THE GLASS OF VENICE—THE ORIGINS—BEADS
Before taking up the subject of Venetian glass, it will be well to say
something of another early Italian centre of the industry. It is only
of recent years that the important part played in the sixteenth century
by the glass-workers from L’Altare, in spreading the new methods
through France and the low countries, has been made manifest.
L’ALTARE is a little Ligurian town, situated a few miles to the north
of Savona. It belonged in the Middle Ages to the Marquis of Montferrat,
and the relation of that family both with France and with the East
should not be forgotten in this connection. According to the local
tradition, the glass industry was established as far back as the
eleventh century by a body of immigrants from Normandy, and a French
origin has been found for the names of the families employed in the
glass-works.[126] At a later date, probably in the fourteenth century,
other workmen came from Murano, so that when by the end of the
fifteenth century the skilled glass-workers of L’Altare began to seek
employment in foreign countries, they became the principal agency by
which the newer methods of the Venetians were introduced into Northern
Europe. These Altarists must indeed have been a thorn in the side of
their Muranese rivals, for, abandoning the stringent regulations by
which the Venetian government sought to hinder the emigration of their
glass-workers, at L’Altare the self-elected consuls of the craft farmed
out their men to foreign states and towns, receiving a substantial
payment in return.[127]
I do not know of any specimens of glass, either of mediæval or
renaissance date, that can be attributed with certainty to the town. At
the present day, however, L’Altare is an active centre of the glass
industry. Signor Bordoni gives a list of thirteen old families—he
himself belongs to one of them—who still carry on the craft. These
houses have agencies all over Northern Italy and even in South America.
Glass has been made at Venice, or more strictly at Murano, for at least
seven hundred years; but what we especially think of as Venetian
glass—the graceful vessels of endless variety of form, thin and
diaphanous, in which the skill of the glass-blower attains its most
complete expression—these were the produce of a comparatively short
period, of the sixteenth century above all. During the last fifty or
sixty years of the preceding century the Venetians in their enamelled
glass were able to give expression to the spirit of the quattro-cento,
but of the glass that was made before that time practically nothing is
known. After the end of the sixteenth, or at latest the middle of the
next century, the art enters into a period of gradual decline, which
continued until the partial revival of our own day. But before that
decline had set in, Venetian glass-workers had spread over Western
Europe, and had revolutionised the art of glass-making. The history of
modern glass begins with that of the Venetian _cristallo_ in the
sixteenth century.
It is to the Venetian archives that one must turn for information if
the attempt be made to trace the early history of the glass industry of
that city, and these archives have been explored by a succession of
native inquirers.[128]
For the earlier periods the negative evidence is of some importance.
There is no reference of any kind to the manufacture of glass before
the thirteenth century,[129] although by this time a great part of the
interior of St. Mark’s had been covered with mosaics. Like the enamels
of the Pala D’Oro, we may probably look upon the earlier Venetian
mosaics as of Byzantine origin. After the capture of Constantinople in
1204, the Venetians obtained a firmer grip upon the trade of the
Eastern Mediterranean. Their factories had long been established on the
coast of Syria. ‘When Sidon fell,’ says Mr. Horatio F. Brown, ‘the
Venetians received from Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, in return for their
assistance, a market-place, a district, and a church. This was in fact
the nucleus of a colony living under special treaty capitulations’
(_Cambridge Renaissance_, vol. i.). This happened early in the twelfth
century. I shall have something to say later on concerning the
relations of the Venetians with the Latin principalities of Northern
Syria towards the end of the next century, when the republic engaged to
pay the ‘_dhime_’ for the broken glass that they exported. It was
during this period, and under such influences, that the manufacture of
glass was established in the republic.[130]
Early in the thirteenth century there is evidence of the existence of a
guild of glass-blowers. In 1224, twenty-nine members of the _Ars
Friolaria_ were fined for breaking the rules of the trade. In 1268, the
chronicler Martius da Cavale tells us, the _maestri vitrai Muranesi_,
on the accession of the Doge Lorenzo Tiepolo, bore in procession
‘_ricche girlande di perle ... e guastade ed oricanni ed altrettali
vetrami gentili_’: water-bottles and scent-flasks and other such
graceful objects of glass.
In 1279 we hear of German pedlars at Venice—_Todeschi qui portant
vitra ad dorsum_—but each man was only permitted to carry off ten lire
worth of glass at a time.
