but feebly accomplished.
Tediousness, indeed, in dealing with numerous details could hardly
be altogether avoided; but this is so much lighter a fault than an
indulgence in mere platitudes, running smoothly and amusingly, but
emptily withal, that I shall hear your verdict of _guilty_ with
composure.
It now only remains that I should very briefly point out what
qualifications are necessary for an archæologist, and also the
pleasure and advantage which result from his pursuits.
With regard to the first of these matters, the qualifications
necessary for an archæologist, they are to some considerable extent
the same as are necessary for a naturalist.
Like the naturalist, the antiquary must in the first place bring
together a large number of facts and objects. This is, no doubt, a
matter of great labour, but believe me, ‘_labor ipse voluptas_.’ The
labour is its own ample reward. The hunting out, the securing, and
the amassing facts and objects of antiquity, or of natural history,
are the field-sports of the learned or scientific Nimrod. In a
certain sense every archæologist _must_ be a collector; he must be
mentally in possession of a mass of facts and objects, brought
together either by himself or by others. It is not absolutely
necessary that he should be a collector, in the sense of being owner
of a collection of his objects of study; in some departments indeed
of archæology to amass the objects themselves is impossible: who,
for instance, can collect Roman roads or Gothic cathedrals? models,
plans, and drawings, are the only substitutes possible. But, with
the facts relating to his favourite objects, and also as much as
possible with the objects themselves, he must be familiar.
Yet this familiarity will not be enough to make him an archæologist.
Such knowledge may be possessed, and very often is possessed, by a
mere dealer in antiquities. The true antiquary must not only be well
acquainted with his facts, but he must also, when there are
sufficient data, proceed to reason upon them. He puts them together,
and considers what story they have to render up. We saw a beautiful
illustration of this in the joint labours of the Scandinavian
antiquaries and naturalists. The order and sequence of the stone,
bronze, and iron ages, were distinctly made out; and even their
chronology may one day be discovered. The antiquary is enabled to
form some judgment of the civilisation, the arts, and the religion
of the nations whose remains he studies. Very often, as in the Roman
series of coins, he makes out political events in their history, and
assigns their dates. He determines the place of things in the
historical series, much as the naturalist does in the natural
series.