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Presented to the
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO LIBRARY
by the
ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE LIBRARY
1980
ENGLISH JEWELLERY
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME
THE ARMOURER AND HIS CRAFT. BY CHARLES FFOULKES
DECORATIVE IRONWORK. By CHARLES FFOULKES
OLD PASTE. BY A. BERESFORD RYLEY
THE TOURNAMENT. BY R. COLTMAN CLEPHAN, F.S.A.
LUSTRE POTTERY. BY LADY EVANS, M.A.
CROME. BY C. H. COLLINS BAKER
PLATE A
EXAMKI.LED JEWELS OK THE RENAISSANCE
ENGLISH JEWELLERY
FROM THE FIFTH CENTURY A.D. TO 1800
e lp$& £
BY
JOAN EVANS, B.LITT.
LIBRARIAN OF ST. HUGH'S COLLEGE, OXFORD
WITH 34 PLATES
METHUEN & GO. LTD.
36 ESSEX STREET W.G.
LONDON
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£j\ LIBRARY (~t
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First Published in 1921
PREFACE
f "^O a book of this kind, conditioned in size by the I series in which it is published, certain definite limits
ot scope and scale must be set.
For the purposes of this book jewellery has been defined as including all ornaments of wrought or jewelled metal actually worn on the person. This definition excludes such jewelled objects as croziers, snuff-boxes, and the like, that are not worn but carried. Limits of time are also necessary, and for these the V century A.D. and the year 1800 have been chosen, as marking definite breaks in the artistic history of the country. For reasons of space a full consideration of the collars and badges of official rank and of the national Orders of Knighthood, and of Royal Crowns and other coronets, has been omitted. For the same reason there is no historical study of the English jewellers. The magical aspect of English jewellery has been considered in another work,1 and is here only in- cidentally mentioned.
The making of such a book as this depends to a great extent upon the kindness of the curators and officials of
1 Magical Jewels of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. (Clarendon Press.)
vi ENGLISH JEWELLERY
museums, and upon the generosity of private individuals in allowing jewels from their collections to be published. My thanks are due to the officials of the Mediaeval Department of the British Museum, the Metalwork Department of the Victoria and Albert Museum, the London Museum, the National Museum of Antiquities, Edinburgh; the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; the University Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Cambridge ; the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, Dublin; the Liverpool Museum ; the Nottingham Museum ; the Saffron Walden Museum ; and the Museo Poldi Pezzoli of Milan. Among private owners I have to thank His Majesty the King, the Duchess of Norfolk, the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke and Duchess of Portland, the Earl of Home, the Earl of Berkeley, Viscount Falkland, the Bishop of Limerick, Sir Arthur Evans, Lady Fuller-Eliott- Drake, Sir George Clerk, Lady Read, the Warden of New College, Oxford, Miss Shirley, Colonel Croft Lyons, Mrs. Penryn Milstead, Mrs. Pfungst, Mr. Dyson Perrins, Miss Reavill, Mr. Smith of Elham, Mr. Ayerst Buttery, and Messrs. S. J. Phillips. My thanks are due to Sir Hercules Read, Sir Martin Conway, Mr. C. F. Bell, Mr. Reginald Smith, Mr. Clifford Smith, Mr. Thurlow Leeds, Mr. G. McN. Rushforth, Mr. R. Goulding, librarian at Welbeck Abbey, and Mr. J. P. Mayne, librarian at Chatsworth, for information concerning objects in their care or help on points of detail ; to Dr. G. C. Williamson for a most generous gift of photographs of engraved
PREFACE vii
ornament ; and to Mr. Clifford Smith for the loan of Colour Plate B from his book on Jewellery, and for a photograph of the Poldi-Pezzoli Armada jewel.1 I owe Miss Margaret Jourdain many thanks for more than an editor's help.
JOAN EVANS
ST. HUGH'S COLLEGE OXFORD
1 Plate XIX, 7.
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION ......... xxvii
CHAPTBR
I. ANGLO-SAXON AND CELTIC JEWELLERY ..... i
II. ENGLISH JEWELLERY OF THE MIDDLE AGES . . . . .26
III. ENGLISH JEWELLERY OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE . . . .68
IV. ELIZABETHAN JEWELLERY ....... 87
V. ENGLISH JEWELLERY OF THE XVII CENTURY . . . .no
VI. ENGLISH JEWELLERY OF THE XVIII CENTURY . . . .139
INDEX .......... 157
IX
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PLATE A
ENAMELLED JEWELS OF THE RENAISSANCE
Reproduced from " Jewellery " by permission of H. Clifford Smith.
1. The Lennox or Darnley jewel, made by order of Lady Margaret Douglas in memory of her
husband Mathew Stuart, Earl of Lennox, d. 1571. Enamelled gold, set with a cabochon sapphire. Scottish, second half of the sixteenth century. (His Majesty the King, Windsor Castle.)
2. The Drake enseigne (" The Star Jewel ") presented to Sir Francis Drake by Queen Elizabeth.
Gold, enamelled in red and black, set with diamonds, rubies and opals ; the centre ruby is engraved with the royal orb and cross. Late sixteenth century. (Sir Francis Fuller-Eliott- Drake.)
3. Miniature case. Gold, enamelled and set with diamonds and rubies. It contain? a lock of the
hair of Charles I, taken from his coffin. Late sixteenth century. (His Majesty the King, Windsor Castle.)
4 & 6. The Armada jewel, believed to have been presented by Queen Elizabeth to Sir Francis Walsingham ; possibly the work of Nicholas Hilliard. Upon the front is a profile bust of Queen Elizabeth from the Personal or Garter badge of 1582 on a ground of blue enamel ; within is a miniature of Elizabeth by Hilliard, dated 1580. The lid is enamelled on the outside with the Ark and the motto " Saevas tranquilla per undas," and on the inside with the Tudor rose and " Hei mihi quod tanta virtus perfusa decors non habet eternos inviolata dies." The border is of openwork enamelled in blue and white studded with table diamonds and rubies, c. 1588. (Mr. Pierpont Morgan.) Reproduced by permission of Dr. Williamson acting on behalf of the executors of the late Mr. J. Pierpont Morgan, in accordance with Mr. Morgan's instructions. Copyright reserved.
5. The Drake pendant, presented by Queen Elizabeth to Sir Francis Drake in 1579. Gold, set with a cameo in Oriental sardonyx, with the head of a negro in the upper dark layer, and a classical head in the light layer behind. The setting is enamelled in red, yellow, blue and green, and set with rubies and diamonds, with a cluster of pearls and a pear pearl pendant. Behind the cameo is a miniature of Elizabeth by Hilliard, dated 1575. c. 1579. (Lady Fuller-Eliott-Drake.)
7. Back of the onyx George of Charles II. Painted enamel on gold, in the style of Bouquet. Middle of the seventeenth century. (His Majesty the King, Windsor Castle.)
xi
xii ENGLISH JEWELLERY
PLATE B LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CHATELAINES
(Smart Bequest, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. From autochromes by Miss Olive Edis.)
1. Watch and chatelaine. Gold, enamelled with figure subjects in natural colours, the watch with
Morland's Moralist within a circle of pearls, c. 1775.
2. Watch and chatelaine, by J. Schrapnel. Gold, threaded and set with pearls, the watch and
medallions of translucent purple enamel set with pearls and diamonds, c. 1770.
3. Watch and chatelaine, by Francis Perigal. Gold, with medallions of classical subjects in
grisaille enamel within borders picked out in white and translucent blue and green, c. 1750.
4. Watch and chatelaine, by Robert Atkins. Gold, with medallions of classical subjects in grisaille
enamel within borders of pearled white enamel on a ground of translucent orange, c. 1780.
5. Watch and chatelaine. Gold, enamelled in translucent green with borders of white and pale
blue, the watch set with a circle of pearls, c. 1775.
PLATE I
ANGLO-SAXON BROOCHES AND PINS
1. Square-headed fibula from Tuxford. Bronze, cast and incised. The lower part is in the shape
of a horse's head. The disc riveted to the bow is found on Scandinavian brooches of this type. Early seventh century. (B.M.)
2. Cruciform fibula from Sleaford. Bronze, cast and incised. Late sixth century. (B.M.)
3. Cruciform fibula from Mitchell's Hill, Icklingham. Bronze, cast and incised. Late sixth century.
(Ashmolean Museum.)
4. Saucer-shaped fibula from Frilford. Bronze gilt. Spiral decoration. Sixth century. (Ash-
molean Museum.)
5. Saucer-shaped fibula from near Abingdon. Bronze gilt. " Chip-carving " decoration. Sixth
century. (Ashmolean Museum.)
6. Linked pins from the river Witham, near Lincoln. Silver gilt. Incised interlaced decoration ;
perhaps a Celtic importation. Eighth century (B.M.).
PLATE II ANGLO-SAXON METAL WORK
1. Pendant. Gold, decorated with punched work and set with a garnet. Seventh century. (Ash-
molean Museum.)
2. The Sarre brooch. Silver, parcel gilt, decorated with punched work and three doves in the
round cast in silver. Middle of the sixth century. (B.M.)
3. Bracteate. Gold, stamped with an interlaced zoomorphic design with a human face in the
centre. Seventh century. (Ashmolean Museum.)
4. Buckle from Fairford. Bronze gilt, chased with zoomorphic ornament and set with an oblong
garnet. Seventh century. (Ashmolean Museum.)
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii
5. Disc from Alton Hall, Bottisham, Cambs. One of a pair, the other at Cambridge. Probably
used as a breast ornament. Gilt bronze, with interlaced and animal decoration, set with four ivory bosses with garnet centres. Middle of the seventh century. (Ashmolean Museum.)
6. Bracteate. Gold, stamped with interlaced and guilloche patterns. Seventh century. (Ash-
molean Museum.)
7. Bracteate from St. Giles's Fields, Oxford. Gold, stamped with a design derived from a Roman
coin. This pendant is probably of Saxon workmanship, but is of a type common in Scandi- navia. Middle of the sixth century. (Ashmolean Museum.)
8. Dagger pommel found near Windsor. Silver, with gold face decorated with filigree. Seventh
century. (Evans Collection, Ashmolean Museum.)
9. Disc fibula from Faversham. Bronze gilt, set with three garnets and an ivory boss with a
garnet centre. Seventh century. (Evans Collection, Ashmolean Museum.)
PLATE III
ANGLO-SAXON INLAID JEWELS
1. The Kingston brooch (front), found in a woman's grave at Kingston Down, Kent, in 1771.
The front is decorated with inlaid work of complex form in garnets over hatched foil and in dark blue pastes, with ivory bosses, and with gold filigree in debased animal patterns. Begin- ning of the seventh century. (Mayer-Faussett Collection, Liverpool Museum.)
2. Cross-shaped pendant from Ixworth. Gold, inlaid with garnets over hatched foil. Early
seventh century. (Evans Collection, Ashmolean Museum.)
3. The Kingston brooch, back. Gold, with a bronze pin, the head set with stones, decorated
with filigree. (Cf. Plate V, 4.) It is the only disc-fibula known with a geld back ; the orna- mental catch is paralleled on a fibula from Wittislingen.
4. Pendant from the King's Field, Faversham. Gold, decorated with filigree and birds' heads in
inlaid garnets. Seventh century. (B.M.)
5. Bead from Forest Gate, Essex. Gold, with garnet and blue paste inlays. Middle of the seventh
century. (Evans Collection, Ashmolean Museum.)
6. Disc-fibula from Faversham. Silver, with applied gold plate, decorated with filigree and inlaid
work in garnets and blue paste. Seventh century. (Ashmolean Museum.)
7. Reliquary cross found in 1827 on the body of St. Cuthbert in Durham Cathedral. Gold, decorated
with inlaid work in garnets. The central boss held a relic. Middle of the seventh century. (Durham Cathedral Library.)
PLATE IV ANGLO-SAXON JEWELS
1-3. The Alfred jewel, found in 1693 at Newton Park, three miles from the Isle of Athelney. Gold, the back engraved, set with a plaque of cloisonne enamel representing on a blue back- ground the half-length figure of a man in a green tunic, holding a flower in either hand. This is covered by a thick plate of crystal held in place by a gold fret of the letters " AELFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN " (Alfred ordered me to be made). The jewel ends in a socket in the form of a boar's head, decorated with granular filigree. Third quarter of the ninth century. (Ashmolean Museum.)
xiv ENGLISH JEWELLERY
2. The ring of Ethelswith, sister of Alfred and Queen of Mercia, found near Aberford, Yorks. Gold, with a circular bezel, decorated with an Agnus Dei within a quatrefoil in niello. Within is the legend " + EATHELSVITH REGNA." Late ninth century. (Franks Bequest, B.M.)
4. The Minster Lovel jewel, found near Minster Lovel, Oxon. Gold, set with a medallion of
cloisonne" enamel in opaque green and white, on a dark blue ground, in a setting of filigree. c. goo. (Ashmolean Museum.)
5. Pendant. Gold, with a pearled border, and a cruciform design in filigree with settings for
garnets. Eighth century. (Ashmolean Museum.)
6 Brooch. Found at Dowgate Hill. Cloisonne enamel in a border of gold filigree set with pearls. (? Lombardic.) Tenth century. (B.M.)
7. Pendant. Gold, with a pearled border and a rosette design in filigree, set with a garnet in the
centre. Seventh century. (Ashmolean Museum.)
8. Ring of Ethelwulf, King of Wessex, found in 1780 at Laverstock, near Salisbury. Gold, the
mitre-shaped bezel decorated with two peacocks on either side of a tree, and the inscription " EXHELVVLF R." on a ground of niello. Second quarter of the ninth century. (B.M.)
9. Ring found at Bossington. Gold, with a medallion of a man's head surrounded by the inscrip-
tion " NOMEN EHLLA FID IN xpo " (My name is Ella, my faith is in Christ) in a border of filigree. Ninth century. (Ashmolean Museum.)
10. Necklace found at Desborough, Northants. Seventeen barrel-shaped and two cylindrical
beads of spirally coiled gold wire, strung with nine circular pendants of gold with one side convex and the other flat, and eight pendants set with oval, square and triangular carbuncles in beaded settings. In the centre is an equal armed cross of gold. A similar necklace, without the cross, was found in a tumulus on Brassington Moor, Derbyshire. Middle of the seventh century. (B.M.)
11. Ring found in the Nene, near Peterborough. Gold, with two opposed bezels, each engraved with
three interlaced triangles, the shoulders ornamented " a trois grains."
PLATE V ANGLO-SAXON BUCKLES
1. Buckle from Faversham. Gold, with three gold bosses and decoration in filigree. Seventh
century. (B.M.)
2. Buckle from Faversham. Gold, with three gold bosses (one missing) and decoration in filigree,
the head of the buckle set with garnets. Seventh century. (B.M.)
3. Buckle from Faversham. Bronze and gold, with three bosses, the plate decorated with a line
of punching. Seventh century. (B.M.)
4. Buckle from the King's Field, Faversham. Gold, decorated with filigree. Cf. the back of the
Kingston brooch (Plate III, 3). Early seventh century. (B.M.)
5. Buckle from Taplow. Gold, with garnet inlays and filigree decoration. Early seventh century.
(B.M.)
6. Buckle from Crundale, Kent. Bronze gilt, with gold bosses, filigree decoration and inlays of
small garnets. The fish may be compared with those on jewelled fibulae from Jouy le Comte. Middle of the seventh century. (B.M.)
7. One of a pair of clasps from Taplow. Bronze gilt, with interlaced ornament. Early seventh
century. (B.M.)
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xv
PLATE VI CELTIC JEWELS
1-3. Rings of brooches of penannular form, but with the ring closed. Gilt bronze, set with amber.
I. c. 800 ; 2. Middle of the ninth century. (Collection of the Royal Irish Academy, National
Museum, Dublin.) 2. Ring found at Tipperary. Gold, the pointed bezel decorated with raised settings edged with
twisted and pearled wires, one of which still contains a garnet. ? Ninth century. (B.M.)
4. Ring of a penannular brooch. Gilt bronze, set with amber and decorated with filigree. Late
tenth century. (Collection of the Royal Irish Academy.)
5. Penannular brooch. Silver, decorated with raised bosses and pierced work. (Collection of the
Royal Irish Academy.)
PLATE VII THE TARA BROOCH (FRONT)
Found in 1850 on the beach near Bettystown, co. Louth. White bronze, heavily gilt, chased and decorated with recessed panels of gold filigree, cloisonne1 enamel, niello and inlaid stones. First half of the eighth century. (Collection of the Royal Irish Academy.)
PLATE VIII THE TARA BROOCH (BACK)
PLATE IX SCOTTISH AND IRISH BROOCHES
1. The Hunterston brooch. Found in 1826 on the estate of Mr. Robert Hunter, West Kilbride,
Ayrshire. Decorated with gold filigree and set with amber. The back is inscribed in Runic characters with the names " Mealbritha " and " Olfriti." Middle of the eighth century. (National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, Edinburgh.)
2. Penannular brooch. Silver, decorated with raised bosses and engraved lacertine patterns.
Irish, early tenth century. (Collection of the Royal Irish Academy.)
PLATE X MEDIEVAL JEWELS
1. Ring from Dumfriesshire. The ends of the shank are not joined, but twisted together. Tenth
century. (B.M.)
2. Back of the Seal of the Cathedral Chapter of Brechin, with foliated decoration in relief . Thirteenth
century. (National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland, Edinburgh.)
3. Ring. Gold, chased with interlaced animals in relief. Late eleventh century. (B.M.)
xvi ENGLISH JEWELLERY
4. Seal pendant. An intaglio of a horseman set in a rim inscribed " QUE : TIBI : LEGO : LEGE."
Thirteenth century. (B.M.)
5. Episcopal ring of William Wytlesey, Archbishop of Canterbury, d. 5 July, 1374. Gold, chased
and set with a sapphire. (Sir Arthur Evans.)
6. Ring brooch. Engraved gold. Late thirteenth century. (B.M.)
7. Ring brooch from the Londesborough Collection. Gold, ornamented with four hollow bosses
pierced with dragons and cockatrices, and set with cabochon emeralds and sapphires and pearls in raised settings. Late fourteenth century. (B.M.)
8. Episcopal ring of Henry Woodstock, Bishop of Winchester, 1305-16. A cabochon sapphire set
in gold. Early fourteenth century. (Winchester Cathedral.)
9. Episcopal ring. A cabochon sapphire set in gold. Late thirteenth century. (Winchester
Cathedral.)
10. Ring brooch. Gold, engraved and set with rubies and sapphires. Late thirteenth century.
(B.M.)
11. Heart-shaped ring brooch. Gold, with floral decoration in relief. Fourteenth century. (B.M.)
12. Ring brooch. Engraved gold. Fourteenth century. (B.M.)
13. Ring brooch from Enniscorthy Abbey. Engraved gold, set with two cabochon rubies and four
small emeralds. Amatory inscription. Fourteenth century. (B.M.)
14. Ring brooch. Gold, set with small rubies. Fourteenth century. (B.M.)
PLATE XI ECCLESIASTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL JEWELS
1-5. The jewels of William of Wykeham, bequeathed in 1404 to New College, Oxford. End of the fourteenth century. 5. The M. jewel. The letter of gold, with alternate emeralds and rubies in raised settings. The figures are of gold in full relief, the angel's wings enamelled in translucent green. The lilies are enamelled white ; the vase is made of a ruby, with three small emeralds on either side.
1-4. Decorations of the Mitre. Silver-gilt, two quatrefoils set with turquoises, two foliated rosettes set with pastes and hinged bands of plaques of basse taille enamel set with pearls and crystals.
6. Triptych. Silver, engraved and parcel-gilt, with St. George and the Dragon in relief. Fourteenth
century. (V. & A.M.)
7. Reliquary pendant. Two plaques of translucent enamel, representing a knight and a lady, and a
combat, set in silver-gilt. Fourteenth century. (V. & A.M.)
8. Diptych. Two plaques of translucent enamel with the Nativity and the Resurrection on the
inner, and St. Michael and St. John on the outer side, set in silver-gilt. Fourteenth century. (V. & A.M.)
PLATE XII
THE MITRE OF CORNELIUS O'DEAGH, BISHOP OF LIMERICK
Made in 1418 by Thomas O'Carryd. Thin plates of silver-gilt, the side panels sewn with pearls, the central panel and the borders edged with beading and set with crystals, garnets and other stones. On either side of the central panel at the base are niches, with the figures of the Virgin and Child and a kneeling bishop. Near the apex beneath crosses of crystal is inscribed " Hoc
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xvii
signum crucis erit in codo cum dominus ad judicandum venerit." Round the base is a band enamelled in purple, green and blue with the inscription " Cornelius O'Daygh, episcopus Limervicensis Anno Domini Mille0 CCCCXVIII me fieri fecit." Above is the smaller inscription " Thomas O'Carryd artifex faciens, 1418." (The Bishop of Limerick.)