Meantime, as in other mediæval towns, the question of allowing
dangerous trades to be carried on within the city bounds became a
pressing one at Venice. The newly constituted _Maggior Consiglio_—it
was soon after the famous _firmata_—issued a decree ‘_quod fornaces de
vitro in quibus laborantur laboraria vitrea_’ should be all destroyed
within the state and see of the Rivo Alto. But this apparently was
found to be too extreme a measure, for in the next year the decree was
modified so as to allow of the manufacture of small objects
(_Verixelli_—the French _verroterie_) in little furnaces (_fornelli_)
under certain conditions, and this modified regulation remained in
force until the eighteenth century. The privileged position of Murano,
which lay outside the see of Venice, was thus firmly established.
About this time, too, we hear of furnaces worked by expatriated
Venetians at Treviso, Ferrara, Padua, and Bologna, where factories had
been already established, sometimes under treaty with Venice. It will
be remembered that as yet the republic had no territory on the mainland
of Italy.
There have been some differences of opinion as to what kind of glass
was produced at this time in Venice—in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries, I mean. Without prejudging the question as to whether
anything in the nature of enamelled glass was yet known, we have
evidence for the following statements:—that the preparation of various
descriptions of beads constituted at that time, as indeed it has ever
since, the main staple of the industry; that in the second place, the
blowing of hollow ware for general use already gave occupation to a
separate guild of workmen; and that finally the members of both these
guilds, together with the makers of the _rui_—the little panes of
thick green glass (similar to our ‘bull’s eyes’) still to be seen in
the windows of many old palaces in Venice—were devoting themselves to
perfecting certain new discoveries. These related above all to the
manufacture of mirrors of glass, backed with lead, of which I have
already said something. Again, the making of lenses, the _oglarii di
vitro_ or _lapides ad legendum_, now became a distinct industry. It was
at this time (for instance in the year 1300) that we find the
_Cristallai di Cristallo di Rocca_ complaining of the competition of
the glass-makers. These carvers and polishers of rock crystal were
already established as an important guild in Venice; they looked upon
the glass-workers as intruders. On the other hand, the efforts of the
latter to imitate the nobler material had no doubt an important bearing
on the development of Venetian glass, for it was as a consequence of
their success in making an absolutely white transparent ‘metal’ that
the Venetian glass-makers first acquired a European fame. It was this
_cristallo di Venezia_ that revolutionised at a later time the glass of
Europe. At an early date, in spite of edicts forbidding its sale to the
_Todeschi_, the unworked material, _en masse_, found its way into
Germany, there to be worked up after remelting. Already in the
fourteenth century the water-power of Alpine streams had been applied
to the grinding and polishing of glass, as, for example, at Cortina
d’Ampezzo in the Italian Tyrol. The glass-makers at the same time, or a
little later, came into competition with the carvers of jasper and
agate, which stones they imitated by means of ingenious combinations of
coloured glass (_smalti_).
[Illustration:
_PLATE XXVIII_
VENETIAN GLASS. THE ALDREVANDINI BEAKER
CIRCA 1300, A.D.]
So far there is no evidence that the newly developed art of enamelling
on glass had passed from the Syrian coast to the Lagoons. The Venetian
glass-makers were still working on other lines, and with other aims. In
view, however, of the close commercial intercourse of the Venetians
with the coast cities of Syria,[131] we may well imagine that some
attempts were made to imitate the brilliant enamels of the East. But
the successful handling of these colours was not a matter to be easily
learned. There were as yet no handbooks to teach the composition of the
coloured fluxes, to say nothing of the various devices and ‘wrinkles’
to be mastered before the enamels could be successfully applied to the
surface of the glass. In the Aldrevandini beaker in the British Museum
we may perhaps see an attempt to overcome these difficulties. The
‘metal’ itself is here quite of a Venetian type, thin and absolutely
white, although disfigured by the black specks so characteristic of
early Venetian glass. There is no trace of Oriental influence in the
decoration; the three heater-shaped shields have charges—keys,
antlers, and fesses—that have been traced back to certain Swabian
towns, but the inscription in Gothic letters—✠ MAGISTER ALDREVANDIN’
ME FECI—points to a Venetian origin. On the ground of the heraldry and
of the inscription, a date of about the year 1300 may be ascribed to
this goblet. The enamels, it should be noted, are of the poorest
description; all the well-known Saracenic colours are imitated, it is
true, but with a striking want of success.
