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 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 Coeur 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]
[71] _Arch. Journ._, III, p. 76.
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
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--
... a broche of gold ful shene,
On whiche was first y-written a crouned A,
And after, _Amor vincit omnia_.
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 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).
[72] St. Luke, IV. 30.
[73] A Veronica, or Face of our Lord, frequently figured on
hat-ornaments. Thus: "A vernicle hadde he sewed upon his cappe"
(Chaucer, _Canterbury Tales_, l. 688). This jewel may perhaps have
been a hat-brooch.
[Illustration: _PLATE XX_ MEDIÆVAL BROOCHES (RING-BROOCHES, ETC.)]
Though comparatively many existing brooches are 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.
[74] Sometimes called (by metathesis) _fremailleurs_.
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 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.
[Illustration: _PLATE XXI_ MEDIÆVAL SCOTTISH BROOCHES
(THE GLENLYON AND LOCH BUY BROOCHES)]
In many cases the open space in the middle of the ring, as in modern
brooches, was filled up, and in the 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.
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.
[Illustration: A mediæval lapidary. From _Ortus Sanitatis_
(Strasburg, about 1497).]