PLATE XIII
PILGRIMS' SIGNS AND RETAINERS' BADGES
Base Metal. Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. (B.M.) 1-5. Pilgrims' signs.
1. St. George.
2. Pelican.
3. St. Thomas a Becket.
4. Wheel of St. Catherine.
5. Shell of St. James. 6-10. Retainers' Badges.
6. Falcon.
9. Rose and Fetterlock (Edward IV). 10. Bear and Ragged Staff. (Earl of Warwick.)
PLATE XIV
MARGARET OF DENMARK, QUEEN OF SCOTLAND, BY VAN DER GOES
Detail, shewing jewelled coronet, pearl fret, pearl and enamel necklace, and border to dress of jewelled gold. 1473-76. (His Majesty the King, Holyrood Palace.)
PLATE XV FIFTEENTH-CENTURY JEWELS
1-3. Reliquary pendant. Gold, engraved on one side with St. John and the inscription " A Mon derreyne " and on the other with the figure of a bishop, each between flowers of white enamel. Fifteenth century. (B.M.)
2. The Glenlyon brooch, formerly belonging to the Campbells of Glenlyon. Silver-gilt, set with pearls in tall turret settings alternating with crystals and amethysts. Inscribed on the back " Caspar. Melchior. Baltazar. Consumatum." Scottish, fifteenth century. (B.M.)
4. Brooch, gold, set with four cabochon sapphires and small pearls. Fifteenth century. (B.M.)
5. Heart-shaped fermail. Gold, with wreathed decoration. Late fourteenth or early fifteenth
century. (B.M.)
6. The Coventry ring. Engraved gold. c. 1490. (See p. 58.) (B.M.)
7. The Loch Buy brooch, formerly belonging to the Macleans of Loch Buy, Isle of Mull. Silver,
decorated with coarse filigree and set with a crystal in the centre surrounded by ten river pearls in turret settings, c. 1500. (B.M.) c
xviii ENGLISH JEWELLERY
8. Reliquary pendant found on Reculver Beach. Silver-gilt, engraved with figures of St. John the
Baptist and St. Catherine, in a wreathed mount, c. 1470. (B.M.)
9. Ring. Engraved gold set with a pointed diamond. Late fifteenth century. (B.M.)
10. Ring, said to have been ploughed up at Hatfield, near Hornsea. Gold, the bezel pierced with a
trefoil. Four oval panels on the hoop are engraved with the Trinity, the Virgin and Child, St. George and St. Christopher. Inside is the legend " Gut + got + hunuyu -\- ananizapta." Late fifteenth century. (B.M.)
11. " The Percy Signet," found on the field of Towton. Gold, the bezel engraved with a lion passant
regardant and the legend " NOW : YS : THUS." Late fifteenth century. (B.M.)
12. Signet ring. Gold, the bezel engraved with initials in a trefoil. Late fifteenth century. (Fortnum
Bequest, Ashmolean Museum.)
PLATE XVI DESIGNS FOR JEWELS BY HANS HOLBEIN (c. 1540)
PLATE XVII TUDOR JEWELS
1. Covers of a pendant Prayer Book, said to have been worn by Queen Elizabeth. Gold, chased
and enamelled on a matted ground. One cover shows the worshipping of the Serpent in the Wilderness, with the inscription " Make the afyrye serpent an set it up for a sygne that as many as are bytte maye lake upon it an lyve ; the other (not illustrated) has the judgment of Solomon, with the inscription " Then the King ansuered an sayd Gyve her the lyving child an slaye et not for she is the mother thereof." Middle of the sixteenth century. (B.M.)
2. Design for a bracelet. Hans Holbein, c. 1640.
3. Design for the cover of a pendant book, with the initials T.W. and I. Hans Holbein, c. 1540.
4. Pomander case, found by a bargeman in the mud on the south side of the Thames. Twisted gold
wire, set with pearls. First half of the sixteenth century. (B.M.)
5. Covers of a book, containing in MS. on vellum the death-bed prayer of Edward VI, worn by
Queen Elizabeth at her girdle, and given by her to her cousin Lord Hunsdon. Gold, enamelled in black and white, with a central rosette in translucent red and green, set with a shell cameo. Middle of the sixteenth century. (The Earl of Berkeley.)
6. Brooch, from a portrait of a lady, begun by Holbein and finished after his death by another hand,
formerly in the possession of the family of Bodenham of Rotherwas. It is of gold, encircled by a wreath, ornamented with the enamelled figure of a lady playing on a lute set with a ruby, with a scroll above inscribed " Praise the Lorde for ever more." Cf. Inventory of Jewels for 1630 (Brewer, Letters and Papers, IV, Pt. 3, No. 9789) : a brooch with " a gentlewoman luting, and a scripture about it." c. 1540. (Mr. Ayerst Buttery.)
7. Detail of cap-border from the portrait of Anne of Cleves, by Hans Holbein in the Louvre. Gold,
with roses of white enamel with ruby and diamond centres. From a sketch by Walter T. Wilson. (V. & A.M.)
8. Design for a necklace or bracelet, by Hans Holbein, c. 1540.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xix
PLATE XVIII
THE CROWN OF SCOTLAND AND JEWELS FROM ROYAL PORTRAITS
1. The crown of Scotland, partly made of the gold and jewels of one of the crowns of Robert
Bruce taken by Edward I on the field of Methven, remodelled and added to by James V of Scotland. The circlet is set with carbuncles, jacinths, amethysts, topazes, crystals and Oriental and Scotch pearls. The arches, cresting, mound and cross were added by James V. Scottish, early fourteenth century, remodelled c. 1540. (His Majesty the King, Edinburgh Castle.) (Copyright R. Inglis, Calton Hill, Edinburgh.)
2. Detail of belt from the portrait of Queen Mary Tudor, by Johannes Corvus, 1547, in the National
Portrait Gallery. Gold, enamelled in black and set with rubies, diamonds and pearls. From a sketch by Lilian M. Crockford. (V. & A.M.)
3. Detail of head-ornament from the portrait of Queen Mary Tudor in the possession of the Duke
of Norfolk. Gold, enamelled and set with rubies and pearls. From a sketch by M. E. Scott Coward. (V. & A.M.)
4. Details of chains from the portrait of Queen Elizabeth by M. Gheeracdts in the National
Portrait Gallery. Gold openwork, set with rubies, emeralds and pearls. From a sketch by Lilian M. Crockford. (V. & A.M.)
PLATE XIX
ELIZABETHAN CAMEOS AND PORTRAIT JEWELS
i. Onyx cameo portrait of Queen Elizabeth, mounted as a pendant in gold, enamelled white and set with rubies, c. 1560. (B.M.)
2-3. Ring, made of mother-of-pearl, the shoulders set with a line of rubies mounted in gold. The bezel is oval, with E in diamonds and R in blue enamel. It opens to show enamelled bust portraits, one of Elizabeth, with a ruby brooch, and one, probably of Anne Boleyn, with a diamond brooch. At the back of the bezel is a plate of gold, with an earl's coronet and a phoenix in flames, c. 1560. (The Earl of Home.)
4. The Barbor jewel, said to have been made in commemoration of the deliverance of William
Barbor from the stake on the accession of Elizabeth. Sardonyx cameo portrait of Queen Elizabeth mounted as a pendant in a bevelled setting of gold enamelled in blue, green and white, the outer border set alternately with rubies and diamonds surmounted by a crown, with a pendant cluster of pearls, c. 1558. (V. & A.M.)
5. Sardonyx cameo of Queen Elizabeth, mounted as a pendant in gold openwork, enamelled red on
one side and green on the other, with a pendant pearl. £.1560. (Lady Read.)
6. The Phoenix jewel, bequeathed to the British Museum by Sir Hans Sloane in 1753. A bust of
Queen Elizabeth cut from the Phoenix badge of 1574 mounted as a pendant in a wreath of red, white and Tudor roses with light green stalks and leaves in enamelled gold. c. 1575. (B.M.)
7. Miniature case, a mother-of-pearl medallion, carved in low relief with the Ark as on the Armada
medal of 1588, mounted in gold, inscribed on white enamel " Saevas tranquilla per undas " and encircled with a band of table-cut rubies, the edge enamelled in translucent red and green and opaque white, c. 1588. (Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan.) Reproduced from Jewellery by permission of Mr. H. Clifford Smith.
xx ENGLISH JEWELLERY
8. Sardonyx cameo mounted in gold, enamelled white and set with rubies, c. 1560. (The Author.)
9. Medallion pendant and chain. The medal (" Dangers Averted, 1589 ") shews on the obverse
the bust of Elizabeth, with the inscription " DITIOR IN TOTO NON ALTER CIRCULUS ORBE." The reverse shows a bay tree, unharmed by lightning and tempest, flourishing upon an island, with the legend " NON IPSA PERICULA TANGUNT." Silver. 1589. (Medal Room, B.M.) 10. The Wild jewel, said to have been a christening present from Queen Elizabeth. A turquoise cameo portrait of Queen Elizabeth mounted as a pendant in open scrolls of enamelled gold, set with rubies and diamonds, with three pendant pearls, c. 1570. (Miss Wild ; lent to the V. & A.M.)
PLATE XX ELIZABETHAN JEWELS
1-2. Miniature case, containing a miniature of Queen Elizabeth. The front of gold pierced in a scrolling pattern, set with table-cut diamonds, the back decorated in champleve enamel in many colours after a design by Daniel Mignot. End of the sixteenth century. (V. & A.M.)
3. Wedding ring of Sir Thomas Gresham, formerly in the possession of the Thurstons of Weston
Hall, Suffolk. A gimmel ring, enamelled gold, set with a diamond and a ruby and inscribed " Quod Deus coniunxit Homo non separat." c. 1544. (Mr. G. C. Leveson-Gower ; lent to V. & A.M.)
4. Seal of Alexander Seton, Earl of Dunfermline. c. 1555-1622. The back of the seal is of engraved
gold, and the hinged handle a scrolling fret of gold. End of the sixteenth or beginning of the seventeenth century. (Franks Bequest, B.M.)
5. Ring. Chased gold, set with a jacinth cameo portrait of Queen Elizabeth. Late sixteenth
century. (B.M.)
6. Pendant mirror case. Gold, both sides enamelled alike in champleve enamel in black and white
with blue and green rosettes and white bars. c. 1600. (Waddesdon Bequest, B.M.)
7. Wedding ring of Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley. Gold, the circular bezel engraved with
a cipher of M & H linked with a knot. Within the shank is inscribed " Henri L. Darnley, 1585." (V. &A.M.)
PLATE XXI JACOBEAN JEWELS
Found in 1912 under the floor of a cellar between St. Paul's and the Post Office, at a depth of 16 feet from the present surface level, c. 1610-20. (The London Museum.)
1. Chain. Emeralds and pearls, set in gold, enamelled white.
2. Chain. Flowers of white enamel picked out in black with emerald and diamond centres.
3. Pendant. Pearls, set in gold, enamelled white.
4. Pendant. Bunches of grapes in carved amethyst, mounted in gold, enamelled white.
5. Hanging scent bottle. Made of engraved agate plaques, mounted in gold, enamelled white, with
decoration in black, studded with diamonds and rubies.
6. Pendant. Garnet briolettes, mouted in gold, enamelled white.
7. Enamelled back of pendant, set with an antique cameo, with a hanging pearl.
8. Chain. Flowers of gold, enamelled white, picked out in black with diamond and emerald centres,
alternating with links in gold, enamelled white, set with turquoises.
9. Bracelet or part of chain. Facetted amethyst rings joined by links, enamelled white and set
with diamonds.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxi
PLATE XXII
DESIGNS FOR JEWELS BY ARNOLD LULLS
Jeweller to James I. c. 1605. (V. & A.M.)
1. Design for a pendant, enamelled gold, set with emeralds, with three pendant pearls.
2. Design for an ear-ring, enamelled gold, set with diamonds, with two pearls and an emerald
hanging.
3. Design for a pendant hanging from a rope of pearls, enamelled gold, set with a diamond and a
ruby and a pendant pearl.
4. Design for a pendant, a ruby encircled by a snake of enamelled gold, with a pendant pearl.
5. Design for a pendant, a large emerald and six diamonds, set within a circle of table-cut rubies
entwined with snakes of gold, enamelled in white and black, with three pendant pearls.
6. Design for an ear-ring, enamelled gold, set with a ruby, with three emeralds hanging.
PLATE XXIII
ENAMELS IN OUTLINE AND PEA-POD DESIGNS
1-3. The Lyte jewel, containing a miniature of James I, by Isaac Oliver, given to Mr. Thomas Lyte by James I in reward for compiling a pedigree of the King's ancestry. The rim is set with table-diamonds. The pierced cover of enamelled gold is designed with a monogram of I.R. studded with table diamonds and is also set with four rose diamonds. The back is decorated with champleve enamel in outline in red on a white ground, with the border enamelled alter- nately in red and blue. Enamel of identical design occurs on the back of the case of a miniature of Charles I, by Peter Oliver, 1626, in the Pierpont Morgan Collection, c. 1610. (B.M.)
4-5. Ring. Gold, enamelled in outline in white, set with a jacinth, c. 1610. (B.M.)
6 and 8. Watch, by Daniel Bouquet. The back decorated in email en resille sur verre on a blue glass ground, the dial in champleve enamel over a matted ground in a " pea-pod " design, c. 1640. (B.M.)
7. Miniature case. Gold, with champleve enamel in green over a matted ground, with a " pea-pod "
design in white after a design by Pierre Firens, 1605-25. It contains a female portrait by Peter Oliver, c. 1625. (Dyce Collection, V. & A.M.)
9-10. Memorial ring for Charles I. Gold, the bezel set with a cluster of seven diamonds. This opens to show a skull in white enamel in a shell-shaped cavity, the lid enamelled inside with a Tudor rose. Middle of the seventeenth century. (B.M.)
xxii ENGLISH JEWELLERY
PLATE XXIV SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY JEWELS
1-3. Pendant in the shape of a coffin found at Torre Abbey, Devon. Gold, decorated with champleve enamel in black in an arabesque pattern. It opens to show a skeleton enamelled white, and is inscribed " Through the Resurrection of Christ we be all sanctified." Early seventeenth century. (V. & A.M.)
2 and 4. The Campion pendant. A segment of a narwhal's horn (believed to be that of a unicorn) mounted in gold, enamelled in black in an arabesque design. Long in the possession of the family of Campion of Danny, it was presented by Lieut.-Col. W. R. Campion, M.P., to the Victoria and Albert Museum, c. 1600. (V. & A.M.)
5-8. Memorial jewels. Late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. (Sir Arthur Evans.)
5 and 7. Front and back of brooch. A skeleton in gold on a silk ground under crystal, set in
a rim of garnets. The back enamelled in pink on a white ground.
6. Memorial slide of Sir Anthony Leake, killed by the French off Malaga, August 13, 1704. 8. Memorial slide. A skeleton, with the motto "/ rest, J. C." Inscribed on back " Memento Mori."
9. Lesser George. Enamelled gold. Seventeenth century. (V. & A.M.)
10. Brooch. Marcassites set in silver, with three pendant pearls. Late seventeenth century. (Miss
Reavill.)
11. Lesser George. An sardonyx cameo, set in a rim of eight rose cut stones spaced by loops of
metal, said to have belonged to the Earl of Strafford. (Once lent by the late Sir J. C. Robinson to the V. & A.M.)
PLATE XXV SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FLORAL ENAMEL
1. Back of an enamelled miniature of Oliver Cromwell, decorated with roses and leaves in champleve
enamel in natural colours on a white ground. Middle of the seventeenth century. (University Galleries, Ashmolean Museum.)
2. Watch, by Daniel Bouquet. Enamelled in colours with a flower pattern in the style of Gilles
Legare in low relief on a black ground. The cover is similarly enamelled and set with a circle of diamonds. The inside of the lid and the dial are decorated with landscapes in painted enamel, c. 1640. (B.M.)
3. Back of a miniature case, decorated with flowers in painted enamel on a white ground. Middle
of the seventeenth century. (Mr. Dyson Perrins.)
4 and 6. Watch, by Henry Jones. White enamel, painted with flowers in natural colours, with radiating lines of garnets set in gold. c. 1670. (B.M.)
5. Brooch. White enamel painted with flowers and scrolls, set with a pearl and lines of rubies set in gold. c. 1670. (Miss Reavill).
7 and 9. The Dallas jewel, bequeathed as an heirloom by James Dallas in 1683. A locket, the front set with concentric rows of triangular diamonds round a square-cut stone. The back decorated with a pierced enamel border and medallion of champleve enamel, in a flower pattern in colours on a white ground, c. 1670. (The Duchess of Portland.)
8. Watch. Decorated with flowers in champleve enamel, c. 1670. (V. & A.M.)
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxiii
PLATE XXVI
JEWELS OF THE LATER STUART PERIOD
1. Watch and chatelaine, by Thuilst, engraved with the arms of Queen Anne. Pierced and chased
gold, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, which in its turn is set with red stones in a border of gold, enamelled in black, picked out in red. c. 1705. (Smart Bequest, Fitzwilliam Museum.)
2. Back of miniature case. Gold, chased with scrolls and a cipher of J.K. on a matted ground.
c. 1710. (V. & A.M.)
3. Chatelaine, pinchbeck. The top decorated with Cleopatra dissolving the pearl for Antony, the
lower plaques with baskets of flowers. Chatelaines with the same tops and different plaques are in the V. & A.M. and the London Museum, c. 1710. (The Author.)
4. Outer case of a watch, by Stringer, given by James II to the Countess of Anglesey. Pierced and
engraved gold, set with curved plates of cornelian, with a cornelian cameo in the centre, c. 1687. (B.M.)
5. Chatelaine, etui and thimble cases, pinchbeck. Decorated with scrolls, floral patterns and
classical heads and figures in low relief on a matted ground, c. 1720. (V. & A.M.)
6. Case of a watch. Gold, chased and set with diamonds and rubies and flat plaques of lapis lazuli.
c. 1700. (Mr. Dyson Perrins.)
PLATE XXVII
ORNAMENTS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
1. Watch and chatelaine, by Francis Perigal. Gold, enamelled en taille d'epargne in blue in a
flower pattern in the style of S. H. Dinglinger. c. 1760. (Smart Bequest, Fitzwilliam Museum.)
2. Scent bottle. Gold, chased and enamelled in colours on a matted ground. 0.1740. (V. & A.M.)
3. Watch and chatelaine, by James Rowe. Gold, chased and embossed with rocaille decoration and
scenes from the story of Alexander. Hall-mark for 1753. (Smart Bequest, Fitzwilliam
Museum.) 4 and 6. Memorial locket. Gold, partly enamelled in black, enclosing figures of Cupids over hair
under glass. Inscribed " Dorcas Byrne : ob. 16 : /l«g, 1757. Aetat. 67. This I make for her
sake. My dear Mother. Dorcas Byrne, obt. 16. Augt., 1757. Etat. 67." (The Author.) 5. Chatelaine. Copper gilt, pierced work in the Chinese style. Probably Sheffield manufacture.
c. 1760. (The Author.) 7 and 8. Designs for brooches, S. H. Dinglinger, A New Book of Designs for Jewellers' Work, London,
I75I-
PLATE XXVIII EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY DESIGN FOR JEWELS
1. Design for a cross pendant. J. Guien. A Book of Ornaments for Jewellers. 1762.
2, 3 and 5. Designs for ear-rings. T. D. Saint. A New Book of Designs for Jewellers' work. 1770. 4 and 6. Designs for chatelaines. S. H. Dinglinger. Op. cit. 1751.
7 and 10. Designs for brooches. Ibid.
8 and 9. Designs for necklaces. T. D. Saint. Op. cit. 1770.
xxiv ENGLISH JEWELLERY
PLATE XXIX
JEWELLED ORNAMENTS OF THE MIDDLE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
1. Bracelet. Silver, with oval medallions of red paste with applique decoration in marcassites,
joined by bows and sprays set with marcassites. c. 1760. (Miss Reavill.)
2. Brooch. Set with diamonds and emeralds, c. 1790. (Mrs. Pfungst.)
3. Design for a buckle. Jean Guien. A Book of Ornaments for Jewellers. 1762.
4. Brooch. Silver, with ovals of blue paste with applique decoration in marcassites, mounted with
bows and sprays set with marcassites. c, 1760. (Miss Reavill.) 5 and 9. Designs for the front and back of a miniature case, with the royal crown. J. Guien.
Op. cit. 1762. 6. Pendant. Sardonyx cameo of the Prince of Wales's feathers and motto, mounted in silver, set
with diamonds and emeralds. Middle of the eighteenth century. (B.M.) 7 and 8. Giardinetti rings. Gold, set with diamonds and rubies, c. 1750-75. (B.M.)