Compare with this goblet the cup from the Hope collection that stands
near it in the Glass Room. The glass is thicker than in the last
example, it is of a slightly greenish tint, and contains a few
elongated bubbles. The decoration is in its way masterly: on either
side of a throne on which is seated the Virgin with the Child in her
lap, stands an angel holding a tall candle; beyond are the figures of
St. Peter and St. Paul. As to the style of the decoration, it is to my
mind distinctly Western; the figures might be taken from a French
missal of the thirteenth century. The _Arte Francisca_ was no doubt
coming into favour in Venice at this time, but even in the fourteenth
century it was regarded as something exotic, and I doubt if it was as
yet practised by Venetian craftsmen who, in the minor arts, long
adhered to Byzantine models. When we come to examine the technique of
the enamels, we are at once struck with their resemblance to those on
the Saracenic glass of the period. We have here the work of one who was
master of his craft; above all, the quality of the blue enamel should
be noted and compared with that on the Aldrevandini goblet.
I think, then, that both the glass and enamel of this cup are the work
of Syrian craftsmen, possibly working at Venice, but more probably at
the court of one of the Frankish princes who held fiefs in Syria during
the thirteenth century,—at that of Bohemond VI. possibly, prince of
Antioch and Count of Tripoli, or of his son Bohemond VII., who
celebrated his marriage with a noble lady from Champagne only a few
years before his expulsion by the Saracens. It was in 1277, under the
rule of the former, that the treaty was drawn up that contains the
often-quoted—and misquoted—words, ‘_Et si Venitien trait verre brizé
de la vile, il est tenuz de payer le dhime._’ What is more likely than
that such a goblet may have been made by some Jewish or perhaps
Christian glass-worker for a nobleman of this thoroughly French
court?[132]
Such an origin may help to account for the fact, otherwise somewhat
difficult to explain, that this goblet is a unique example of its
class. If the Venetians of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were
complete masters of the art of enamel, how comes it that no other
example of the art at all comparable in excellence to this glass has
come down to us? No one, I think, now believes in the Venetian origin
of the _hanap de voirre en façon de Damas_, of the glass vessels _de
l’ouvrage de Damas_, or _peintes à la morisque_ mentioned in the
inventories of the French princes of the fourteenth century. These were
evidently decorated in an Oriental style. We must also remember that
before the end of the thirteenth century the Christian rulers were
finally driven out of Syria; there was therefore only a brief period
during which such a goblet decorated with Christian motives could have
been made in the East.
When some century and a half later the Venetians began freely to
decorate their glass with enamels, we note an entire change both in the
colours and in the nature of the fluxes used. To this point I shall
return later on, but I may call attention here to the almost total
absence of Oriental influence in the designs found on the Venetian
enamelled glass of the fifteenth century. This is the more remarkable
when we remember that at this time as regards other arts—their inlaid
metal-ware and the stamped leather of their bookbindings, to give but
two instances—not only is this influence strong, but we know that
Oriental craftsmen were at work at Venice. I think that one simple
explanation may be given of this apparent anomaly, namely, that by the
time the Italians took to the practice of enamelling their glass, that
art was practically extinct in the East.
It was during the course of the fourteenth century apparently that the
glass-workers organised themselves into separate guilds or _arti_,
governed by the rules set out on the _Matricola_ or _Mariegola_. It is
from these _matricole_ that the little we know of the Venetian glass of
this time is derived.[133] The glass-workers now obtained many
important privileges, and the town of Murano was granted a considerable
measure of self-government; but it was not till the year 1445 that
these rights were fully established. Each _arte_ was governed by an
elected _guastoldo_, assisted by three superintendents, to whom it fell
among other duties to bring the petitions and complaints of the
glass-workers before the Great and the Lesser Council at Venice. Not
the least important duty of the _guastoldo_ and his lieutenants or
_compagni_ was the periodical selection of the proof-pieces—the
_prove_—to be made by the apprentices of the various _arti_ before
they could claim rank as masters. These tasks were inscribed in the
_Mariegole_, and from them Signor Cecchetti, in his often-quoted paper,
has extracted many examples. To give an instance: the _Maestri di
Rulli_ (_Rui_, small window-panes) had among other things to make ‘_due
occhi di bo_,’ an early instance of the term ‘bull’s eyes.’ But the
technical terms employed in most cases render the interpretation very
difficult. Some of the strange-shaped vases in our collections may not
improbably be examples of such proof-pieces.
After this time the working year—the period during which the furnaces
were kept constantly alight—was confined to nine months; this was
afterwards prolonged to forty-four weeks. There was, however, plenty of
work to do during the summer vacation, which ended on October 1, for
the furnaces had now to be repaired if not rebuilt.
