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.
[TN: no footnote marker in the text for this footnote]
De Mély and Bishop, _Bibliographie générale des
inventaires imprimés_, 1892-95.
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 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.
[35] Bateson (M.), _Mediæval England_, p. 13.
[36] _Ibid._, p. 148.
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 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.
[37] Published by the Society of Antiquaries in 1789. pp. 332-353.
[38] Rymer, _Foedera_, II, 1, pp. 203-205.
[39] _Kalendars and Inventories of the Exchequer_, III, p. 137.
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. 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.
[40] See list of his jewels in _Inventories of the Exchequer_, III,
p. 166, and his Great Wardrobe Accounts (_Archæologia_, XXXI, p. 55).
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:--
Hir knives were ychaped not with bras
But all with silver wrought ful clene and wel
Hir girdeles and hir pouches every del.
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 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 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.
[Illustration: _PLATE XV_ WILLIAM OF WYKEHAM'S JEWELS NEW COLLEGE,
OXFORD]
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, 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 (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.
[Illustration: Interior of a jeweller's shop. From _Kreuterbuch_
(Frankfort, 1536).]