PLATE XXX MARCASSITE AND STEEL JEWELLERY
i. Watch and chatelaine. Silver, set with marcassites, the back of the watch of crystal with
applique decoration in marcassites. c. 1771. (Smart Bequest, Fitzwilliam Museum.) 2 and 3. Buckles. Set with cut steel, c. 1770. (Mrs. Penryn Milsted.)
4. Ear-ring. Set with marcassites. c. 1760. (Miss Reavill.)
5. Necklace. Silver, the links set with marcassites on both sides, c. 1770. (Miss Reavill.)
6. Bracelet. Linked plaques of cut steel, c. 1790. (Miss Reavill.)
PLATE XXXI
ORNAMENTS OF STEEL AND WEDGEWOOD WARE
c. 1780. (Miss Reavill.)
I and 3. Chatelaines of " Marcaroni " shape.
2, 4 and 6. Clasps.
5. Chatelaine with pendant scent bottle.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xxv
PLATE XXXII
LATE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY JEWELS
i and 3. Designs for ear-rings set with pearls, c. 1800. (V. & A.M.)
2. Brooch. Wedgwood plaques set in Sheffield plate, c. 1785. (Nottingham Museum.)
4. Memorial ring. Gold, the marquise bezel rimmed with pearls and containing hair. c. 1790.
(Fortnum Bequest, Ashmolean Museum.)
5. Brooch. A butterfly set a jour with diamonds, c. 1800. (Messrs. S. J. Phillips.)
6. Clasps of a pearl necklace, with a classical figure design in gold over blue enamel, set in a
border of small diamonds, c. 1780. (The Author.)
7. Fob ring. Gold, chased with grapes and vine leaves, set with a violet topaz, c. 1790. (B.M.)
8. Brooch. Gold, set with diamonds applied to a ground or flat pastes in dull pink, opal and dark
green, with a border of pearls, c. 1790. (Mrs. Pfungst.)
9. " Regard " ring. Seven shanks of purled gold wire joined by a bezel, set with a ruby, emerald,
garnet, amethyst, ruby and diamond, c. 1800. (B.M.)
10. Ring. Gold, set with a moss agate in a border of jargoons. c. 1780. (Fortnum Bequest,
Ashmolean Museum.)
11. Design for a necklace set with pearls, c. 1800. (V. &. A.M.)
12. Ring set with two heart-shaped milk agates, with a rim and crown of jargoons. c. 1780.
(Fortnum Bequest, Ashmolean Museum.)
INTRODUCTION
NATIONS have characters as well as individuals, and though it may be conceded that the English nation is susceptible to foreign influences in the domain of art, she yet sets her own stamp upon everything she produces. England is not pre-eminent in artistic creation ; her strength lies in giving an appropriate and individual form to foreign models in applying them to the use of her own national type.
This country is therefore dependent on external stimulus in artistic production. Such an impulse is given when the craftsman is brought into contact with the work of an earlier civilization or with an alien culture of his own time. This may arise through an extension of his relations with other countries or through the influence of a new school of art in a familiar land. Migration, invasion, commerce, political relations and archaeological research may each offer a fresh stimulus to his creative faculty. Such influences, if acceptable to the national character, may be so modified as to become a part of the artistic tradition of the race.
A young and vigorous nation gains the most fruitful and lasting impulses from nations at a higher stage of civilization than its own. Oriental art influenced the ornament of the peoples of Gothland, Sweden, and Ireland by way of the
XXVll
xxviii ENGLISH JEWELLERY
trade route from the Caspian Sea to the far West of Europe1 at a time when Eastern art had developed the artistic tradition of the ancient world and the Teutonic and Celtic races had not yet attained to an advanced civilization of their own. English art of the ensuing period owed its character to another impulse from the East, combined with another echo of the classical tradition, at a time when the Norman kingdoms linked Europe from Iceland to Sicily. The succeeding Gothic style — le style franqais — spread from the He de France to inspire English builders to create their own Gothic art, ruled by the symbolism that French philosophers and French mystics inherited from the fathers of the Church and made an endowment for Christendom. In the XV century the painters of the Low Countries rediscovered the beauty that lies in the world as it is, and the close relations between England and the Netherlands brought their Natural- ism to our congenial soil.
The pure classical tradition came to England with the New Learning ; and its artistic impulse, received first from Italy, then through the Low Countries, then from France, and finally again more directly from its original source, gave rise to the four phases of English Renaissance art. Classical learning and classical art became for Europe in the XVII and XVIII centuries what Scholasticism and Gothic art had been in the Middle Ages ; but as Naturalism crept in in the XV century, so another change overspread the art of the Georgian age. The chinoiseries of the Far East and
1 A route traceable by the discovery of Mohammedan coins of 880-1100 A.D., together with ornaments of contemporary local fabric.
INTRODUCTION xxix
the archaistic art of the Romantic and Celtic movements in the XVIII and XIX centuries shew the desire for a vigorous and primitive inspiration in the place of the classical formulae of the academic schools.
England has, then, been influenced by art movements arising from both cultured and primitive sources. Roman soldiers, monks of Irish race and Byzantine learning, Norman adventurers, Crusaders who had seen the splendours of the East, French craftsmen, English merchants, Flemish de- signers, German painters, Italian sculptors, Spanish and Dutch kings, Oriental travellers, and the dilettanti of her own aristocracy, have all added from the rich store of other countries to the artistic tradition of England. Finally she was able to turn back to more primitive conditions, to see natural beauty in a new light, and, appreciating her own historic past, to draw new inspiration from the days of Celtic monasticism and the age of chivalry.
No artistic impulse can find expression unless the artist has leisure from the pressure of war and famine ; consequently prosperity and security are apt to give a country artistic influence over less fortunate lands at the same level of civiliza- tion. England has enjoyed a steady political and industrial development : even her invaders have carried on the con- tinuity of her national history. Her artistic progress has rarely been arrested by inner upheavals or devastating foreign wars at a late and settled stage of her civilization ; and, because of her relative isolation, her art has been national and not provincial. None the less, though her own develop- ment has rarely been impeded by material conditions, she
xxx ENGLISH JEWELLERY
has reacted little on other countries. She did not take the lead among European nations until the Industrial Revolution at the beginning of the XIX century drove individual crafts- manship out of many of the minor arts, and changed their organization and their processes together with the standards and structure of society.
The study of any of the minor arts in England has a double thread of interest : the recognition of the foreign influences affecting these arts and the definition of the national turn of style that persists through all such influences. The art of jewellery offers a field of study of peculiar interest. Jewels are usually produced to meet the needs of the most cultivated classes of the community, and reflect their tastes and the degree of their civilization. Further, the art of jewel-making is almost independent of the exigencies of structure and function, and an infinite variety of invention can be expressed in its design. Thus it tends to be both aristocratic and national. On the other hand, since its technique is almost universally known, and its materials are little affected by local conditions, it responds quickly to foreign influences, which readily reach an art of which neither the craftsman's tools nor his creations are difficult to transport from one place to another. Further, the freedom of its design imposes no limit to the inspiration it may receive from the plastic and graphic arts or from the forms of architecture. Thus the history of the jewellery of any country mirrors its social and artistic history on a small scale, and shews all the stages of the endless conflict between national character and foreign influences.
INTRODUCTION xxxi
Jewellery, like other arts, has less splendour and breadth of treatment in England than in Spain. Italy is our mistress for beauty, France for grace, and the Low Countries for originality of design ; yet there is something peculiarly to our English taste in the productions of our nation, at almost every period of her history. We can enjoy in them sound and sometimes exquisite workmanship, the permanent satis- faction of design suited to the practical uses of that which it adorns, and a domestic and friendly beauty which appeals to us as much as the most splendid productions of an alien race.
ENGLISH JEWELLERY
CHAPTER I
ANGLO-SAXON AND CELTIC JEWELLERY
1
I HERE is one period in the history of every nation when the minor arts, notably those wrought in precious metals, are more advanced than the greater arts of architecture, sculpture and painting. These can only develop in a fixed abode with a security of tenure that in its turn im- plies stability of political organization. When these are lacking the craftsman devotes his highest skill to the decoration of smaller objects that can survive the exigencies of an unsettled or nomadic life. The tribes of the Great Migrations were at this stage of artistic development ; with them the crafts of the metal worker and jeweller were far in advance of arts which had to be practised on a larger scale.
The style and technique of these minor arts are not neces- sarily developed in the course of a nomadic life, but usually owe much to the traditions of more settled peoples. There is no decorative motive employed in the Germanic art of the migration period that does not owe its origin to classical, Oriental, or pre-Christian Celtic art. Roman culture pene- trated into Germany and Gothland, a steady stream of Oriental
2 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
influence flowed across Europe from the South-East, and in Britain late Celtic art survived the partial Romanization of the country to contribute something to pagan Anglo-Saxon art and much to that of the period when South was linked to North and West by the bonds of a common religion.
Such decorative motives received a characteristic twist at the hands of the alien workmen who employed them, and technical processes were modified by craftsmen who did not inherit their full tradition. Out of many foreign elements there arose styles of decoration unmistakably different from their antecedents. Teutonic social organization was not national, and Teutonic art in its variety and inconsistency re- flects the character of the tribal society whose needs it served. It should be studied in detail, and in close relation to the locality which produced it; a more general survey can only distinguish the different elements of design and technique to be found in use among the Teutonic tribes, and cannot record their local permutations.1
Britain in the Anglo-Saxon period differed from the Teutonic provinces of the continent in the relation between her Saxon civilization and her Roman past. Many of the Roman cities of England were blotted out of existence by the invaders, and the Teutonic villages avoided for the most part the sites of Roman settlements and the line of Roman roads. Thus England lost her Roman provincial tradition more thoroughly than did the adjacent continental countries. Although the re-established importance of the Roman cities
1 A more comprehensive treatment of Anglo-Saxon goldwork is attempted by Baldwin Brown, in The Arts in Early England, Vols. Ill and IV.
ANGLO-SAXON AND CELTIC 3
of York, London, Lincoln, Canterbury and Winchester in the VI and VII centuries, and the re-integration of Western towns such as Exeter and Gloucester in the national life brought a part of the Roman structure of the country into being once more, it must be recognized that England was more backward than the Continent in consequence of the weakening of her social, political and artistic links with Imperial Rome.
None the less, classical models of design left their mark upon Anglo-Saxon art. Roman coins influenced not only the Saxon coinage, but also the figure work of the Anglo- Saxon minor arts. They formed the source of design of such pendant medallions as the bracteate found in St. Giles's Fields, Oxford (Plate II, 7), even though the classical model might be received from a Scandinavian intermediary. The full-face head that appears in a more or less debased form on Anglo-Saxon work (Plate I, 3) probably takes its origin from the classical Medusa head. Roman architecture endowed Anglo-Saxon art with such decorative motives as the guilloche (Plate II, 6), and egg-and-dart pattern, and provincial Roman wood-work with patterns in the style of chip-carving. (Plate I, 5.) Classical influence is again evident in the decoration of saucer-shaped brooches from Sussex and the Southern Midlands,1 of which the patterns are nearly all modifications of those employed in Roman mosaics. (Plate I, 4, 5.)
Britain was never wholly under Roman domination. In Ireland and in Britain, North of the Roman wall, a Celtic
1 Baldwin Brown, op. cit., Ill, 312.
4 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
culture endured untouched to influence Anglo-Saxon art even in the pagan period and to become pre-eminent when enriched by Christianity. Variations of the trumpet patterns, the knot work, and the flamboyant scrolls of Celtic art appear on many Saxon jewels (Plate II, 4 ; V, 5), though they are rarely treated with the masterly delicacy of the Irish craftsman.
The third stream of foreign influence that runs through the heart of all the Teutonic tribes is of Eastern origin, fed from many sources, but rising in the South Russian lands north of the Black Sea. The conventionalized animals which twist in an almost unrecognizable pattern on Anglo- Saxon goldwork can trace their descent from the griffins of the Treasure of the Oxus of the IV century B.C., and the leopards and eagles of the Treasure of Petrossa of the IV century A.D.1
These Oriental motives of decoration were accepted by the Goths, and by them transmitted to the other Teutonic peoples. In their movement westward the rich animal-forms became stylized and debased, till they ceased to have any relation with Nature, and were lengthened and disproportioned, twisted and interlaced, simply as ornament to fill a given space. Sometimes the jaws are as long as the limbs ; some- times the head has almost disappeared, and the anatomy of the beast is forgotten in the craftsman's desire for pure decoration.2 This style came into use in England about 500 ; but the little doves of the Sarre brooch (Plate II, 2) shew that even in the middle of the VI century Anglo-Saxon art
1 See O. M. Dalton, The Treasure of the Oxus and Archczologia, 2nd Series, VIII, 1902, p. 231.
2 See Plate II, 5. For a full account see Salin, Altgermanische Thierornamentik.
4 ENGLISH JEW!-; I
tared urr <>d to inrluem; pagan per. id to becon by Christianity. Variations of the tr work, and the mt scrolls ol
many Saxon jewels (Plate II, 4 ; V, 5) treated with the J Hy delicacy of the It
. The third stream of foreign influence that the heart of all the Teutonic tribes is of Easter from many sources, but rising in the South Rus north of the Black Sea. The conventional!, which twist in an almost unrecognizable pattern on Ant Saxon goldwork can trace their elf rd from th- of the Treasure of the Oxus of th* ry g.c, tne
leopards and eagles of tht. Tr<-d IV
century A.D.1
These Oriental motives of decoration v*c?, the Goths, and by them transmitted to th< peoples. In their movement westward thr became stylized and debased, till they relation with Nature, and were lengthened ., twisted an.' rlaced, simply as ornament space. Soi the jaws are as long as the limbs ; some-
times the head has almost disappeared, and the anatomy of the l' > in the craftsman's desire for
decoration. style came into use in England ah
but the litti of 'the Sarre brooch (Plate II,
that even in the middle of the VI century Ar,
O. M. Dalton, The Treasure of the Oxus and ArchceologM, . See Plate II, 5. For a full account see Salin, AUgermanische 7 fa
1902*
ANGLO-SAXON BROOCHES AND PINS
ANGLO-SAXON AND CELTIC 5
could produce some natural animal-forms. At the beginning of the VII century the animal-forms were seriously degraded though rarely interlaced,1 but in the subsequent evolution of the style down to its disappearance in the XI century, the intertwining of the distorted limbs and bodies became the dominating feature of the design. (Plate II, 5.)
The technique of Anglo-Saxon gold-work is definitely in advance of its design. It was inherited with many of the decorative motives it served to express from Roman and Oriental sources. The Saxon minor arts vary in theme and style from district to district, and the confines of these variations are as difficult to determine as the relations of the tribes are hard to define. The one definite distinction that is supported alike by historical, social, legal, numismatic and archaeological evidence is that between the Jutish tribes of Kent, who appear to have definite relations with the Rhine- land itself, and the Anglian settlers elsewhere, who shew affinities with the peoples of the country lying between Rhine and Elbe. This distinction is clearly evident in gold-work. The two characteristic processes of inlaid work in garnets and of filigree in gold represent a tradition not brought from the North, but received along the Southern shores of England on its arrival in the West along the valleys of the Danube and the Rhine. Jewels so decorated have only been found in Kent and the Isle of Wight, and in places in trading connexion with these districts. A political reason for their gradual distribution after the end of the VI century may be found in the extension of the authority of Ethelbert of Kent.2
1 Seethe Kingston brooch, Plate III, i. 2 Archceologia, LXIII, p. 192.
6 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
Verroterie cloisonnfa, or the inlaying of flat pieces of pastes or precious stones in cells on a metallic ground, was practised in Egypt as early as the twelfth dynasty, and thence spread through the East. From Persia it passed into the knowledge of the Gothic tribes,1 as is shewn by the discovery of an inlaid pendant with a Pahlavi inscription in a Prankish grave at Wolfsheim. The inlaid style of ornament was probably first introduced to the Gothic peoples in the II century. It followed their gradual migration westward, and adorns the Visigothic treasures of the IV century found at Petrossa and at Szilagy Somlyo.2
This style of decoration reached Western Europe at the end of the V century. For the first half of the VI century very small garnet inlays, closely set over hatched gold foil, in a single plane, were used (see Plate III, 2); in the second half of the century greater freedom in spacing, in relief, and in choice of stones culminated in the elabora- tion of the Kentish style of the VII century, of which the Kingston brooch is the most famous example. (Plate III, i, 3.) Pastes of a contrasting colour, usually blue, and round bosses of ivory or some like substance were commonly introduced among the garnets, which were somewhat larger than those employed in the early work.
The other characteristically Kentish technical process is filigree work in gold. It is sometimes found as the sole decoration of a jewel, and sometimes in conjunction with inlaid work in garnets or pastes. Such granular filigree,
1 See Archceologta, LVIII, 1902, p. 237. E. Molinier, Histoirc des Arts appliques a f Industrie, II, p. 17. 2 See Baldwin Brown, op. cit. Ill, p. 527.
ANGLO-SAXON METAL WORK.
ANGLO-SAXON AND CELTIC 7
together with gold wire plaited and soldered down, was used by both classical and Oriental goldsmiths, but it seems probable that it was imitated by the Anglo-Saxons from Roman work. Like the inlaid work in garnets, filigree reached its highest development in England in the VI and VII centuries. Work such as that of the Windsor dagger pommel (Plate II, 8) has not been surpassed in any age. But after the VII century the art declined: the empty and straggling filigree work seen on certain bracteates (Plate IV, 5) is invariably a sign of late date. Its effect was early imitated in repousse", and in stamped or moulded beading, in which much of the brilliance of effect is lost.1
Elsewhere in England the simpler technical processes used for subsidiary ornament in Kent were developed as the sole decoration of jewels. Casting was carried out with consider- able skill, and bracteates and ornamented plates for application to brooches were struck from moulds. Though advanced repoussd work was little practised, stamping and punching were commonly used to decorate simple work with good effect. (Plates V, 3; II, i.)
The forms of jewels in use in England from the V to the VII centuries are as complex as their design and technique. The most important are the fibula or brooch, and the buckle. The simple fibula is found among the tribes of Central Europe at a very early date, certainly by the beginning of the XI century B.C. Through their migrations it became known in many parts of the Continent, and underwent varied developments in different hands. Eventually the late Roman
1 Cf. Plate V, i ; and imitations of the same style in Plate II, 3 and 4.
8 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
types came to be adapted by the barbarians in all parts of the Empire, and in their turn suffered many changes. Thus the types of brooch in use in Anglo-Saxon England were developments — in some cases characteristic of this country— of certain barbarian types of the V century.
Anglo-Saxon brooches may be divided into the following types: circular disc brooches — generally jewelled — found in the graves of the Saxon and Jutish tribes of Kent and the Isle of Wight (e.g. Plate III, i, 3) ; brooches of concave or saucer shape, found among the Saxons of Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Gloucestershire (e.g. Plate I, 5, 6); the cruciform fibulae of the Angles of Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria (Plate I, 2, 3), horse-headed ("square-headed") fibulae (Plate I, i), annular brooches (Plate II, 2), such North Gaulish types as S-shaped, bird-shaped, and radiated fibulae, and the Scandinavian tortoise-shaped brooches. The attribution of many of the former types to particular countries or tribes can only be general, and one more useful than strictly accurate ; the saucer-shaped brooch in particular is no longer considered to be purely West Saxon in character.1
The Kentish circular fibula — which was probably a feminine ornament — is unsurpassed on the Continent for elaboration and beauty. Three types of it are known, of which the existing samples mostly date from the VII century. The first is a brooch made of two superimposed plates, with the pin fixed at the back of the lower one, and the upper surface of the other divided into cells for the reception of
1 Archceologia, LXIII, 1912, p. 159.
;.,
ANGLO-SAXON INLAID JKWELS
ANGLO-SAXON AND CELTIC 9
slabs of gems or paste. The finest and best known example of this type is the Kingston brooch. (Plate III, i, 3.)
The second type is generally made of bronze or silver, into which is fitted an upper disc divided into cells arranged in geometric patterns, often decorated with three or more smaller bosses grouped round a central one. A fine example of this type is the Abingdon brooch in the Ashmolean Museum. (Plate II, 5.)
The third and simplest type is a single disc of metal ornamented with pastes or stones and work in relief; the decorative scheme of this type is often a central boss with three radiating arms. The edge of the jewel is usually corded or ribbed. A few fine examples of this type are decorated with gold filigree and inlaid work in garnets and blue pastes (Plate 111,6); a simpler version, of fairly common occurrence, is decorated with three red pastes and a central boss of bone. (Plate II, 9.)
Annular brooches consist of a ring crossed by a pin, which either travels round it on a small cylindrical ring or is fastened hinge-wise to a constriction of it. The most beautiful Saxon example of this comparatively rare type is the Sarre brooch in the British Museum. (Plate II, 2.)1 Another has recently been found at Alfriston, and is now in the Lewes Museum.