The number of separate _arti_ or guilds appears to have varied, and it
was not till the fifteenth century perhaps that the divisions that were
maintained until the last days of the republic were finally
established. But at an early date the _fialai_ and _cristallai_ were
separated from the _specchiai_ or mirror-makers on the one hand, and on
the other from the _perlai_—the bead-makers, more especially the
makers of the ‘canes’ and pastes for beads; a fourth guild, too, was
already established for the _stazioneri_, or retail vendors of glass.
At a later date the _perlai_ were separated into two guilds, of which
one included the makers of _conterie_, the ordinary beads of commerce,
while the other comprised, besides the makers of the _canne_ for the
large beads, those who prepared enamels in cakes for exportation. When
we call to mind that, apart from these latter purely Muranese guilds,
whose members were chiefly concerned with the preparation of the
materials, the actual makers of the beads lived for the most part under
separate organisation at Venice, it will be evident what an important
part the bead industry has played in that city. The government probably
encouraged the subdivision of labour, which made it more difficult for
single workmen to establish glass-works in foreign countries.
In fact, the manufacture and export of beads have at all times formed
the very backbone of the Venetian glass industry. We cannot trace this
trade further back than the beginning of the fourteenth century—by
means, that is, of definite documentary evidence—but by that time a
fleet of galleys was yearly despatched, on the one hand to the Black
Sea, on the other to Flanders and the Thames; subsidiary centres for
distribution were established at the principal ports, and these beads
already form an important element in the cargo.
Unlike the larger articles of blown glass, the strings of beads were in
every way convenient articles of commerce, easily packed and easily
valued and counted. So much was this the case that the name
_conterie_[134] (compare our word ‘counters’) was early adopted as a
general term for the commoner kinds of beads.
Our English tongue is above all poor in words that can be used in the
description of works of art. For apt expressions with which to indicate
specialities of manufacture, varieties of shape or shades of colour,
recourse must continually be had, however unwillingly on the part of
the writer, to the French language. But in one case, at least, we have
our revenge. We possess in the word ‘bead’[135] a convenient term, of
which the exact equivalent, strangely enough, exists in no other
language. Nothing can be more inconvenient and more likely to lead to
misconception than the use of the word ‘pearl,’ or ‘false pearl,’ in
this general sense, and yet no term more definite has been found in
either the French or the German language. In Italian the use of the
term _conterie_ is confined to certain classes of beads. The only
fault, from our point of view, to be found with our English word is
that it may be applied to objects made of other materials than glass. A
term of very similar origin—‘paternosters’—was formerly employed for
a certain class of large beads in France and Italy, but the use of it
has never become general.
We have seen that towards the end of the thirteenth century the
_cristallai di cristallo di rocca_ fell foul of the glass-workers of
Murano, and induced the authorities to forbid the imitation of their
work in the inferior material. Not the least important of the
productions of these workers in rock crystal and other hard stones were
the beads for use in the rosaries (to use a word of later
introduction)—the _paternostri_.
We know, too, that some such prohibition as that referred to was
revoked in 1510; and the ground for this change of policy is found in
the fact that for some time the Germans had been in the habit of
carrying to their own country the ‘canes’[136] of glass, which they
there cut and polished to form _paternostri_. These beads, re-imported
into Venice, found their way ultimately to all parts of the world.
The Venetians, we must remember, at an early date, long before they had
acquired territory on the mainland, had established factories at
Treviso, at Belluno, and along the upper course of the river Piave. It
is probable that advantage was taken of the abundant water-power to
establish in these towns mills for the grinding and cutting of their
glass. This industry, forbidden for a time at Murano, may have been
carried on in a more or less clandestine manner.[137] It was through
this country, too, that the German traders passed, and a link between
the trans-Alpine and the Italian glass industries was thus early formed.
The starting-point in the manufacture of beads is a rod or cane of
glass: according as this cane is hollow or solid, the manufacture is
carried on by radically distinct methods.
In the case of the hollow cane or tube, we start from a ‘gathering’ at
the end of the blowing-iron; this gathering is slightly inflated to
form an incipient _paraison_, and a rod of iron is attached to the
further extremity. This rod is seized by a boy—the _tirador_—who runs
with it at full speed so as to elongate the glass as much as possible
before it has time to cool; the thin tube, or _canna_, thus formed may,
it is said, be as much as 150 feet in length. This tube, broken into
rods of convenient lengths, then passes into the hands of another set
of workmen, living for the most part in Venice. The rods are now
carefully sorted, as to size, by women—the _cernatrici_—and handed
over to the cutter, who, seated at a bench, cuts off equal lengths by
passing the rod between a blade or chisel held in the hand, and a
similar tool fixed in the bench, the size of the fragments being
regulated by means of the _scontro_, a semi-cylindrical block of steel.
If the object was to manufacture the little cylindrical bugles or
_jais_, the bead—if so it may be called—is now completed. But in the
case of a normal bead, the edges had now to be rounded. With this
object the aperture of the little tubes had first to be filled with
some infusible substance; this was done by rolling them in the hand
with a finely ground mixture of lime and charcoal. They were now placed
along with a quantity of sand in a tubular iron receptacle, which was
rotated over the furnace.[138] By this means the angular edges were
rounded off. The beads were then sifted from the sand and shaken up in
a bag to remove the material with which the tubes had been plugged;
finally they were sorted into various sizes by means of a sieve, and,
in the case of spherical beads, those of irregular shape were
eliminated by rolling them on an inclined table. It only remained for
the _lustratori_ to give them a final polish by shaking them up in a
sack with bran.
This was the process adopted for the smaller beads—the
_conterie_—which, before packing, were threaded on a string by girls.
The larger _perle_, such as the _perle a rosette_, or chevron beads, of
which I shall speak presently, had to be ground into shape on the
wheel. Any ornament or design that appears on these beads depended of
course upon the constitution of the original _canna_. This was often
built up of a succession of layers of various colours, obtained by
dipping the first gathering into one or more pots of coloured glass,
before drawing it out to form a tube.
Beads made by this process belong strictly to the class of _blown_
glass. The other system which we will now describe takes us back to the
old primitive methods of glass-working. In this case we start from a
_solid_ rod of glass, which is manipulated in the hand of the workman
somewhat like a stick of sealing-wax. Seated at a table, he melts the
extremity of the _canna_ in the flame, directed away from him by means
of a blow-pipe, and twists the thread of viscid glass around a small
rod of iron.[139] By this or similar methods, not only beads but
various small objects of _verroterie_ are formed. The surface of these
may be subsequently decorated by means of _appliqué_ studs and
stringings of various coloured glass, or again, the half-fused
substance may be pressed into little moulds. The spun-glass also, so
much admired a few years since, is made from rods of glass melted in
the flame of the table blow-pipe.
This is the process of the _suppialume_, in which the Venetian workmen
acquired such skill in later days. It cannot be traced further back
than the end of the fifteenth century, and its invention is associated
with a certain Andrea Vidaore. The guild of the _suppialumi_ was only
finally constituted in 1648. If this process was really only introduced
at so comparatively late a date, we have here a curious instance of a
reversion to an old technique, for it is impossible to overlook the
points of resemblance between it and the manner in which the ancient
Egyptians built up their beads.[140]
It must be noted that the practical difference between the beads made
by the _suppialumi_ and those formed from hollow tubes, is not one of
size. Large or small beads may be formed by either process. It is,
rather, that in the first case the ornament is superficial—it is
something added to the surface of the bead. On the other hand, in beads
made from hollow tubes, the design, though limited in variety, is
carried through the whole bead. This is a distinction much appreciated
by native connoisseurs in Central Africa and elsewhere.
Among the beads made from hollow tubes there is one type, generally of
commanding size, which may perhaps claim some attention. I refer to the
great Chevron Beads, the _Perle a rosette_ of the Italians, _à propos_
of the origin and date of which a not insignificant literature has
accumulated. I treat of them here, as in by far the larger number of
instances, if not in all cases, these beads can be undoubtedly
recognised as of Venetian manufacture. These chevron beads have been
made from canes built up of concentric layers of coloured glass. They
have attracted exceptional attention from the fact that examples have
been found in so many widely separated parts of the world, and from
their possessing, in some cases, apparently well founded claims to
great age. The arrangement and the succession of the colours in the
glass is in every case practically identical. The canes from which they
were formed have been built up of three main concentric layers,
externally a deep cobalt blue, then an opaque brick red, and in the
centre a tube of pale green transparent glass; these main layers are
divided by thinner ones of opaque white glass, and the dividing
surfaces have been worked into a series of chevrons or zig-zags (these
chevrons are in all cases, I think, twelve in number) so as to present
a star-like pattern on a cross section. The only variations on this
general type are as follows: the chevrons are, in a few cases, dragged
laterally so as to resemble the teeth of a circular saw; the central
tube of transparent glass is sometimes divided by a zig-zag layer of
opaque white; and, very rarely, the external layer is green instead of
blue. In shape and size, however, these chevron beads show wide
divergences: in length they may vary from two and a half inches to as
little as a third of an inch, and the diameter, though generally less,
is in a few cases greater, than the length. The extremities in some of
the larger and presumably older specimens are facetted, that is to say,
ground down to a pyramidal form. What, however, we may call the normal
type, is of a cylindrical shape with rounded ends (Plate XV. 2).