Many brooches of concave or saucer shape have been found, generally in pairs, in the graves of both men and women in West Saxon cemeteries. It is a type which
1 See Victoria. County History, Kent, I, p. 46. For a fine example from Uncleby, see Victoria County History, Yorkshire, Frontispiece No. 3.
io ENGLISH JEWELLERY
probably originated in England at the time when the centre of Teutonic culture was shifted there from North Germany. While found chiefly in Wessex, its diffusion is too widespread to allow of its being a type peculiar to the West Saxons, as it has frequently been found in the Eastern Midlands and in Cambridgeshire. It appears to have been in use to the North and East of Bedford prior to 571, the earliest date at which intercourse with Wessex was possible.1 The saucer-shaped brooches are always of bronze or copper, and have sometimes been gilt. (Plate I, 4, 5.) The edge, which springs out at a sharp angle from the central plate, is always left plain. A few examples are formed of two metal plaques joined by the rim, and while some have a slightly concave disc decorated with gilt-foil and covered with geometrical compartments, the greater number are made of a single piece of incised metal. Both geometric and zoomorphic designs are found ; on the whole the former is better represented on the Western side in common with the true saucer type, while animal designs and the "applied" type are more characteristic of Eastern England. After the end of the VI century Kentish influence, conse quent on the rise of Ethelbert to power, becomes apparent in the designs, some of which imitate the grouped bosses familiar in Kentish work.
The cruciform fibula — a development of the Swedish elongated fibula — is rarely found outside England. When it first arose, probably in the V century, it was of simple form. It never lost this primitive character, and however elaborate in design was always wrought out of a mass of
1 Archceologia, LXIII, 1912, p. 159.
ia ENGLISH)
probably originated in Englar
of T< c culture was shifted th*
While found chiefly in Wessex, it
to all its being a type peculiar
ha.- ;tly been found in the I
Gi igeshire. It appears to have be
an st of Bedford prior to 571, the earl.
intercourse with Wessex was possible.1 Th
brooches are always of bronze or copper, and k
been gilt. . (Plate I, 4, 5.) The edge, wl
a sharp angle from the central plate, is a
A few examples are formed of two metal j by
the rim, and while some have .!
with gilt-foil and covered with geometrical .
greater number are made of 'a single ;
Both geometric and zoomorphic dc
whole the former is better represented on
common with the true saucer type, wh
the "applied" type are more characteristic .
After the end of the VI century Kentish in.
quent on the rise of Ethelbert to power, becomes apparent
in the designs, some of whi< ii im grouped !
familiar in Kentish work.
The cruciform
• elongated fibul. rely i
it first arose, j in ti ,|e
form. It never lost t! elaborate in design w
? '4
i
I
ANGLO-SAXON JEWELS
ANGLO-SAXON AND CELTIC u
metal and never set with glass or stones. It is a type hardly ever found in the South of England. The examples illus- trated in Plates I, II and III shew its general form and the varied ornament characteristic of the later examples.
Of the types of brooches which are not indigenous to England, those in the shape of an S and those decorated with birds' heads were probably imported from northern Gaul.
The radiated, or, as it is sometimes called, the digitated, fibula is probably a V century development. It is really a compound of two styles ; the upper part is rectangular or semi-circular, with radiating projections, generally five in number ; the lower portion, joined to it by a curved bow, varies considerably in form, but is frequently lozenge-shaped.1 This fibula, which is sometimes found in conjunction with the bird-shaped type, is comparatively rare in England, and is hardly ever found outside Kent.
Some early cruciform brooches of English and Scandi- navian origin end in the head of an animal generally considered to be that of a horse, and a later Jutish development of the square-headed brooch ends in a large elongated horse-head with prominent eyes. This type is rarely set with stones, but the pear-shaped eyes and other parts of its characteristic ornament may be stone settings copied in metal. It was probably as a rule first cast in metal and afterwards incised. A particularly large and fine example was found in Emscote Road, Warwick, and is now in the museum of the Warwick Natural History and Antiquarian Society, and others have been discovered in Leicestershire and the adjoining counties.
1 J. de Baye, Industrial Arts of the Anglo-Saxons, p. 40.
12 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
A brooch found at Tuxford, Nottinghamshire (Plate I, i), probably of VI century date, has a disc riveted to the bow ; somewhat similar examples have been found in Scandinavia, and at Sarre and Bifrons in Kent. In graves at Bifrons the horse-headed type of brooch has been discovered worn with the point upwards, as the Celts wore their penannular brooches.
" Tortoise-shaped " brooches, that is brooches shaped like an highly convex elliptical shield, have been found in the Eastern parts of England. They are a purely Scandinavian type, commonest in the later years of the X century. In England they are never found in cemeteries, but usually on the coast or near the great rivers and roads, which suggests that they were not manufactured here but imported by Scandinavian invaders.
The buckle is related to the brooch in function, and has certain analogies with the ring-brooch in shape. It is a typically Teutonic ornament, of which the history can be traced through the series of Teutonic graves. The English type with the richest decoration has a buckle-plate of rec- tangular or triangular form joined to the buckle and once riveted to the belt. This, at first a practical addition to strengthen the point of greatest strain on the leather, became an admirable field for ornament. It might be filled with a single flat stone1 or be ornamented with a single stone in a chased setting. (Plate II, 4.) Even more beautiful decora- tion is found on plates in the form of a long isosceles triangle, which are usually ornamented with three bosses in relief. (Plate V, 1-3, 5, 6.) The rest of the space is often decorated
1 e.g. Buckle from Tostock, Evans Collection, Ashmolean Museum.
I 2
A brooch probably o' somewhat s and at S horse- the point iqm
"'• an high!
Eastern parts of id They
type, comn <e later y<;ir> ».-
! they are never found in . th< * or r; at rivers
t they wen not man tf\\
tndinavian invaders,
The buckle is related, to th« certain analogies with -the typically Teutonic ornament, traced through .the series ui Ti type with the richest dt. tangular or triangular riveted to the belt. Ti strengthen the point of g an admirable held for or single flat stone1 or be on a chased setting, tion is found on j which are usually (Plate V, 1-3, 5,
1 e.g. Buckle from Tos'
ANGLO-SAXON BUCKLES
ANGLO-SAXON AND CELTIC 13
with filigree, and is sometimes set with garnets in inlaid work. A buckle from Taplow (Plate V, 6) is remarkable for the figure of a fish in relief, enhanced with granular filigree, that lies along the centre of the plate. Animal decoration of relatively naturalistic sort is also used on a buckle with a very small orifice in the Gibbs Collection (Plate V, 4) decorated with rams' heads in plaited filigree.
In a primitive age it is natural that useful jewels, such as brooches and buckles, should be the most important. Neck- laces and pendants, however, are almost universal savage ornaments, since both combine decorative and magical uses. The pendant in its original form is the simplest of all prophy- lactic jewels ; the magical stone, tooth or shell, is pierced and hung round the neck by a thread or thong,1 and is succeeded by a metallic ornament, often set with stones that are con- sidered to combine beauty and magical efficacy. A necklace is in origin a series of such ornaments threaded together.
The most characteristic Anglo-Saxon pendants are the bracteates, which derive their circular shape and some elements of their decoration from Roman coins. This form reached England from Scandinavia, and dates from the middle of the V to the middle of the VII century. The design is usually much debased from its classical original. Kentish cemeteries have yielded pendants with more beautiful decoration, sometimes recalling that of the circular brooches. (Plate III, 4; Plate II, i ; Plate IV, 7.) Late examples of this type sometimes display cruciform designs (Plate IV, 5), and several cross-shaped pendants of the VII century are
1 For Anglo-Saxon examples, see Magical Jewels.
i4 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
known. The British Museum has one from Bacton, Norfolk, with a gold coin of Mauricius (c. 500) struck at Aries, in the centre, surrounded by a wreath of flat garnets over hatched foil ; and another — from Wilton, near Methwold, Suffolk — centred by a gold coin of Heraclius I (615-641), with the rays of the cross and the rim of the coin enriched with garnets similarly foiled. Another East Anglian example found at Stanton, near Ixworth, Suffolk, now in the Evans Collection in the Ashmolean Museum (Plate III, 2), has the entire cross set with flat garnets in geometric cloisons of gold. One similarly set was found in the grave of St. Cuthbert at Durham, when it was opened in 1827, and is now in the Cathedral Library. (Plate III, 7.) The junction of the arms is decorated with a cabochon in a raised setting, that lifts to disclose a cavity for a relic.
If Roman influence is evident in Anglo-Saxon pendants, it is equally obvious in Anglo-Saxon necklaces. The bead- necklaces, of glass of Roman type, of terra-cotta with vitreous incrustations, of Kimmeridge coal and jet, amber, and amethystine quartz, show many traces of classical influence in their shapes, their graduation and their stringing. Even stronger Roman influence is shown in necklaces found at Desborough (Plate IV, 10), and Brassington Moor. These have round, square, oval and triangular carbuncles in gold settings with long barrel-shaped loops, and are threaded with barrel-shaped beads of twisted wire-work. The Desborough necklace has an equal-armed cross as its central ornament.
The later developments of gold-work in England followed the spread of Christianity through the country. First intro-
ANGLO-SAXON AND CELTIC 15
duced by British, Irish, Gallo- Roman and Prankish mission- aries, and then propagated by Irishmen such as Aidan and Saxons like Chad, Cuthbert and Wilfred, the Catholic faith united all the elements of the nation in a new relation.
The influence of the new religion on the arts in England was profound and widespread. It created new needs for them to fulfil, it brought new motives of decoration for them to express, and as the Christian faith spread northward in the VII and VIII centuries a new consistency of style began to spread through the decorative art of these islands through the bond of a common faith.
The boundaries of Christendom and of the Roman Empire are nearly conterminous. Ireland and Armenia were the only countries which early accepted the Christian faith but had never endured the Roman yoke, and each contributed original and national elements to Christian art. In Ireland the traditions of pagan Celtic art were still living when the country accepted the new faith, and its flamboyant designs were combined with new motives from foreign sources in the service of the Church. Dominance in art passed from the Teutonic to the Celtic peoples with the rise of Christian Celtic art.
The end of the VIII century and the whole of the IX was a dark age for Christianity in England. The Vikings brought peril, and were near to bringing destruction to the Church in England. Cuthbert's church at Lindisfarne was destroyed in 793, and up to the sack of Canterbury in ion the English Church enjoyed little peace. Meanwhile Ireland became for a time the Western centre of Christendom, and
16 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
scholars " flocked like bees ': to the schools of Durrow and Armagh, the universities of the West. Celtic art shared in the national renaissance. The development of scholarship gave a new importance to parchment and quill, and the illumination of manuscripts led to the evolution of patterns for the decorative arts in stone and metal. Regular compart- ments and open recessed panels were filled with exquisite interlaced work, and zoomorphic patterns of lacertine monsters and long-billed birds. The rich and varied ornament was controlled by a strong sense of line, proportion and relief; the ancient traditions of pagan Celtic art remained too strong for any barbarian roughness to survive in the refinement of the Christian Celtic style. The skill of Irish artists passed beyond the seas; the best Continental craftsmen of the IX century came from the Irish foundation of St. Gall.1
The trumpet, spiral, animal and interlaced designs of Christian Celtic art lend themselves peculiarly well to the technique of goldsmiths' work, which had indeed been the mistress art in Ireland in the pagan period. The Ardagh chalice, the Bell-shrines, and many penannular brooches remain to represent the magnificence and beauty of Christian Celtic metal work, which, with the other branches of Celtic art, reached its golden age in the VIII century.
The Celtic artist had different traditions and a different civilization from his Saxon contemporary. Celtic gold-work has few jewelled settings save occasional studs of amber, and no inlaid-work in garnets, but is greatly superior to English work in its chasing, engraving, filigree and enamel. The
1 Texier, Dictionnaire d1 Otfevrerie Chretienne, I, p. 29. s.v. Abbaye.
CELTIC JEWELS
ANGLO-SAXON AND CELTIC 17
cleavage between Celtic and Saxon work is emphasized by the difference of form in the jewels as well as in their decora- tion. The characteristic Celtic jewel is the penannular brooch,1 which is common in Ireland and Scotland, occasion- ally found in Northern England and unknown in the South. It is probably derived from a pin with a wire bent in a circle through the head, such as is sometimes found in Ireland. Some of these pins have the ring joined and flattened at the bottom to the shape of the later penannular brooches.2 The characteristic feature of the penannular brooch is that the ring has a break in it (hence its name) and that the pin is con- siderably longer than the diameter of the ring. This pin was inserted in the fabric at two points close together, and pushed through till the long end was exposed ; this was put through the break in the ring, which was then given a turn through a right angle in the plane of the stuff. The pull of the stuff then kept the brooch in place. The two contemporary representations of the penannular brooch in use, and the way in which it is still worn by the women of Algeria,3 shew that it was worn with the pin pointing upwards at an angle of about thirty degrees to the horizontal, with the split in the ring at the side where the heavy weight of the finials would naturally make it fall.
The penannular form is found at an early date in Ireland. Some VI century examples are of comparatively small size, and have the ends of the ring terminating in birds' heads. Later the finials became broader and flatter, and so shaped
1 See J. Romilly Allen, Celtic Art, p. 216 seq.
* Cf. Wilde, Catalogue of the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, Fig. 464.
8 J. Romilly Allen, Celtic Art, p. 224.
3
i8 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
that only their outside edge conforms to a circle. These finials are often shewn issuing from the mouths of birds' heads, as in the silver-gilt ring of a penannular brooch of about 800 in the museum of the Royal Irish Academy. (Plate VI, i.) This shews the tendency to close the ring and make it only an ornamental appendage of the pin, which arose as soon as the decoration of the brooch became of more importance than its practical use. The next stage is seen in another example from the same collection (Plate VI, 3) ; the border and finials are joined by three bars and the birds' heads have disappeared. Both of these brooches are ornamented with interlaced and conventional designs of great beauty in low but sharp relief, which, with the raised rims, bosses, and settings, give play of light and shade to the whole. The most beautiful of existing penannular brooches, the Tara brooch, is now thought to be of the first half of the VIII century. (Plates VII and VIII.) It illustrates a type in which the ring is completely closed, while keeping the shape of the broad flattened finials, and the pinhead is flattened and expanded. The ring and pinhead are of white bronze, heavily gilt, and are divided into recessed panels of gold filigree in exquisite interlaced designs, and further decorated with enamel, niello,1 inlaid gems, and chasing and engraving on the bronze base. The outer curve of the con- joined finials and the angles of the pinhead are ornamented with small projections, some in the shape of birds' heads. A plaited chain of " Trichinopoly " pattern, some few inches
1 Latin nigellum ; a black compound of silver, copper, borax and sulphur, fusible at a low temperature, and applied to metal, usually silver, in the same way as enamel.
THE TARA BROOCH (FRONT)
ANGLO-SAXON AND CELTIC 19
in length, is attached to one side of the brooch by a socket decorated with human, animal and birds' heads. The corre- sponding socket and chain are lost. The back is decorated with borders of trumpet pattern and of a row of birds, and with panels of interlaced lacertine monsters and spirals such as can be paralleled in the nearly contemporary Book of Kells. The whole brooch is covered with varied and beauti- ful ornament and minute workmanship.
The Hunterston brooch, less splendid but of similar type, found in 1826 at West Kilbride, Ayrshire, is now in the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland.1 (Plate IX, i.) The edge of the closed finials of the ring does not form a true half circle, but is a little broadened. The pinhead and the wide part of the ring are set with circular pieces of amber, and decorated with interlaced and zoomor- phic designs in granular and plaited filigree. The back is inscribed in Runic characters with the names of two of the former owners, Maelbritha and Olfriti.
Many other penannular brooches have been found in Scotland, and some of Irish origin have been discovered in Norway. The conservative type, in which the opening in the ring is not filled up, is represented by the larger Rogart brooch which was found in 1868 in a railway cutting.2 The finials — as in some Irish examples — are discs of quatrefoil shape, decorated with a circular central setting of amber, surrounded by a border divided into four compartments, each of which is filled with a plate of gold tooled in an interlaced
1 Anderson, Scotland in Early Christian Times, 2nd series, p. 2.
* Ibid., p. 7. Sometimes called the Cadboll brooch, from its original owner, Mr. Macleod of Cadboll.
20 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
pattern. From each of the four semicircular spaces beyond this border rises the neck and head of a bird, with the bill resting on the ground. Another bird appears opposite the orifice. The smaller brooches found at the same time are similar in type but simpler in design.
Examples of late date shew the ring again opened, and terminating in broad flat finials issuing from birds' heads of debased design. (Plate IX, 2.) Some good early X century examples in the Royal Irish Academy have a plain round working half to the ring and a pin with a cylindrical head, the finials being decorated with plain raised bosses rising from a ground of interlaced lacertine ornament. In later examples of the same century the finials are more angular in form and simpler in decoration. A pierced example of the late X century is shewn in Plate VI, 5.
Apart from the penannular brooches the number of Irish personal ornaments of the Christian period is relatively small. Two or three rings of Christian Celtic workmanship are known (Plate VI, 2), but the most interesting jewel is probably the Clonmacnois pin,1 consisting of a silver pin, a short coupling bar decorated in niello, and a kite-shaped pendant decorated with a cruciform design in paste and filigree ending in the head of a boar.
If we turn from Celtic work of the VIII and IX centuries to contemporary English work we find definite traces of Irish influence and a marked absence of the Caro- lingian style. Such an ornament as the triple pin from Lincoln (Plate I, 6) may be an importation, but in
1 Romilly Allen, Celtic Art, p. 221.
il
From < the four se? • beyond
[ler rises- the neck and he bill
'he* g; Another b
!)rooches found in design.
v the ring
* issuing fr
design. (Plate IX, 2.) Some tury examples in the Royal Irish Academ} ad working half to the ring and a pin with a c\ head, the finials being decorated with plain raised bosses' rising from Mind of interlaced lacertine ornament In
later example- of the same century the finials arc m gular
in form and »n ' A ; of the
late X century wn in Plate' VI, 5.
Apart fr
personal or; the, ( relat
Two or three r: if Christian Celtic workmanshij
known (Plate VI, 2), but the most v probably the ( ,* consisting cri
short coupi in niello, and a kit. ed
pendant dc 'iciform design in
filigree endi
If
centuries to c
traces of Irish iro-
lingian sty! pin from
Lincoln but in
1 Re-.
THE TARA BROOCH (BACK)
ANGLO-SAXON AND CELTIC 21
unmistakably English work more subtle traces of Celtic influence are to be found. The Alfred jewel1 (Plate IV, i, 3) is one of the monuments of English history, but its form, proportions, and size are like those of the Clonmacnois pinhead, though it is slightly broader and heavier in form. The decoration of the front of the jewel is also alien from Anglo-Saxon tradition: it is covered by a thick crystal slab beneath which is a plaque in cloisonne*2 enamel representing the half-length figure of a man robed in a tunic of translucent green on a blue background, bearing in either hand a flower- like object which resembles the trefoil-headed sceptre sometimes found in Celtic art.3
The back of the jewel is engraved with a form of tree design recalling the detail of some early illuminated manu- scripts. The sides are filled with a pierced fret, holding the edges of the crystal slab, of the letters of the inscription "ALFRED MEC HEHT GEWYRCAN*' (Alfred ordered me to be wrought). The narrow end of the jewel terminates in a socket in the shape of a boar's head decorated with granular filigree, recalling the finial of the Clonmacnois pin. This socket seems too slender to receive a rod in proportion to the size and weight of the jewel; it may have supported some ring-like appendage from which hung fine chains like those of the Irish pin.4 Some doubt has been expressed whether the
1 See J. Earle, The Alfred Jewel and Victoria County History of Somerset, I, p. 378.
2 Cloisonne or cell enamel has the partitions between the fields of enamel made of thin strips of metal bent into the required shape and fixed to the ground.
8 O. M. Dalton, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of London, Vol. XX, 1904, p. 70.
* Many other theories have been put forward as to the use of the ornament. It has been explained as an amulet, an explanation which gives no information as to the way in
22 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
jewel is of English origin, since cloisonne' is rare in England at this date ; but the fact that the enamel is much coarser than Byzantine or Lombardic work makes it seem probable that it was made in this country at a time when enamel had been reintroduced to craftsmen who were already skilled metal- workers. Another piece of cloisonne' enamel that offers certain analogies with the Alfred jewel and is of contemporary fabrication is the Minster Lovel jewel, also in the Ashmolean Museum. (Plate IV, 4.) A brooch of about the same date found at Dowgate Hill (Plate IV, 6) has also been claimed as English, but the fineness of its workmanship offers so strong a contrast to that of the Alfred jewel and so many analogies with undoubtedly Lombardic work (such as the Castellani brooch) that the attribution seems very doubtful. The cross of Edward the Confessor, discovered when his tomb was accidently broken in at the coronation of James II, appears from its description to have been of Byzantine workmanship, and it is probable that many such easily portable objects found their way to England.1
Late Saxon work offers further analogies with Celtic jewellery in its use of niello, such as is seen on the ring of
which it was worn ; a pendant, in which case the figure would presumably be head down- wards ; the cestel, or decorated end of the roller of a manuscript, for which a spherical object seems more suitable ; the end of a stylus, for which it would be unwieldy ; the head of a sceptre ; the crest of a helmet ; and the top of a ceremonial staff used in battle ; or of a choir-master's pointer or baculus cantoris.
1 See "A true and perfect narrative of the strange and unexpected finding of the crucifix and gold chain of that pious prince, St. Edward the King and Confessor, which was found after 620 years' interment and presented to his most sacred Majesty King James II, by Charles Taylour, gent. London, printed by J.B., and are to be sold by Randal Taylor, near Stationers Hall, 1688," and Evelyn, Diary, for September 16, 1685. The relic was lost by James II on his abdication (see " Particulars regarding the escape of James II" Britannic Magazine V, 1797) and is said to have been sold by auction by Mr. Donovan, a well-known naturalist, in 1830. Its further fate is unknown.
English md
r than
• in tl iced to craftsmen who *
Another piece of cloison, certain analogies with the Alfred jewel an< fabrication is the Minster Lovel jewel, also in the A Museum. (Plate IV, 4.) A brooch of about the same, date found at Dowgate Hill (Plate IV, 6) has also been clair as English, but the fin« kmanship offers so
strong a contrast to ( and so many
analogies with u !} as the
Castellani br< .btful.
The cross of : tomb was accr appears from
workmanship, and it is p. portable objects f
Late Saxt further an
jewellery in its u .„ such as is seen on the ring of
which it was worn ; a pendant, in which case the figure would presumably be head dowm- wards; the testel, or <k ,e roller of a manuscript, for which a
object seems moi the end of a stylus, for which it would be unwieli
of a scef : ad the top of a ceremonial staff u»
a choir-rna1 \-ufut canto-
itive of the strangt -\ • 1 ftn ing <>
Edward ssor, which
.•i presented to ;ered Ma>sty King
«4 by , sold by
Randal
.j, the escape ;old by auction by Mr. L)o: , unknown.
PLATE IX
e: t;
C u
ANGLO-SAXON AND CELTIC 23
Ethelwulf, King of Wessex (Plate IV, 8), which, like the Alfred jewel, is inscribed with the owner's name "ETHELVVLF R." Its design of two peacocks, affronted on either side of a conventional tree, is one familiar in early Christian art ; and the same influence is evident in the ring of Ethelswith, sister of Alfred and Queen of Mercia. (Plate IV, 2.) This has a circular bezel ornamented with an Agnus Dei engraved in relief within a quatrefoil border. To the same category belongs a IX century ring in the Ashmolean Museum (Plate IV, 8), with the bezel chased with a man's head surrounded by the inscription " NOMEN EHLLA FID IN XPO " (My name is Ella ; my faith is in Christ).
The establishment of Christianity in the Saxon kingdoms did much more for art than add to its types of decoration ; many of the monks were skilled craftsmen, and of these a certain number were workers in metal. St. Dunstan himself is said to have been a goldsmith— a ring thought to have been made by him is recorded in the Liber Quotidianus of Edward I l- —and Brednothus and Elsinus, Abbots of Ely, and Richard, Abbot of St. Albans, were famed in early times as skilled goldsmiths.2 St. Albans in particular was a centre of influence in the goldsmith's art, and a monk from there, named Ankere or Anketill, was invited by the King of Denmark to come to his court on account of his skill.3 The shrines, reliquaries and vessels of the Church were made of wrought and jewelled gold, and the vestments of the priests were decorated with pearls, pastes, precious stones, and
1 Ed. Nichols, p. 348.
2 Texier, Dictionnaire (TOrfevrerie Chretienne. s.v. Anketill.
3 Herbert, Livery Companies of London, p. 126.
24 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
enamels fastened to the ground of rich stuff. Even in the time of Canute, Leoffine, Abbot of Ely, gave to his church a splendid alb with the stole and maniple fashioned of gold and precious stones.1 The influence of the Church alone prevailed to maintain the arts, which suffered a definite de- cline in the Viking age of the X century. Comparatively few jewels of this date exist, and these shew the richness of the earlier period in neither form nor decoration. A typical Northern form is a penannular brooch, often of great size with pins nearly two feet long, with the finials of the ring in the shape of hatched globes with a flat end, like thistles.2 Another type is represented by a brooch found at Cuxtone, now in the British Museum, decorated with an eagle fighting a dragon, with the inscription " AELFGIW MEAH ': (Alfgiva owns me). It may possibly have belonged to Emma, wife of Ethelred the Unready and of Canute.
A brooch of pewter with a medallion centre decorated with a floriated cross, in the Guildhall Museum, and a large brooch of the late XII century found at Canterbury3 with a medallion in the style of Edgar's coinage, both have rims made of many concentric rings of pearled ornament, a form of decoration perhaps derived from the similar circles of pearls strung on wires found on Byzantine and Lombardic jewels. Analogies with this form of decoration may be found in the X century cast metal beads (such as some of melon shape in incised pewter in the Guildhall Museum), that are
1 Acta S. Etheldredce. Thomas of Ely. Acta Sanctorum Junii IV, 530.
2 A fine example of this type, found at Newbiggin Moor, near Penrith, Cumberland, is in the British Museum.
3 Vwtoria County History, Kent, Vol. I, Fig. 27.
ANGLO-SAXON AND CELTIC 25
cast together in a manner recalling the long beaded tubes of Scandinavian necklaces.1 Strong Scandinavian influence is again evident in such decoration as that which appears on a IX century pendant from Saffron Walden, to which a close parallel can be found on brooches of the Viking period from Hornelund, near Varde in Jutland.2
The end of the Saxon period, then, shews English gold- work subject to Celtic, Scandinavian, and even Byzantine influences. East and West are linked by a brooch3 of this date found in Ballycottin Bog, near Youghal, in the form of a cross of incised gilt bronze, set in the centre with a paste inscribed in Cufic with the Mohammedan confession of Unity, " There is no God but God."
Had the course of history given these influences time to become a part of a living art practised under settled conditions, the development of the English Romanesque style might have produced an art at once traditional, beautiful and national ; but the life of the nation suffered so great a change with the advent of the Norman invaders that such later developments of the Saxon style never came to fruition.
1 See du Chaillu, The Viking Age, p. 307, f. 1177.
2 See Baldwin Brown, op. cit., Plate XVI, 4.
3 Now in the British Museum.
CHAPTER II
ENGLISH JEWELLERY OF THE MIDDLE AGES
I
conquest of England by William of Normandy makes a definite break in the artistic history of this country. The Saxon tradition had already been weak- ened by the Scandinavian dominance of the Viking Age, and now the Scandinavian tradition in its turn was superseded by a fresh artistic impulse, brought by the invaders, that again combined classical, Oriental and Northern elements in a new and fruitful proportion.
The relation between England and the Continent was greatly changed. The Norman kingdoms linked Europe from Iceland to Sicily, and fused the pointed arch of Islam and the basilica of Rome in such Northern edifices as Durham Cathedral. The Catholic Church united Christendom through the religious houses, and by its direction of men's com- bative instincts into the field of crusading and missionary enterprise brought the countries beyond Christendom within men's sphere of knowledge. The gradual establishment of feudalism in Europe, and the consequent development of political theory and judicial knowledge, made yet another link between the nations. Ways of communication were estab- lished and protected, and the organization of international
commerce began.
26
ENGLISH JEWELLERY 27
At the beginning of the period, however, England lagged behind the Continent. She had her own problems to solve, and it was only through their solution that she could attain national life. She had never fully shared in the Carolingian tradition, and under the Norman dynasty, in spite of her close connection with France, she was neither so rich nor so secure in her civilization as the continental country. Her art was not so prolific, and kept more survivals from earlier and more barbaric styles.
Since the custom of burying objects with their owner gradually died out after the establishment of Christianity, our direct knowledge of the jewellery of the Norman period is confined to that represented on the monumental effigies and to a few objects lost and discovered by chance. Further information may be gleaned from a study of the treasures of Norman France, from the few Norman inventories of jewels and gold-work, chiefly ecclesiastical, and from contemporary technological treatises, such as the Schedula diversarum artium of Theophilus.1
One of the few extant jewels of this early period of Norman supremacy is a gold ring (Plate X, 3) of the time of the Conquest or rather later, which has its massive hoops chased with an intricate design of interlaced animals. In this a strong Scandinavian influence is still apparent. The classical tradition is represented by such jewels as a XII century brooch found some fifty years ago near Canterbury.2
1 English translation by Hendrie. This, written just before noo, describes the tools and processes of the metal worker in modelling, enamelling, jewel setting and inlaying. Its descriptions suggest Byzantine influence, which was much stronger on the Continent than in England.
* Proc. Soc. Ants. Lond,, VII, 1878, p. 368. In the possession of Mr. Smith of Elham.
28 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
This is set with an antique gem engraved with a faun extracting a thorn from another faun's foot, within a border of gold inscribed Amor mncit fortitudinem.
The Norman and Angevin kings of England were Frenchmen living in close touch with France, and foreign fashions and foreign jewels were gradually naturalized in this country. The effigy of Richard Cceur de Lion at Rouen, for instance, shews a large ring brooch and a belt, of which the leather band is " harnessed" throughout its length with alternate bars and quatrefoils of foliated jeweller's work, and the same richness appears on such female effigies as that of Berengaria at Le Mans.
King John possessed personal jewellery of great mag- nificence, some of which may still lie beneath the sands of the Welland, where it was lost with all his baggage train. He seems to have been unlucky with his jewels ; there is a record extant1 which mentions a reward — twenty shillings of rent in the place of the finder's birth — offered for the return of some gems " which we are wont to wear round our neck." His royal robe is described2 in an inventory of 1205 as a mantle of Eastern silk, studded with sapphires, cameos and pearls, and fastened with a clasp set with four emeralds, sapphires and balas rubies, and a turquoise. The Guild of Goldsmiths was that most heavily amerced of all the "adulterine" companies of London in 1180, its shops being at that time concentrated in the ward of Aldersgate, in the parishes of St. John Zachary and St. Vedast, Foster
1 M. Bateson, Mediceval England, p. 13.
2 Hardy, Letters Patent Rolls in the Tomer of London, I, p. 54.
13
MEDIAEVAL JEWELS
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 29
Lane.1 In 1327 the Guild was incorporated by Letters Patent of Edward III as "The Wardens and Commonalty of the Mystery of Goldsmiths of the City of London," and at the same time it was ruled that no gold work should be sold except at the King's Exchange or in the Chepe.2 The hall-mark of the Company was recognized as the public standard of assay as early as the reign of Edward I ; from that time onward all gold and silver plate exposed for sale had to be "touched with the touche of the Libard."3
The perilous years of the early Middle Ages witnessed new spiritual growth. As men learnt to look beyond the troubles of the world to a heavenly reality, so the artist learned to transcend the satisfaction of the eye in symbolic beauty. The Church Invisible was mirrored in the material edifice, and its form and the details of its decoration thus became the canon of the minor arts. The XIII century is the age of scholastic philosophy and of Gothic architecture: the one dominates the intellectual, the other the artistic activities of the age. France was the focus of these activities and the spiritual mistress of Europe.
The use in her cathedrals of shrines, chalices, and reliquaries of Gothic form made the relations between archi- tecture and gold-work peculiarly close. Architectural tracery in chased metal was used even on lesser ornaments to frame figures which fulfilled on the precious vessels of the cathedral the symbolic functions of the statues of the fa9ade.
Thus nearly all the morses recorded in the inventory of
1 Herbert, History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London, p. 121.
2 Ibid., p. 128. 8 Ibid., p. 172.
3o ENGLISH JEWELLERY
St. Paul's Cathedral in I2951 are "triforiati" and decorated with figure work. The figure of St. Paul appeared on the greater number of them, either alone or grouped with other saints, and sometimes with a representation of the donor of the morse. One of the most splendid was "the morse of William of Ely, of silver, with many small figures, representing the Annunciation, Nativity, the Magi worship- ping, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, and other similar things, with many stones and pearls set in the arms of the morse and the corners of golden tracery."
With the symbolic figures and architectural framework of Gothic architecture the XIII century jeweller accepted the conventional foliations of early Gothic detail. A beautiful example of this style of decoration is to be found on the back of the seal of the Cathedral Chapter of Brechin. (Plate X, 2.) Leaf decoration of another kind, for which an architectural parallel can also be found, is engraved on the rim of a XIII century ring brooch in the British Museum. (Plate X, 6.) Another XIII century ring brooch in the same collection (Plate X, 10) is set with rubies and sapphires alternately.
Such ornaments are all that survive of the lay jewellery of the time ; the descriptions of jewels in contemporary inven- tories shew that brooches of this kind formed an important part of the royal treasure. Henry III, in 1272, deposited for safety with his sister in Paris a great number of rings, sixty-nine belts, and forty-five fermails or brooches set with precious stones.2 One of these is described as being " Cum
1 Dugdale, History of St. Paul's, 1818 edition, p. 310.
2 Rymer Foedera, ist edition, I, p. 878.
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 31
duobus amantibus" a type that may perhaps be recognized in a brooch of base metal from Barrington recently given to the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. The whole treasure was valued at ^1051 145. 8d., an enormous sum at that time.
This king— a born spendthrift — made such extravagant presents to his wife that he was obliged to pawn not only his regalia, but also part of the jewels of the shrine of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey. A Patent Roll in the Tower of London gives a list of these : it records many brooches or fermails, loose stones, more than eighty cameos, and great golden images of Edward the Confessor, the Virgin and Child, and the Three Kings of Cologne, one holding in his right hand a flower, with a crown set with sapphires, a great garnet on his breast, "and otherwise set with pearls and small stones," and a figure of St. Peter, holding in one hand a church and in the other the keys, trampling on Nero, in whose breast was a great sapphire.
The Liber Quotidianus of Edward I * records many brooches, among them a square one of gold with a sapphire in the middle surrounded by pearls and precious stones, and one in the form of an eagle of gold set with rubies and emeralds — a type of which Rhenish examples are still in existence. It also enumerates several coronets and belts, both of gold -work and of stuff sewn with jewels, and pen- dants set with a large sapphire, a cameo and an amethyst.
When in 1774, the body of Edward I was examined lying in its tomb,2 a stole was discovered decorated with
1 Liber Quotidianus Garderobce regis Edwardi primi, ed. J. Nichols.
2 Gough, Sepulchral Monuments, I, pt. i, p. 4.
32 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
quatrefoils of beautifully chased work in gilt metal, set in the centre and in each petal with a paste in a raised collet. The ground of the stole was closely sewn with pearls in an interlaced pattern. The mantle in which the body was wrapped was fastened with a ring brooch, also set with pastes or stones in raised collets, with the head of the pin terminat- ing in an acorn. A pair of gloves was found, with a jewelled quatrefoil sewn on the back of each.
The XIV century witnessed a new richness of ornament in gold-work as in architecture and other decorative arts. Figure work became more important and more independent of any architectural frame, and in gold-work the development of a different style of jewellery, decorated with incrusted enamel in high relief — "email en ronde bosse" —enabled the goldsmith to attempt more ambitious schemes of decoration. This style was so successful when carried out in opaque white, relieved with translucent enamel, pearls, and coloured stones, that it survived until the end of the XVI century. These figure compositions were nowhere more elaborate than on the great morses and pectorals used to clasp the cope of the priest. The inventory of the morses belonging to Westminster Abbey in 1388,' describes many decorated with such subjects as the Assumption of the Virgin, with Peter and Paul on either side, and the Virgin and Child with accompanying figures. Such compositions were not confined to ecclesiastical jewels. Edward II, in 1324, owned a belt which had " sur le mordant le Verge de Jesse"
Both Edward II and his favourite, Piers Gaveston, were
1 Archteologia, LI I, 1890, p. 213.
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 33
famed for the jewels with which their garments were "broidered." The lists of the jewels of Gaveston made on his attainder in I3I3,1 and of the King's in 1324^ describe vast quantities of unset stones ; crowns, circles and chaplets of gold and silver ; golden brooches and rings, " Fleures de liz " probably used for " broidering" garments; and girdles and diadems or " tressouresT At this time vast quantities of precious stones were imported from the East :-
" No sapphire Inde, no ruby rich of price There lacked then, no emerald so grene, Bales,3 Turkes.4
After the Battle of Cre'cy in 1346, an enormous number of jewels and of Limoges and other enamels were imported, and consequent efforts to emulate the extravagance of the King and his favourites led to the institution of sumptuary laws, though these were never rigorously enforced. In 1363, it was enacted that no person under the rank of knight, or of less property than ^200 in lands or tenements, should wear rings, buckles, ouches, girdles, or any other part of their apparel decorated with gold, silver or gems. From this time the existing inventories grow in number and detail, and are a reliable and invaluable source of information with which to check and illustrate our knowledge of the jewellery shewn in the other sources for the period.
The jewellery of the time falls, roughly speaking, into
1 Rymer, Fcedera, ist edition, III, p. 388.
2 Palgrave, A ntient Kalendars and Inventories of the Exchequer, Vol. Ill, p. 123.
3 The balas ruby, of a cochineal red colour, is so called from Balakia or Balch, the capital of Badakan in the Upper Oxus Valley, whence it was exported to Europe. It is really the ruby spinel, and is softer and less dense than the true ruby, from which it differs in not being dichroic. 4 Chaucer, Court of Love, V, 80.
5
34 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
two categories — that of which enamel is the sole or principal decoration, and that in which it is used chiefly to enhance the beauty of precious stones. For the enamelled figure work characteristic of the period, several processes were employed- — the dmail en ronde bosse described above, for figures in relief or in the round, and champleve" enamel and translucent enamel over silver embossed in low relief for designs in one plane. Champlevd enamel, in which the com- partment to be filled with each colour is chiselled out and removed from the metallic ground so as to leave a very narrow band of metal at the level of the original surface as the dividing line between the compartments, was produced in considerable quantities in France, principally at Limoges. There was undoubtedly an export trade from this centre to England, but some enamel of this type was probably made in England, perhaps by enamellers, who, like the Richardin mentioned in the Livre des Metiers of Etienne Boileau, had learnt their craft in Paris.
Canon Rock owned a morse enamelled in this style that had once formed part of the furniture of a parish church in Buckinghamshire. It was of quatrefoil shape, with small semicircles in the four angles, enamelled with the heads of the four Evangelists. In a long narrow compartment from top to bottom of the morse was a Virgin and Child, with a bird filling the space above and below; in an arch on either side was an angel holding a candle, enamelled on a green ground powdered with daisies.1
1 Rock, Church of our Fathers, II, p. 34. It was probably of French workmanship. A similar morse of copper, decorated with champleve enamel, described as Limoges work of the XIV century, is illustrated in the Catalogue of the Spitzer Collection. (Vol. I, Plate VII, No. 4.) This also has the unoccupied parts of the field powdered with daisies, which are characteristic of French work.
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 35
XIV century English figure work in translucent enamel is best exemplified on the larger works of the goldsmith, such as the crozier of William of Wykeham at New College;1 examples of personal ornaments so decorated are two pendants in the Victoria and Albert Museum.2 One (Plate XI, 7) is formed of two plaques, representing a knight and a lady, and a combat, so set as to form a case for a relic; the other (Plate XI, 8) is in the form of a diptych, with the Nativity and the Resurrection on the inner side of the leaves, and St. Michael on the outer with St. John.
The third type of figure work in enamel — dmail en ronde bosse—\s hardly represented among the extant examples of English mediaeval jewellery, though the example recorded in inventories and those surviving in the treasuries of the Continent help to make good the deficiency.
Such enamel work, however, was far from ousting heavily jewelled ornaments from favour. Precious gems were used in great profusion for the decoration of ornamental coronets for the hair, to which there are many references in con- temporary literature. In the Lay of Sir La^mfal
" Their heads were dight well withal Everych had on a jolyf coronal With sixty gemmes and mo' '
while Chaucer, in his Knight's Tale, writes
" A wreath of gold arm gret, of huge weight, Upon his head he set, full of stones bright Of fine rubys and clere diamants."
1 A fine example of this work is set in the binding of a Psalter in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Auct. D. IV, 2. It is enamelled with the Annunciation and Coronation of the Virgin within a chased gilt border.
2 218, 1873, and 215, 1874.
36 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
These coronets were not confined to the use of the nobility; a receipt1 for the sale of jewels by Agnes Chalk, spicer, of London, to John of Cambridge, records the sale to him of "a coronal of gold, wrought with stones, that is to say rubyes, saphirs, emeralds, and pearls."