These _perle a rosette_ are at the present day made at Murano for the
African market. When in the spring of 1903 I visited the glass-works of
the ‘Venice and Murano Company,’ I was shown by Signor Andrea Rioda
specimens both of these beads and of the canes from which they are
prepared; the company was at that time executing a large order from a
French firm, for the Congo. This work, however, is not generally
undertaken by the firms that make the ordinary _conterie_, for these
large beads have to be separately ground and polished on a wheel—an
important point, as we shall see. They have been made at Murano, the
local tradition affirms, from time without memory.
Quite recently, in the immediate neighbourhood of Treviso, a deposit of
these chevron beads has been discovered in a bank beside an open field;
‘bushel loads’ of fragments were extracted, but not a single perfect
bead. They were without exception broken fragments, not improbably
‘wasters,’ thrown aside possibly by those who were employed in grinding
them. Treviso, I may note, is a town of mills and swift-flowing
streams—in fact, the nearest point to Venice where abundant
water-power could be found. Unfortunately no light so far has been
thrown upon the age of this curious deposit.[141]
In general aspect, in the scheme of colour especially, there is
something unmistakably African about these chevron beads. To say
nothing of their exceptional size, they have little in common with any
other type of polychrome bead, whether Egyptian, classical, or from
Teutonic graves.
I may at once say that I consider these _perle a rosette_ as
essentially of Venetian origin, and made, above all, for the African
market. How the industry arose, and whether the Venetians in this
instance as in other cases took the place of earlier Byzantine or
Syrian glass-workers, there is nothing to show. We know that the
Alexandrians of Greek and Roman times, like the Phœnicians before them,
traded with the native races of Central Africa. These beads have
certainly been found in Egypt,[142] especially in Upper Egypt and
Nubia; it is even said that some of the Soudanese tribes have succeeded
in making passable imitations of them.
It must be remembered that the Venetians, at least in later times, did
not trade directly with inland and barbarous races. Their business was
to deliver their merchandise at certain seaport towns where they had
factories or agencies. The goods then fell into the hands of local
merchants who distributed them by caravans or sent them on coastways in
their ships. So the Arab traders of Egypt, reshipping the Venetian
wares at Suez or other ports of the Red Sea, would carry them in their
dhows to Zanzibar or India; and so again in later days the merchants of
Amsterdam and London, who held at times vast stores of Venetian beads,
distributed them in Dutch or English ships to the very extremities of
the world. The trade in beads was very active in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. At the present day, in the warehouses of Bevis
Marks and Houndsditch, there is probably accumulated a larger stock of
beads than in Venice itself.
So far we are on firm ground, nor is there anything surprising when we
are told that the large chevron beads have been found in Central
Africa,[143] in the South Sea Islands, and even in Canada and the
United States. But when we hear of examples being taken from Red Indian
grave-mounds and even from ancient Peruvian tombs, we feel some need of
hesitation before accepting the statement. So of the specimens found in
England, many of them are water-worn and have an air of the remotest
antiquity: they have been extracted from wells, from river-beds, and,
it is stated, from Anglo-Saxon graves. I may mention that these chevron
beads early attracted the attention of English antiquaries. Dr.
Stukeley, who had several in his possession, brings them up in his
disquisition on Druidical remains, and Bishop Gibson, as far back as
the beginning of the eighteenth century, figures them in his edition of
Camden’s _Britannia_. Gibson mentions that when he was opening a grave
(presumably Anglo-Saxon) at Ash, a worthy friend by way of jest placed
one of these _glain nidr_ or ‘serpent’s eggs’ among the genuine ancient
beads. I will not say with regard to this attempt at mystification—_ex
uno disce omnes_; but the story suggests an attitude of caution in the
case of other similar finds.
I cannot discuss this thorny question here, and must refer those
interested in such subjects as the _Glain Nidr_ or ‘Adder Beads of the
Druids,’ or again, the Breton _Ouef rouge du Serpent Marin_, to the
exhaustive paper by the late Mr. John Brent in the forty-fifth volume
of _Archæologia_.