From the time of Edward III women wore their hair twisted up beneath cauls or frets of gold, generally studded with pearls. Such a one is described in the royal inventory2 "Une tisseure de perles (Tor lent chescun copoun de iiij perles od p elites aymeraudes de clere colour yndes & vertes." Many such cauls are shewn on the female effigies of the period, for instance, on that of the wife of Sir Edmund de Thorpe3 in Ashwellthorpe Church, Norfolk. In this example it is surmounted by a rounded circlet, and no veil is worn. A charming description of one of these head tires has been left by Chaucer in his Legende of Good Women?
. . . "She was clad in roiall habite grene ;
A fret of golde she had next her here,
With florouns small ; and, I shall not lie,
For all the world, right as a daisie,
Icrownid is with white levis lite,
So were the flourounis of her crowne white,
For of a perle fine orientall
Her white coroune was imakid all.
For which the white coroune above the grene
Ymade her like a daisie for to sene,
Considered eke her fret of golde above."
Isabel, Duchess of York (d. I342),6 left such a fret of pearls to her daughter, Constance le Despencer; while Richard, Earl of Arundel (d. 1397),° bequeathed to his wife all the apparels
1 Riley, Memorials of London, p. 313. 2 Archceologia, X, 1792, p. 241.
8 Stothard, Monumental Effigies, p. 86. 4 I, 214.
6 Testamenta Vetusta, I, p. 135. 6 Ibid., I, p. 131.
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 37
for the head of pearls and other stones which he had given her in his lifetime.
About this time men began to wear hoods and hats, which, like their other garments, were heavily jewelled. In 1377 Richard II deposited with the Corporation of London, as security for a loan,1 a hood of scarlet, embroidered with rubies, balasses, diamonds, sapphires and large pearls ; another of murrey colour, embroidered with pearls, a hat of blue satin, embroidered with gems, and two hats of beaver embroidered with pearls. Massive coronals are shewn worn round the helmet on several monuments of the XIV century; a crown of great artistic beauty is that carved on the effigy of Henry IV in Canterbury Cathe- dral. The rim that rests on the forehead is decorated with a flowing design of vine leaves broken by jewelled circles and lozenges, and above this is a rich waved border from which spring oak leaves and fleur-de-lys.
After the XIII century it was customary to wear a brooch-like ornament, called an enseigne, in the hat. Pilgrims brought back shells from the Holy Land, and badges from the great pilgrimage churches ; retainers wore the badges of their lords, and later the rich translated these devices into beautiful ornaments of jewelled gold and silver. This fashion was not confined to the laity ; Langland in the Vision of Piers Plowman writes of a priest " eke with brooch or ouches on his hood."
Many base metal ornaments exist with the devices of the patron saints of the great pilgrimage churches. These were
1 Riley, Memorials of London, p. 44.
38 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
probably thought to give the wearer some share in the pro- tective power of the saint as well as to mark the pilgrimage he had accomplished.
Langland1 describes a pilgrim with
"An hundred of ampulles2 On his hat seten, Signes of Synay, And shelles of Galice, And many a crouche on his cloke, And keyes of Rome, And the vernicle3 bi-fore, For men showlde knowe And se bi his signes Whom he sought hadde."
These signs first came into general use in the XIII century ; the majority of existing examples are of the two succeeding centuries, but the practice continued at a later date.4
These pilgrim's signs, or signacula, were cast at the churches and monasteries ; moulds for casting them are now in the Guildhall Museum of the City of London and in the British Museum, and a forge for working the base metal of which they were usually made has been found at Walsingham Priory, one of the greatest pilgrimage churches of England. Numerous examples have been found in river beds and else- where.6 Some have holes for sewing to the hat and a few a pin cast in one with the brooch.
1 Vision of Piers Plowman, I, 3543.
2 Ampullas, supposed to contain a small relic, often of the blood of St. Thomas a Becket. 3 Veronica.
4 Erasmus, in his Colloquy of the Pilgrimage for Religion's Sake, makes Menedemus ask Ogygius: "But what kind of apparel is that which thou hasten? Thou art beset with semicircular shells, art full on every side with images of tin and lead, trimmed with straw chains, and thine arm hath a bracelet of beads."
6 Many pilgrims' signs were shewn at the exhibition at the Ironmongers' Hall in 1861. Catalogue, p. 312 seq.
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 39
Among the pilgrims' signs in the British Museum (Plate XIII) are examples with the head of Christ, the shell of St. James (Plate XIII, 5), the head and ampulla of St. Thomas a Becket (Plate XIII, 3), the Canterbury bell, the Agnus Dei or lamb and flag, St. George (Plate XIII, i), Henry VI,1 St. Leonard, St. Christopher, the horn of St. Hubert and the wheel of St. Catharine (Plate XIII, 4), while those at the Guildhall Museum include among others examples with the Virgin and Child, the Temptation of our Lord, St. Edmund, and the Crucifixion with the inscription " lesus and Maria." These signs are not only interesting in themselves, but also as the origin of the splendid enseignes of gold, often decorated with a Scriptural subject, which were worn in the hat after the middle of the XV century.
Besides these pilgrims' signs many secular badges of a similar kind were worn by the retainers of the great lords and their masters. In the British Museum are leaden enseignes with the bear and ragged staff of Warwick (Plate XIII, 10), the rose and fetterlock (Plate XI 1 1, 9), a falcon (Plate XI 1 1, 6), a cock, with a scroll inscribed " Follow me Kocrel" ; a stag lodged within palings ; a talbot, a horse and fleur-de-lys ; a cat and mouse with the legend " Vi sis mus," a shield encircled by a collar of SS, and a crowned heart with the motto " Herte be treue."
Such personal badges had a marked effect on the design of jewels in the latter years of the XIV century. They commonly formed the motive of the ouches, or large brooches,
1 Considered as a saint. Cf. paintings of him as such on the screens of Barton Church and Binham Abbey, Norfolk.
40 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
which began to supersede the older and smaller fermails.1 Edmund, Earl of March, for instance, on his death in 1380 bequeathed to his son "a small ouche in the form of the body of a stag and the head of an eagle," 2 and Richard, Earl of Arundel (d. 1397), left to his daughter, Elizabeth, an ouche ornamented with lions and crowns.3 This type of jewel is well represented in the list of brooches pawned by Richard II in I379-4 These include five wrought with his cognizance, the white hart (such as he and his attendant angels wear in the Wilton diptych) studded with rubies on the shoulders ; one great ouche and three smaller ones each with a griffin in the middle ; five ouches in the shape of white dogs studded with rubies on the shoulders, one great ouche with four wild boars azure, and four more shaped like eagles.
The collar of livery is a further and even more important development of the heraldic badge. The most important of the English mediaeval collars is the collar of SS, of which the origin is obscure.5 The earliest example of the collar
1 Ring brooches continued in use among the lower classes in Gloucestershire and other rural parts of England as late as the XVIII century.
2 Testamenta Vetusta.
3 Ibid., I, 131.
4 Riley, Memorials of London, p. 429.
5 The traditional attribution of the origination of the collar to John of Gaunt is supported by a drawing (now in the British Museum) made by Nicholas Charles, Lancaster Herald, of his arms as represented on a window of Old St. Paul's, encircled by a collar studded with SS. (ArchcBological Journal, XXXIX, p. 376.) Many interpretations have been brought forward for the mysterious SS. (See Purey Cust, The Collar of SS, p. 30 seq.) St. Simplicius (a Roman Martyr), the Countess of Salisbury, the Martyrs of Soissons, Societas and Silentium, may, I think, be dismissed. There remain Sanctus (often abbreviated to S), Seneschallus, Souverayne and Souvenez. Seneschallus is possible, since John of Gaunt was Seneschal or Lord High Steward of England.
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 41
of SS is that carved on the effigy of Sir John Swinford (d. 1371) in Spratton Church, Northamptonshire.1
This is a band — probably of leather or stuff — with raised edges, between which the SS are strung upon two narrow flat laces. It has no pendant, and is fastened with a knotted cord.
The weight of evidence as to the origin of the SS seems in favour of Souuerayne or Souvenez. Henry V bought of Christopher Tyldesley 2 "A collar of gold made for the King with twenty-tour letters of S pounced with soverain" At the same time his seals as Earl of Derby were engraved with an ostrich plume entwined with a scroll inscribed Souverayne? a motto which again appears upon his tomb.
Souvenez, or more fully, Souvenez voits de mot, on the other hand, was used by Richard II at the Smithfield joust, and is mentioned as decorating three hundred leaves of silver bought for a robe of Henry IV — then Earl of Derby — in I39I-2.4
In I4075 was made "a collar of gold, worked with the motto Soveignez and SS."
The form of the collar of SS has changed considerably in the course of its history. The earlier examples — like that of Sir John Swinford— were apparently made of metal letters
1 Archceological Journal, XXV, 1878, p. 423.
1 W. St. John Hope, Heraldry for Craftsmen and Designers, p. 306.
3 Ibid, p. 298.
4 Ibid. In the same year he bought " i coler auri . . . cum xvij literis de S ad modum plumarum cum rotulis et scripturis in eisdem cum signo (?cygno) in torrecto ejusdem" (Planche Cyclopcedia of Costume, p. 127), and in 1296, "a collar made, together with SS, of flowers of soveigne vous de may, hanging and enamelled."
5 Devon, Issues of the Exchequer, Pell Records, p. 305.
6
42 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
fixed to a ground of leather ; l later examples shew the letters linked together, or joined by knots, as in the example carved on the effigy of Sir Richard Redmayne (d. 1441) in Hare- wood Church.2
Many other livery collars were made introducing the badges of the wearer or his lord. Perhaps the best-known example is the collar of Plantagenet broom pods worn by Richard 1 1 and his attendant angels in the Wilton diptych. Such collars were sent by Charles VI of France to this King and to the Dukes of Lancaster, Gloucester and York in I393-3 The King's, however, was of more elaborate design than that shewn in the picture. Henry IV became possessed of this collar, described as being " of the livery of the King of France,"4 and of another ''of the livery of Queen Anne" made of branches of rosemary. The great inventory of the jewels left by Henry V6 mentions two collars of ' Bromes- coddes," one " Coler de tissu vert garniz d'or, 1'escription Sauns departier" and a third " fait d'un wrethe esmaille de vert et blanc." Henry VI combined the broomcods with his father's SS,6 and Edward IV wore a collar composed of two of his badges, a sun in glory and a white rose. From this hung the lion of March, changed by Richard III for the boar of his cognizance.
Another element in English jewel design at the end of the
1 SS of Latten, apparently used for this purpose, have been found in the Thames and are now in the Guildhall Museum.
- For this and other examples see Purey Cust. , op. cit., p. 24.
3 John Anstis, Register of the most noble Order of the Garter, II, p. 1 15.
4 Palgrave, Kalendars and Inventories, III, p. 357.
5 Rot. Parl., 2 Hen. VI, No. 80; Vol. IV, pp. 214-241 ; B. M. Harleian MS. 7026. Quoted with most of the other examples, St. John Hope, op cit., p. 304 seq.
6 Antis, Register of the Order of the Garter, II, p. 115. No. M.
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 43
XIV century can be traced to Burgundian influence. The devastations ot the Hundred Years' War had transferred the centre of artistic prosperity from France to Burgundy. Here the first stirrings of the Renaissance were felt in a new appreciation of the beauty of things as they are. Gothic symbolism had attained the point of development that Gothic architecture reached at Beauvais : its aim was too high and its span too great for its structure to bear the strain. The scheme of the whole had passed beyond comprehension, and as philosophers turned from speculative synthesis to experi- mental analysis, so artists renounced imaginative symbolism for the minute representation of natural beauty. The Flemish school of painters, whatever their subject, painted living men and women in surroundings they knew. Their Naturalism and the brilliance of their colour find a parallel in gold-work in jewels decorated with figure work, secular in its subject, enriched with precious stones.
The political and commercial connections between England and the Burgundy brought jewels of this kind to England; the inventory of Edward Ill's jewels in the thirtieth year of his reign1 records "Un nouche d' or gamy de precious pieres ove deux ymages a lafaceon du Roi and Roigne" and Henry IV2 owned "ouches" decorated with a white angel holding a sapphire,3 a child seated on a leopard, a lady and a unicorn,4 ' un faucon blanc steant sr un perch," " un griffon seisant un deyme," an " olifaunt," a lady seated on a sun,5 and
1 Palgrave, Kalendars and Inventories, III, p. 223. 2 Ibid., p. 340 seq.
8 Collectanea Antiqua, IV, p. 108 ; Cf. brooch from River Meuse, Franks Bequest, British Museum.
4 Cf. brooch of the Virgin in Lochner's Dombild (Cologne Cathedral), Clifford Smith, Jewellery, p. 145.
6 Cf. brooch in Treasury of Collegiate Church of Essen, ibid., p. 144.
44 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
" une damoysell es blancs flours portant un papingey en la mayn ", all richly set with diamonds, rubies, sapphires and pearls. At the same time simpler figure work in plain gold and silver-gilt continued to be used for less splendid jewels, in the religious designs of the preceding generation. Among the surviving examples of this type are the brooch from Kingston-on-Thames, in the British Museum, a " crystofre," like Chaucer's Yeoman's, and a triptych of silver, engraved and parcel gilt, with a figure of St. George and the Dragon in relief. (Plate XI, 6.)
Most of the existing lay jewels of the period, however, are fermails of relatively simple type. A fine XIV century example in the British Museum from the Londesborough Collection (Plate XI, 7) has the ring ornamented with four hollow bosses pierced with dragons and cockatrices alternating with cabochon emeralds and sapphires, and pearls in raised settings.
The ring brooch continued in use longer in Scotland than in England. One of the best Scottish examples is the Glenlyon brooch (Plate XV, i), once in the possession of the Campbells of Glenlyon, and now in the British Museum. The ring of the brooch is some three inches in diameter, and is set with six pearls in tall gold turrets, alternating with amethysts plainly set within a beaded edge, and crystals set in turrets encircled by wires crossing depressions in the metallic ring. Across the diameter is a bar of the same width as the ring, ornamented with two geometric cloisonnd panels of which the settings are lost, with a quatrefoil motive in the middle. Two pins are attached to the ring, and rest on the
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 45
edge of the central boss of the bar. On the back of the brooch is the talismanic inscription in black letters of the names of the Three Kings and the word Consumatun — the last saying of Our Lord, "It is finished" -which was considered a powerful talisman.
A development of the ring brooch that arose in the later years of the XIV century, probably used as a love-token, has two tiny clasped hands, sometimes holding a stone, projecting from the ring. (Plate X, 12.) A brooch of this type is mentioned in the will of Philippa, Countess of March1 (d. 1378), who left to her son "un fermayl bleu avec deux mangs tenang un diamant." Such a brooch found at Ixworth, Suffolk,2 is remarkable as having a small human head projecting from the ring opposite the hands. Other brooches of the same date are of similar construction to the ring-shaped fermail, but are of heart, lozenge, trefoil, or some other more elaborate design. These often bear amatory mottoes; a brooch formed of three scrolls placed trefoil-wise found at Brighton is inscribed "en espoier ma vye endure," while a heart-shaped brooch found at Newtimber, Sussex, has the posy, "Is thy heart as my heart?"3 There are several references to these heart-shaped fermails in wills ; Hugh, Earl of Stafford, in a codicil dated 1383, left to his daughter Joan "a golden fermail of a heart,"1 and John, Lord Scrope of Upsal (d. 1451), bequeathed "one great brooch of gold, of two angels, fashioned like a man's heart."
1 Planche, Encydop&dia of Costume, Vol. II, p. 97.
2 C. Roach Smith, Collectanea Antigua, III, p. 253. 8 Arcfueological Journal, X, 1854, P« 7!«
* Testamenta Fetus ta, I, p. no. 6 Ibid., I, p. 271.
46 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
A beautiful example of this type in the British Museum (Plate XIII, 10) has the heart-shaped ring studded with projecting golden flowers. A brooch found at Ixworth, Suffolk,1 has the rim shaped like a bird.
Although few lay jewels of this transition period between the XIV and XV centuries survive, it is one of the few periods well represented among the remaining English ecclesiastical jewels, since three more or less perfect mitres of this date are in existence.
The mitre and crozier of William of Wykeham are pre- served in New College, Oxford, which he founded in 1404. The remaining portions of the ground of the mitre are sewn with seed pearls in a conventional pattern ; it is doubtful how the other fragments were arranged upon it. Parts of the delicate Gothic crocketing of gold which adorned the edge remain and two bands, formed of a series of square-hinged plaques of champlevd enamel in grotesque designs, plaques formed of a square-cut dark blue paste and a white crystal set side by side, and metal medallions with a square-cut crystal in the centre surrounded by eight radiating pearls. There are also two square metal affixes, with slightly incurved sides, with a white crystal in the centre bordered with beautiful Gothic foliation in high relief, two chased silver-gilt quatrefoils, each set with a cabochon gem, and a cruciform gold ornament set with turquoises ; all of these are pierced for sewing to the groundwork. What may have formed the central ornament of the front of the mitre is probably the most beautiful sur- viving example of early English jewellery. (Plate XI, i.)
1 Archceological Journal, X, 1854, P- 81.
ECCLESIASTICAL AND DEVOTIONAL JEWELS
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 47
In form a crowned Lombardic M of gold — symbol of the Virgin, patron of the diocese — it is set with eleven cabochon rubies and emeralds in compartments divided by straight lines of the minute granular work also employed to outline the letter, which is ornamented beneath the crown and at the lower corners with clusters of round Oriental pearls.1 On the main stem of the letter is a ruby cut in the shape of a vase, from which spring three lilies, their petals of white enamel, and their leaves of small cabochon gems. Standing in the two open arches of the letter beneath minute Gothic cuspings are the figures of the Virgin and the Angel of the Annunciation made of gold in full relief, the Angel's wings being of trans- lucent green enamel. Thus the New College jewels ex- emplify all the technical processes of the goldsmith in common use at the beginning of the XV century.
A mitre which must have been very similar in type is described in an inventory of the possessions of Louis d'Harcourt, Patriarch Bishop of Bayeux, who died in 1479 :2 " Une mitre dont Ic champ est de perles menues, semd d'autres perles plus grosses, ensemble trois et trois, ayant audevant xvj affiches d argent dore", et derribre autant ; les uns emailles, les autres enrichis de pierreries et petits perles, ayant audevant la representation de FA nnonciation et derribre le wironnement de la Ste. Vierge en images, les pendants garnis de mj affiches toiit le long, au bout de chacun iij (affiches) qui font les bords, d argent dord enrichis cFdmaux et de pierres, au bout de chaque pendant, vj chaincttes ou sont
j Two stones and two pearls lost.
2 Archceological Journal, II, 1846, p. 206.
48 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
attaches vj ferets d* argent dore" et au dessus ij saphirs tallies en forme de cceur?
The side of a mitre in the possession of the Duchess of Norfolk1 is probably of late XIV century date. The ground is of couched gold thread, on which are sewn fifteen small ornaments, each composed of a square stone in the centre of a cross of four pearls, and three pairs of star-shaped ornaments of different patterns, set with stones and pearls. The central panel of the mitre is of gilt metal, with eleven oblong silver-gilt settings with beaded edges, enclosing silver plates enamelled with flying and walking birds — for the most part doves and swans — on a ground of translucent blue enamel. Two sides of the lockets are now each set with three projecting pearls, but the existing traces of broken hinges on these edges make it probable that the plaques were once hinged together, as are those ornamenting the mitre of William of Wykeham. On either side of the vertical band are sewn the principal ornaments : two wheel-shaped jewels, each with four spokes, with a jewel in the centre and eight on the rim. The nearly circular central bosses are bordered with rudely chased fleur-de-lys, and are respectively set with a pale green stone and an engraved onyx. The jewels of the rim are of various sorts, set in sockets rising from square or oblong bases. One sexfoil socket is filled with translucent green enamel with a ring of yellow spots, several are set with red and yellow stones, and others enclose heart-shaped pastes divided into red and white halves by a zigzag line of gold. These heart-shaped stones recall the vase on the M of the
1 Proc. Soc. of Ants., Lon., XXIV, 1912, p. 128.
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 49
Oxford Mitre, and the " sapkirs tallies en forme de cceur" of the Bayeux inventory.
The mitre made for Cornelius O'Deagh, Bishop of Limerick in 1418,* is now in the possession of his successor. (Plate XII.) The two sides are formed of thin plates of silver-gilt, with a border and central panel outlined with moulded ornament and set with crystals, pearls, garnets, emeralds, and other stones, the large gems being in claw settings, and the smaller in collets. Near the apex is a cross of crystal, beneath which is the inscription, Hoc sigmim crucis erit in ccelo, which is continued beneath the corresponding cross on the other side, " Cum Domimis ad judicandum venerit" The outer edge of the mitre is enriched with a fine cresting of vine leaves, and the spaces on either side of the central panel are filled with foliated ornament executed in pearls over foil. Round the base of the mitre is a band enamelled in purple, green, and blue translucent enamel, with the inscription Cornelius O Deaygh, episcopus Limervi- censis Anno Domini Mille °CCCCXVIII me fieri fecit ', and above is the smaller inscription Thomas O Carry d artifex faciens. On either side of the base of the central panel is a small niche, one with the figures of the Virgin and Child, and the other with that of a kneeling Bishop, perhaps Cornelius O'Deagh himself. The lowest band round the mitre is ornamented with chased roses and set with jewels in angular compartments of engraved Gothic foliation. The original pendants or infulce are now unfortunately lost, but are described in the original communication to the Archczologia
1 Archeeologia, LI I, 1880, p. 220. 7
5o ENGLISH JEWELLERY
as being twenty-one inches long, and made of hinged silver plates. They ended in little figures of the Angel Gabriel and the Virgin below canopies, affixed above a rich gold fringe.
Episcopal wills and the ecclesiastical inventories of the period shew how rich the jewelled decoration of the priests' liturgical ornaments had become ; mitres with splendid decoration like that recorded in the Westminster inventory of I388,1 sewn with seven brooch-like medallions of jewelled work, bordered with jewelled metal, and hung with eight silver-gilt bells ; pins to fasten the pallium to the chasuble, like those recorded in the Canterbury inventory for I328,2 each set with a balas ruby, two emeralds and two sapphires ; gloves sewn, like those of kings, with jewels — the last quoted inventory describes the gloves of Archbishop de Wynchelese as ornamented with pearls and gems in square medallions- jewelled ponsers like those recorded in the will of William of Wykeham, all served to enhance the splendour of the embroidered vestments of the priest.
^^pontificalia of the bishop included also his episcopal ring, worn on the annular finger of the right hand.3
Pope Innocent III decreed in 1194 that episcopal rings should be of gold, and that the gems with which they were set
1 See Archceologia, XVII, 1814, p. 30.
2 Hope and Legge, Inventories of Christ Church, Canterbury, p. 7.
:i Bishops also wore personal rings above the second joint of the finger or on the thumb. (Dalton, Guide to the Medieval Department of the British Museum, p. 175.) The effigy of Archbishop Chichele in Canterbury Cathedral wears a thumb ring and an episcopal ring, but neither is upon the second joint, while the effigy of Bishop Oldham, (d. 1519), in Exeter Cathedral, wears three rings on the right hand, four on the left, and a signet ring of great size over both thumbs. The rings bequeathed to the King in many early episcopal wills were not pontifical but personal rings.
ENGLISH JE
twenty-one inches lo= silver
They ended in little figure riel
Virgin below canopies, at
'iscopal wills siasts
iod shew hov >. the irgical ornan; A be- : mi
decoration like that ded in the Westminster inventor}
8,1 sewn with seven brooch-like medallions of jewelled bordered with jewelled metal, and hung with eight ilve r-gilt bells : pins to fasten the pallium to the chasuble, those recu.ded in the Canterbury inventory for I328,2 each set with a Kilns ruby, two emeralds and two sapphires; gloves sewn, like those of kings, with jewels — the last quoted inventory describes the gloves of Archbishop dr \ as ornamented with pearls and gems in sq. jewelled ponsers like those recorded in the will of \\ ilham of Wykeham, ail served to enhance the splendour of embroidered vestments of the priest.
^^pontificalia of the bishop included ai >al
ring, worn on tip r of the right han<
Pope Inno 1 in 1194 tha'
should be of gold a the gems with wh
30.
•r/i, Cam,
Bishops als ibove the secor
b. (Dalton, Guide to the flfediu
Archbishop Ch -\ bury Cath; ! an
. rjng, but r-
, in Exeter Cathedral, wears three rin^s on tl. nr on the left, and a
t ring of great siz»- over both thumbs. The rings bequeathed to the King in m early episcopal wills ,,t pontifical but personal rings.
THE MITRE OF CORNELIUS o'DEAGH
BISHOP OF LIMERICK.
I4l8
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 51
should not be engraved, as had often been the practice earlier.1 Episcopal rings were often buried with their owners, and in consequence of this and of their comparatively small intrinsic value they are now the best represented type of ecclesiastical jewellery in England. After the Pope's edict the usual stone for these rings was the sapphire, on account of its supposed magical properties, but other gems were also used. The ring of Archbishop Greenfield (d. 1315) is set with a ruby, supported by the foliated ends of the shank.
The troubled state of France in the XV century did not preclude the French nobles from an extravagant use of jewels. A chronicler describes the lords and men-at-arms who took part in the entry of Charles VII into Paris as " pare"s comme des chasses." Similarly the Wars of the Roses did little to diminish the use of jewelled ornaments in England, since such easily portable treasure is the most secure form of riches in troubled times. The Goldsmiths' Company rose to eminence among the guilds of London, and in 1462 was granted a Common Seal by Edward IV.2 The numbers of its native masters were increased by its recognition of foreign denizens working in the city. In 1469 there were as many as a hundred and twelve foreign master-goldsmiths so recog- nized.3 The use of jewels as a form of currency is shewn in many lists of royal jewels pawned at this date, which also give a very interesting record of the various types of decoration used for the richer kind of ornament.
1 Cf. that of Sefford, Bishop of Winchester (d. 1151).
8 Herbert, History of the Twelve Great Livery Companies of London, p. 121.
8 Ibid., p. 192.
52 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
Burgundian influence is apparent in a jewel pledged by Henry VI to Cardinal Beaufort1 "a tablet of Seynt George, of gold, garnysshed wt a rubee, viij dyamandes, and in yt oon pertee ys an aungel holdyng an helme garnysshed wt a rubee and litil perles, and in that other pertie ys a pusell knelyng wt a lambe, garnysshed wt a rubee, and ye tablet al about is garnysshed wt xxv baleys, xxv saphire, iij emeraudes, and a great company of perles." Probably the decoration which ran "al about ye tablet" was that wreath of jewelled Gothic foliation which characterizes the Burgundian pendants of this time. Heraldic badges formed the motive of many jewels of this date; Henry V, for instance, in 1415 pawned for the expenses of the French campaign " a great collar of gold, wrought with crowns and beasts called antelopes," enamelled with white SS, each beast set with two pearls and green garnets, and having one pearl about its neck, and each crown set with one large balas ruby and nine large pearls, while the large crown in the front had in addition two large diamonds on its summit. Collars of suns and roses with a white lion pendant are worn by Sir John Dunne and his wife, in the triptych by Hans Memlinc in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire,2 by a knight whose effigy is in Ryther Church, Yorkshire,3 and by Sir Robert Harcourt (d. 1471) in his effigy in Stanton Harcourt Church, Oxon. An interesting linked example is shewn on the monument of one of the Erdington family in Aston Church, Warwickshire, and one combined with the Fitzalan oak-leaves on the effigy of Joan,
1 Palgrave, Kalendars and Inventories, II, p. 184.
2 Burlington Fine Arts Club. Exhibition of Early English Portraits, 1909, No. 22.
3 Archceological Journal, II, 1846, p. 92.
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 53
Countess of Arundel at Arundel (c. 1487). The inventory of the jewels of Sir Henry Howard made in 1466* records :< a collar of gold with 34 roses and suns set on a corse of black silk with a hanger of gold garnished with a sapphire." A short necklace of roses alone is worn by Dame Agnes Crosby in her effigy of about 1475 in Great St. Helen's. Several examples of collars of family badges are known : the effigy of Thomas Lord Berkeley2 wears a collar of mermaids, and that of Sir Thomas Markenfield3 a collar of park palings with a central ornament of a hart lodged.
Margaret, Duchess of Norfolk (d. 1490) left to her daughter "a chain of water flowers." A collar of badges was given to his son by Henry VII in 1504*: "a collar of
golde wt rede roses and white enameld wt pauncies wt wyres of pynnes" ; while in 15 28s Henry VIII owned "a carkeyn of gold with all the king's devices."
The collar of SS was in the XV century usually made in a banded or linked form, often with the ends joined to a trefoil-shaped ring. From this were hung family, political and personal badges, such as the white lion of March, the black bull of Clare, the swan of de Bohun, or, in the XVI century, the Tudor Rose. An eagle pendant is worn by Oliver Groos (d. 1439) on his effigy in Sloley Church, Norfolk. A representation of the arms of Holland, made about the same date, gives a fetterlock pendant of red and
1 Royal Commission of Historical MS S., yth Report, p. 577.
2 Brass at Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire. 8 Stone effigy in Ripon Cathedral.
4 Palgrave, Kalendars and Inventories, III, p. 393. 6 Brewer, Letters and Papers, IV, pt. 2, No. 5114.
54 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
black. The Beaufort portcullis is shewn on a brass of about 1475 in Migginton Church, Derbyshire, and occurs, charged with the Tudor rose, hanging from the collar of Sir John Cheyney (d. 1489), at Salisbury. A few examples, such as the portrait of Henry VI in the National Portrait Gallery, display a hanging cross.1
Sometimes the coat-of-arms was employed as a decoration, as on the fourteen enamelled shields that harness the belt of the Horn of Savernake. More rarely personal mottoes were so employed; John Baret of Bury (d. 1463) bequeathed to John Hert2 a " Girdyll with a bokyll and pendaunth of silver, Grace me governe (his * reson ' or device) wretyn ther in."
If such personal mottoes are comparatively rare, amatory inscriptions are common in the XV century. The inventory of goods stolen from the Queen about 1420 by Brother John Randolf 3 records a ring inscribed " a ma vie" a cross-shaped pendant with "Amer and servier" and two heart-shaped brooches inscribed "A voiis me lie" and "a ma vie de coer entier" The three daughters of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who died in I4394 were each left an inscribed ring. Margaret, Countess of Shrewsbury, had one with " Till deithe depart" ; Alianour, Duchess of Somerset, one with ''Never newe" '; and Elizabeth, Lady Latimer, one inscribed " Til my lives end"
1 Examples later than the XV century, such as that shewn in the portrait of Sir Thomas More in the Bodleian Library, the fine XVI century example presented by Sir John Alleyn in 1546 and still worn by the Lord Mayor of London, and the later collars of the Chief Heralds and the Lord Chief Justice display knots between the SS, and have each end finished with an ornament in the shape of a portcullis.
1 Tymms, Bury Wills and Inventories, p. 15.
3 Archceologia, LXI, 1909, p. 170. 4 Testamenta Vetusta, I, p. 76.
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 55
A ring found near Hornsey1 shaped like a torse of two branches, from which the twigs have been lopped, is inscribed within : " Whan you loke in this, thynk in them yt gave you thys." Common inscriptions are " Je suis id en lieu d? ami" and " Man cocur avez sans departir" Sometimes the posy was a moral one, like that of a ring2 found in the Queen's Head Tavern at Hornsey, with a conical bezel set with an emerald supported by two openwork enamelled scrolls, which is inscribed in old French with the great truth that he who spends more than belongs to him kills himself without striking a blow.
The marriage ring was in the Middle Ages often differ- entiated from ornamental rings only by its posy. Gimmel, or double rin^s were, however, sometimes used for betrothal or
o
marriage rings. These are formed of two — and later and more rarely three — interlocking rings, either hinged together or completely divisible.3 Their use as love-tokens is illus- trated by the will of John Baret of Bury (1463), 4 which directs that Margaret Spurdaunce be given "a doubyl ring departyd of gold, with a ruby and a turkeys, with a scripture wretyn with yne, for a rememberaunce of old love vertuously set at alle tymes to the pleseer of God." Clasped hands are often found on betrothal rings, both gimmel and of the ordinary shape ; one in the British Museum6 is inscribed on the shoulders with the posy " God help" and is chased at the back with a heart with two quatrefoil flowers rising from it.
1 British Museum, No. 876.
2 British Museum, No. 929.
3 Palgrave, Kalendars and Inventories, III, p. 137.
4 Tymms, Bury Witts and Inventories, p. 36. 5 No. 1008.
56 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
An inventory of jewels of Edward II records : " un anel gimmel des rubies and ameraldz," and one taken after the accession of Henry IV, "i anel de deux verges Tun d'or et 1'autre d'argent 1'un close en 1'autre."
Precious stones in the Middle Ages had a triple import- ance ; they were valued for their beauty, their intrinsic worth, and their traditional magical virtues. Langland, in the Vision of Piers Plowman, describes a lady whose fingers were laden with golden rings set with diamonds, rubies, sapphires, "orientals and ewages,1 venems to destroye." It was one of the articles of impeachment against Hubert de Burgh that he had furtively removed a gem from the King's treasury which would make the wearer invincible in battle, and had bestowed it on Llewellyn of Wales.3 Among the spoils of Jack Cade was " a beryll for the eye," and in old St. Paul's was a famous sapphire, given by Richard de Preston, grocer, for the cure of diseases of the eyes. There are still in Scot- land various medicinal stones of this time, such as the Glenorchy stone of Breadalbane,4 a crystal in a rim of silver set with pearls, and the Ardvorlich Clack Dearg? a crystal globe caged in silver, the belief in which has only recently, if yet, died out.
The need for magical protection was also expressed in other prophylactic jewels. The fossilized teeth of sharks, " serpents' tongues," were used as early as the time of
1 Pearls and crystals.
2 Cf. Holinshed, writing of the death of King John: "When the King suspected (the pears) to be poisoned indeed, by reason that such precious stones as he had about him cast forth a certain sweat, as it were bewraying the poison."
3 W. Jones, Precious Stones, p. 25.
4 Paton, Scottish National Memorials, p. 330. 5 Ibid., p. 338.
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 57
Edward I1 against poison, while among the jewels of Edward IIP "cynk langes de serpents garniz d'argent dorrez od un collier d'argent od perle " are recorded. An inventory of jewels made for Henry VI3 includes a chain of gold supporting pieces of unicorn's horn and of serpentine "pour mettre en nostre bouire," and among Henry VI Fs property in i5c>44 there is "a unicornes bone and a serpent's tongue hang be a cheyne."
These and many other substances were used as touching pieces, " towches " or proofs for the detection of poison in food. The horn of the unicorn — really that of the narwhal- was particularly valued ; such a horn is still preserved at New College, Oxford. Toaclstones were also commonly used in the XV and XVI centuries.5
The growth of the belief in the magical virtues of such jewels in the XIV and XV centuries was chiefly due to the growth of half-magical science in Europe. A great part of its lore was derived from Eastern sources, and Eastern merchants did much to foster the demand for magical jewels. At the same time the pressure of material prosperity, often menaced by material danger, had weakened the unselfish devotion of men's Christianity. They no longer sought the glory of God and His Saints without thought of themselves, but endeavoured to ensure divine protection from calamity. For this reason the cult of patron saints by individuals or confraternities came to be of great importance, their protection
1 Liber Quotidianus, ed. Nichols, p. 352.
2 Palgrave, Kalendars and Inventories, III, p. 175.
8 Anstis, Register of the most noble Order of the Garter, Vol. I, p. 115, Note M. 4 Palgrave, Kalendars and Inventories, III, p. 295. 6 See Magical Jewels, Chapter VI. 8
58 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
being further ensured by the wearing of their image. The custom may have arisen from the wearing of pilgrims' signs, but it was natural enough in an age when every city, house, or door was defended by the image of its tutelary saint. St. Christopher was thought to protect the wearer from sickness, tempest, flood, and earthquakes ; and St. Barbara from sudden death. Their figures are often to be found engraved on rings of the XV century (e.g. Fortnum Collection, Ashmolean Museum, 584 and 586). Representations of the Trinity, the Virgin and Child, St. George, and St. Thomas a Becket are also common. Another expression of the same tendency of thought is seen in such inscriptions as the names of the three Magi, Jesus Nazarenus Rex JudcBorum, Aye Maria and Mater Dei memento mei. The essentially magical character of these religious phrases is betrayed by their association with cabalistic formulae, such as AGLA and ANANI- ZAPTA, which were thought to preserve the wearer from death and disease.1 Even jewels of a more definitely devotional kind were not free from the taint of magic. The Five Wounds or "Wells" of Christ were generally reverenced in the XIV and XV centuries, their cult being particularly con- nected with Requiem Masses. Sir Edward Shaw, goldsmith and alderman of London, in ^S;2 left directions that sixteen rings should be made and given to his friends on his death, " of fyne gold, to be graven with the well of pitie, the well of mercie, and the well of everlasting life." Such a ring was found in Coventry Park in 1802, and is now in the British Museum.3 It is a broad, flat band of gold, engraved
1 See Magical Jewels, Chapter VI. 2 Archceologia, XVIII, 1817, p. 307. 3 Plate XV, 6.
ENGi ELLERY
rther ensu . ring of their ir The
nay have aris* wearing of pilgrii ;ns,
natural t when every city, hous<
defenaed by th tge of its tutelary saint. St. , >her wa§ th< rt the wearer from sickness,
flood, and •; ; and St. Barbara from
n death. Their figures ten to be found engraved
on rings of the: XV century (e.g. Fortnum Collection, Ashmolean Museum, 584 and Repr .tions of the
Trinity, the Virgin and Child, St. George, and St. Thomas a Becket are also common. Another expression of the same tendency of thought is seen in such inscriptions as the names of the three Magi, Jesus IVazarenus Rex Judaorum, Aw Maria and Mater Dei memento mei. The essentially magical character of these n phrases is _ betrayed by their
association with cabalistic f< c, such as AGLA rind ANANI-
ZAPTA, which were thought to preserve the wearer from death and disease.1 Even jewels of a more definitely devotional kind were not free from the taint of m: The Five
Wounds or " Wells " of Christ were gen* in
the XIV and XV centuries, their cult being particularly con- nected with Requiem M asses. Edward Shaw, goldsmith and alderman of I, i, in \^jz left directions th sixteen rings should h< i given to his friends death, "of fyne gold, to be .vith the well of \, well of n , and the well lasting life." S was found -in Coventr ,1 the Britisl seum.3 ' It • rlat b I, engraved
* ,6.
PILGRIMS SIGNS AND RETAINERS BADGES
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 59
with the figure of Christ rising from the Sepulchre, with the hammer, sponge, and other instruments of the Passion behind ; the wound in the side, with the inscription ':< the well of everlasting lyffe" two smaller wounds, inscribed ' the well of comfort" and "the well of gracy" and two more, with the inscriptions "the well of pitty" and "the well of merd" Within the shank is the legend liVwlnera quinque del sunt medicina met, pia crux et passio Chris ti sunt medicina michi" followed by the names of the three kings and the magical formula Ananyzapta tctragrammaton.
The same desire for protection was expressed in the wearing of reliquaries. The men of the XV century were less anxious to venerate the relics of a saint in his shrine than to bear with them some object which should confirm the bond between themselves and their celestial protectors. Nearly all the existing pendants of the XV century are made hollow to contain a relic. They are sometimes formed of two engraved plates set with a cavity between, as is a circular pendant of about 1470, from Reculver Beach (Plate XV, 8), engraved with figures of St. John the Baptist and St. Catherine, and another (Plate XII, i and 3) with St. John and a bishop. A third1 is ornamented with the image of St. Catherine and the inscription In God is al mi tmst.
The fashion for thus wearing relics is further exemplified in the brooch of Lorn,2 in the possession of the Macdougals of Lorn, and the Loch Buy brooch, long in the possession of the Macleans of Loch Buy in the Isle of Mull. (Plate XV, 7.)
1 Shewn by A. E. Hudd, Esq., F.S.A., at the Society of Antiquaries, London, in 1894. Proceedings^ XV, p. 224. 2 Paton, Historical Scottish Relics, p. 34.
60 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
This has as its central ornament a large crystal raised on a disc, the outer edges of which are scalloped and decorated with a geometrical pattern of small bosses and twisted wire filigree. The crystal lifts up to shew a cavity for a relic concealed in the tall setting. The outer rim of the brooch is similarly ornamented with filigree, decorated with ten tall " ckdtons" each about an inch long, set with a river pearl. The Ugadale brooch, belonging to the Macneals of Firfergus, is similar in type, having its outer ring of turret settings arranged close round the central boss. These characteristic turret settings also decorate a XV century silver reliquary once in the collection of Lord Londesborough.1
A form of reliquary was used to contain the small discs impressed with the Agnus Dei made in Rome from the wax of the Paschal candles. Such a case, found at Upchurch, of XV century date, is of silver embossed with a representation of the Lamb and Flag within a rim of twisted wire.2
Many crucifixes were worn, also usually made with a cavity for a relic. A good example of the second half of the XV century was found at Clare Castle, Suffolk, and is now in the Royal Collection.3 Sir Thomas Brooke, Lord Cobham, on his brass in Cobham Church,4 wears a cross and chain over his armour, and brasses of 1460-1527 — for example, that of Agnes Staunton at Castle Donnington, Leicestershire —shew women wearing similar crosses. They are also men- tioned in many wills of the period. Eleanor, Duchess of
1 Fairholt, Miscellanea Graphica, Plate XXXIV.
2 Journal of the Archceo logical Association, III, 1862, p. 39.
3 Archceological Journal, XXV, 1866, p. 60.
4 Druitt, Costume in Brasses, p. 191.
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 61
Gloucester, for instance, left to her son Humphrey a pendant crucifix set with four pearls " come chose d^L my en qe jay mieux amee" More than one crucifix was sometimes hung on the same rosary: "a peyer of beads with 14 crucifixes" is recorded.1
The XV century was the time at which the rosary was most commonly worn and most richly decorated. Formed of a string of beads of various sizes and materials, representing Aves, Paternosters and Glorias, strung in decades of Aves, each preceded by a Paternoster and followed by a Gloria, it was sometimes attached to a ring or bracelet, but more often hung from the girdle. Sometimes the rosary consisted of one decade; these are often alluded to in XVI century inventories as "tenners."
Brooches and pendants were sometimes hung on it, as the crucifix is generally hung now. Chaucer in his Prologue says that the Nun
"Of smale corall aboute hire arme she bare A pair of bedes, gauded all with grene, And thereon heng a broche of gold ful shene."
These brooches are often mentioned in wills,2 and it might have been thought that the word was here used as a general term for jewel, but for the mutilated effigy of a lady found in Bangor Cathedral,3 who holds a rosary down one side of which are five brooches of irregular size and distribution. An inventory made in 1381 of the stock of Adam Ledyard, ' paternosterer," mentions four sets of white amber,, sixteen
1 ArcJusologia, X, p. 469.
2 e.g. Will of Sir Thomas Ughtred (d. 1398). " j par de paters nosters de auro, cum uno annulo et uno ouche de auro."
» Archceologkal Journal, XXXVI, 1879, p. 388, and XXXVII, 1880, p. 206. * Riley, Memorials of London, -p. 455.
62 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
sets of ordinary amber, five of coral and jet, six sets of aves of jet with paternosters of silver-gilt, thirty-eight sets of similar aves with gaudees of silver-gilt, fourteen sets of blue glass with silver-gilt paternosters, twenty-eight sets of paternosters of jet, and fifteen of " mazer " or maple wood, and five sets of white bone for children.
Many rosaries are described in the inventories of the Guild of Corpus Christi at York.1 In 1465 there is recorded a " par precularium " or pair of beads of silver-gilt, with seventy-five beads and two "knopps" of pearl, with a crucifix, two brooches, and a silver-gilt ring. A finer example was of coral, with seventeen " gaudees " or trinkets of silver-gilt attached with the Psalm of our Lady, a brooch with the inscription Jhesu Christi and a gold ring.
The decade or dicket ring, with ten projections upon the shank, was also used in the XV century for the counting of prayers. They are usually of rather coarse workmanship and poor material, and were probably worn as pendants. A hanging ring for counting prayers was left to her sister by Isabella Salvayn in 1472.
During the Hundred Years' War and the Wars of the Roses the importance of the intrinsic value of jewels was particularly great, since they were almost the only acceptable security for loans. At the same time there was a marked increase in the artistic appreciation of their beauty. Richard 1 1 had a passion for jewels worthy of a collector-king of the Renaissance. These were all causes contributing to the growing magnificence of personal ornaments : men dedicated
1 Surtees Society, 1871, Vol. LVII, p. 290.
62 ENGLISH LLKRY
sets of ordinary amber, five of and jet, six sets of aves of
jet with- paternosters of silver-gilt, thirty-eight sets of similar aves with gaudees of silver-gilt, fourteen sets of blue glass with silver-gilt paternosters, twenty-eight sets of paternosters of jet, and fifteen of " mazer " or maple woo( ' five sets of white bone for children.
Many rosaries are described in the inventories of < Guild of Corpus Christi at York.1 In 1465 there is recon a 'par precularium " or pair of beads of silver-gilt, with seventy-five beads and two "knopps" of pearl, with a crucifix, two brooches, and a silver-gilt ring. A finer example was of coral, with seventeen /'gaudees " or trinkets of silver-gilt attached with the Psalm of our Lady, a brooch with the inscription Jhesu Christi and a gold rin^.
The decade or dicket ring, with ten projections upon the shank, was also used in the XV century for the counting of prayers. They are usually of rather coarse workmanship and poor material, and were probably worn as pern; hanging ring for counting prayers wasjeft to h< Isabella Salvayn in 1472.
During the Hundred Years' War and the Wars of the Roses the importance of the intrinsic value of jewels was particularly great, since they were almost the only acceptable security for loans. At the same time t) a marked
• * '4
increase in the artist; .reciation of Richard II
had a passion for jewels worthy of a ctor-king of the
Renaissance. \These were all < itributing to the
of persona! men dedicated
1871,
MARGARET OF DENMARK, QUEEN OF SCOTLAND (VAN DER OOES)
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 63
fewer treasures in church and shrine, and acquired more for their own enjoyment. This tendency is seen in the secular designs of jewels, the enormous number recorded in inven- tories, and the profusion of precious stones with which they were set. Henry IV, for instance, owned a belt of black silk harnessed with gold and set with precious stones. Of the twenty-seven gold bars which ornamented it, thirteen were set with balas rubies with a pearl at each corner, and fourteen were enamelled with various flowers and similarly set with pearls. The buckle was set with a balas ruby and ten large and six small pearls, and the pendant was set in the same way with a ruby and thirteen pearls. A great profusion of pearls may be noticed in the inventories and portraits of this time ; an inventory of the jewels of Alice Ferrers1 records 21,868, each valued separately. Oriental pearls were imported in considerable quantities from the East, and river pearls were also in common use. Fazio degli Uberti, describing the riches of Britain in his Dittamondo^ mentions the abundance of pearls found in these islands.
As a consequence of the fashion for a profusion of gems, rings began to be set with more than one stone. Richard II, in the fifth year of his reign,2 bought three rings, each set with a great diamond and four pearls. A ring of about this date, found in the ruins of the Palace of Eltham,3 had the hoop set with a small cabochon ruby and five crystalline diamonds. Round the edge was the legend :
" Qui me portera exploitera, Et a grant joye revendra,"
1 Devon, Issues of the Exchequer, II, p. 209. 2 p. 221.
3 Archceologia, XIX, p. 411.
64 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
which suggests that the ring was thought to be a talis- man. Margaret of Anjou introduced a fashion of wearing many rings. In her illuminated book of prayers to the Virgin, now in the library of Jesus College, Oxford, she is represented wearing two rings on the middle and third joints of every finger but the least, while the effigy of the wife of Sir Humphrey Stafford in Bromsgrove Church, Essex,1 shews every finger but the little finger of the right hand thus adorned.
The same taste for sumptuous adornment appears in the coronets of the male and female effigies of this time. A fine one is worn by Sir Hugh Calvely (c. 1400) in his effigy in Bunbury Church, Cheshire. It is divided into bands by corded lines, and decorated with large and small cinquefoil flowers, each petal of which is set with a round cabochon jewel, while the ground is studded with oblong and triangular table cut gems. The somewhat later effigy of Ralph Nevill, Earl of Westmorland, in Staindrop Church, Durham, displays a rounded circlet, perhaps derived from the heraldic orle, decorated with an engrailed stem of pearls from which grow springs of two circular gem-studded flowers and two pointed leaves. His two wives2 both wear jewelled coronets and cup- like ornaments over the ears, with reticulated centres and jewelled borders. Jewelled frets, however, continued to be worn, and cover the hair on the effigy of Beatrice, wife of Thomas Fitzhugh, Earl of Arundel (i42o-4o).3 Elizabeth, Lady Fitzhugh, who died in 1427,* left to her daughter
1 Jones, Finger Ring Lore, p, 73. 2 Stothard, Monumental Effigies, p. 68.
3 Ibid., p. 83. 4 Testamenta Vctusta, I, p. 213.
PLA
-.
64 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
which suggests that the ring was thought t a talis-
m. M et of Anjou introduced a fashion of wearing In her illuminated book of pra\ the Virgin,
w in the library of Jesus College, Oxford, si iring two •. on the middle and third joints of ev
finger but the least, while the effigy of the wife of Humphrey Stafford in Bromsgrove Church, Esse: every finger but the little finger of ihe right hand t rned.
The same taste for sumptuous adornment appears in the
onets of the male and female effigies of this time. A fine
one is worn b < Hugh Calvely (c. 1400) in his effigy in
inbury Church, Cheshire. It is divided into bands by
;l lines, and decorated with large and small cinquefoil
vers, each petal of which is set with a round cabochon
jewel, while the ground is studded with oblong and triangular
table cut gerc The somewhat later effigy of Ralph Nevill,
Earl of \\ in Staindrop Church, Durham
a rounded haps derived from the he
decorated w stem of pearls from which grow
rm-studded flowers and two pointed His two w: fi wear jewelled coronets and cup-
ornaments over with reticulated centres and
bord: Jewelled frets, however, continued to be
r on the effigy of Beatrice, wife irl of Arundel (i42o-4o).3 Elizabeth, Lady Fitzhugh, who died in 1427,* left to her daughter
1 Jqnr
* Ibid., p. ,.-, I, p. .
FIFTEENTH CENTURY JEWELS
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 65
Elizabeth a chaplet of pearls ornamented with double roses, and to her daughter Lore a head-tire with double roses of pearls, while an inventory of the jewels of James II of Scotland1 mentions "afrete of the quenis oure set with grete perls sett in fouris and fouris."
At the same time jewelled necklaces or carcanets came into fashion. One of the first allusions to an ornamental collar appears in the will of John of Gaunt (d. 1399), which refers to his best collar of diamonds. A little later many chains of small plain links were worn, sometimes with a hanging jewel ; such chains and pendants are shewn on the brasses of Elizabeth Halle at Herne, Kent (c. 1420), and of John Skerne at Kingston-on-Thames (1437). Sometimes, as, for instance, on the brass of Jane Keriell (c. 1460) at Ash- next-Sandwich, Kent,2 the chain is rather longer and heavier, and after twice encircling the neck supports a pendant of quatrefoil shape.
The inventory made in 1466 of the jewels of Sir John Howard3 suggests that the rosary was at this time worn as a necklace ; it records " a pair of beads for a gentlewoman's neck gawded with 8 gawden of gold and 8 pearls."
Jane Shore, wife of a Lombard Street jeweller and mistress of Edward IV, wears in her portraits4 a double string of pearls round her throat, with a necklace below of pierced circular medallions, hung with a pendant of similar design set with pearls, and the portrait in the Ashmolean Museum
1 Thomson, Collection of Inventories of the Royal Jewel House of Scotland. Druitt, Costume in Brasses, p. 268.
3 Royal Commission on Historical MSS., yth report, p. 537. * At Eton and King's College, Cambridge.
9
66 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
described as that of her rival, Elizabeth Woodville, shews a heavy chain worn close round her throat, clasped in front by a large quatrefoil ornament of gold. The brass of Joice, Lady Tiptoft, engraved about 1470, bears a flat, broad band of jewelled gold round her neck, with a quatrefoil pendant hanging in front. An even richer jewelled necklace, with a foliated edge and large brooch-like central ornament, is en- graved on the brass of Dame Elizabeth Say (d. 1473), in Broxbourne Church, Herts. The Holyrood portrait of Margaret of Denmark, wife of James II, of Scotland, painted about 1480, by Van der Goes (Plate XIV), depicts her as wearing a charming necklace of two rows of pearls, separated at intervals from each other by a larger bead, apparently of coloured enamel, with a graceful pendant in front,1 a border to her dress of heavily jewelled gold, and a coronet and hair net studded and hung with pearls.
About this date transparent veils were worn stiffened with wires over the jewelled cauls, which had been fashionable for some time. Several brasses which depict this headdress, such as that of Isabella Cheyne (d. 1485), at Blickling, Norfolk, and that of the two wives of Thomas Peyton (1484), at Isleham, Cambs, shew rich necklaces formed of a series of jewelled pear-shaped pendants.
The XV century was a time of growth, of turmoil, and of splendour, but the forces that dominated it were at war, and it was not an age of fruition. Its superstition, its sentiment, its magnificence, its innovations, and its conservatism were
1 A similar necklace is shewn in the portrait of the daughter of Tommaso Portinari in the Uffizi by the same artist.
OF THE MIDDLE AGES 67
expressed in its art ; but the Reformers despoiled its churches of their treasures, the scholars of the next generation ignored its philosophy, the architects rebuilt its castles, the Tudor writers dulled the glory of its literature, and its jewels were cast into the melting-pot to be remodelled by the goldsmiths of the Renaissance.
CHAPTER III
ENGLISH JEWELLERY OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE
f "^HE close of the XV century marks the decline of the mediaeval tradition and the rise of a new spirit in art. Nevertheless at the end of the Middle Ages, when the influence of the Renaissance was leading the artists of the Latin countries to turn to Italy for guidance, the comparative remoteness and isolation of England made its Gothic style more national and more original than it had ever been before. Perpendicular architecture, though it did not dominate the minor arts as the Gothic style had done in the XIII century, helped to keep alive some part of the mediaeval tradition under the new dynasty. The cathedrals and their shrines continued to be enriched with jewelled ornaments in the traditional style, and private persons still wore jewels of which the form or design had been consecrated by the Church.
Classical figures and architectural forms had hardly begun to encroach on the domain of ecclesiastical art, and the sym- bolism of the Middle Ages was still understood outside the Church itself. At the same time it was less generally em- ployed, and came to be confined to objects which had in themselves some religious significance. The rosary of Henry VIII,1 for instance, is definitely mediaeval in design. The
1 In the collection of the Duke of Devonshire. 68
ENGLISH JEWELLERY 69
finely carved boxwood beads hang from a finger-ring engraved on one side Honi soit qui mal y pense and on the other Poeni Dei Adjutorium meum. Below this is a cross with a crucifix on one side. The ends of the limbs are trilobed, and bear within circular medallions on one side representations of the four Evangelists, and on the other of the four Fathers of the Church. Then follow ten Ave Maria beads, each decorated with five medallions and a scroll inscribed with one article of the Creed. On one medallion of each is carved the Apostle associated with that particular sentence of the Creed, and on another is the corresponding personage from the Old Testa- ment. Next comes the large Paternoster bead, on one side of which is the legend Henricus Octavus R (ex] A(iiglice) and on the other the Arms of England. This large bead opens and discloses two minute carvings, one of the ' Mass of St. Gregory " and the other of the Virgin and Child in glory.1
Other traditional forms also continued in use. Tau crosses are shown hanging from a necklace or chain in a portrait of Queen Jane Seymour in the collection of Mr. H. Dent Brocklehurst,2 in miniatures of Catherine Howard and portraits of Mary Tudor, and on several brasses of about 1528, for instance, that of the four wives of Sir Richard Fitz Lewes at Ingrave, Essex.3
Crosses of other shapes were also worn, often decorated
1 I owe this description to the kindness of Mr. J. P. Maine, librarian at Chatsworth.
2 Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition of Early English Portraits, No. 6.
3 This symbol was used as a consecration cross in the early Church and as the head of abbatial staves : its significance comes from the Vulgate version of Ezekiel ix. 4, describing the elect as having "Signa Thau super frontes."
70 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
with the emblems of the Passion, and sometimes opening to shew a crucifix. (Plate XVII, 8.) Other pendants were composed of the monogram I H S ; they are shewn in por- traits of Jane Seymour,1 and are mentioned in inventories of Catharine Howard2 and Mary Tudor.3
The history of such jewels comes to an end with the Reformation, when the accumulated treasures of the mediaeval church were wantonly destroyed. Orders were given to cast all relics from their reliquaries and to break up all the shrines. The jewels of the Middle Ages were flung into the melting-pot to be refashioned, together with the art, the learning and the piety of the old church, to serve the needs of the new age. From the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket alone two great chests filled with "gold and jewels of an inestimable value " which six or eight men could hardly move were taken for the King's use.4 The great diamond presented to the shrine by Louis VII in 1 179 v/as set in a ring for the king. Much of this treasure was transformed into massive chains. These were of such size and weight as to be really a form of currency ; it is said that when Sir Thomas Gresham died the greater part of his great wealth was found to be in this shape.5 Henry VIII in 1511 paid ^"199 to his jeweller Roy for a chain weighing 98 ounces ; Elizabeth received as a
1 In Imperial Gallery of Vienna, in the possession of Lord Sackville (Burlington Fine Arts Club, Exhibition of Early English Portraits, No. 46), and in a miniature belonging to the Duke of Buccleuch (ibid., Miniatures, No. 5).
2 B.M. Stawe MS., 559.
3 Madden, Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, p. 186. An unusually late instance of the fashion is a design by the Jacobean jeweller Arnold Lulls.
4 Stowe, Annales, 1631 ed., p. 483.
5 Clifford Smith, Jewellery, p. 237.
OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE 71
New Year's gift in 1588 a chain of gold weighing 161 ounces, and Mary, Queen of Scots had a chain made out of all the angels she received as New Year's gifts. Besides these great jewelled collars were worn, and the dress was studded and clasped with jewels.
The intrusion of the new style in art was gradual : detail by detail the edifice of men's taste was reformed until even the foundations were changed. The memorial Chapel which Henry VII erected for his father's tomb marks the flowering time of Perpendicular architecture, but it is remembered in the history of English art because Torrigiano, Rovezzano and Benedetto da Maiano were employed to work upon the tomb itself. Since the change of style first shewed itself in detail the minor arts were quick to feel its influence. Goldsmith's work was profoundly influenced by the Renaissance, not only through the work of other nations as a whole, but through that of individual artists, such as Holbein and the ' Little Masters" of Germany and the Low Countries. Such in- fluence reached a larger class of craftsmen than the artists' immediate pupils or apprentices by means of the engraved sheets and books of designs which now began to be published. At the same time the typical delight of the Renaissance in the colour and brilliance of jewels, and the importance given to purely ornamental design, resulted in a gradual break being made between the traditions of jewellery and gold-work of other kinds, the unity of which had been maintained in the Middle Ages by metal workers skilled in all the branches of their art. At the time of the Renaissance there sprang up in Italy and elsewhere a class of craftsmen in lavori di
72 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
minuteria who devoted themselves to the making of personal ornaments.
Many such artists came over to England and entered the royal service ; the Book of Payments of Henry VIII records jewellers such as Cavalcanti, Van der Goes (or John of Antwerp), John Baptista de Consolavera, John of Utrecht and Alexander of Brussels, as well as many native craftsmen such as John Angell, Morgan Fenwolf, John Freeman, John Twiselton, Thomas Exmewe, Nicholas Worley, John Monday and William Davy. In 1536 the great artist, Hans Holbein the younger, entered the royal service, and till his death in 1 543 drew those fine designs for jewellery1 on which much of our knowledge for this period is based. (Plate XVI.)
They shew, indeed, examples of nearly all the types of form and decoration recorded in contemporary inventories of jewels: chased and pierced gold set with faceted and cabochon gems, ornamented with enamel, champlevd, en ronde bosse, or painted, in patterns of scroll and strapwork, arabesques and conventional foliage, diversified with little figures and inscribed scrolls. Sometimes these figures represent the scriptural subjects of the old tradition. The later enseignes of gold and jewels kept for a time the religious subjects inherited from the pilgrim's badge ; a picture of Arthur Prince of Wales, at Windsor,2 shews him wearing a golden enseigne decorated with the figure of John the Baptist, a favourite subject, while one of Henry VIII at Hampton Court as a young man3 depicts him with an enseigne enamelled with
1 Many are in the British Museum. See E. His., Dessins d'ornaments de Hans Holbein le jeune.
3 Archceologia, XXXIX, 1863, p. 246. 3 Ibid., p. 250.
ENGLISH JE LLERV
who devoted then, ; to the making of personal
y such artists came over to the
-vice ; the Book of Payments of He: rds
> oilers such as Cavalcanti, Van der Goes Antwerp), John Baptista de Consolavera, John of Utrecht and Alexander of Brussels, as well as many native craftsr
h as John Angell, Morgan Fen wolf, John Freeman, John Twiselton, Thomas Exmewe, Nicholas Worley, John Monday and William Davy. In 1536 the great artist, Hans Holbein the younger, entered the royal service, and till his death in 1543 drew those fine designs for jewellery1 on whicji much of our knowledge for this period is based. (Plate XVI.)
They shew, indeed, example: rly all the types of
form and decoration recorded in contemporary inventories of jewels: chased and \ ed gold set wit; gems, orna; li enamel, clu -n r**dt be
painted, in pa of scroll and s*
wentioml f ; sifted with little figi
•'•oils. these figures rei .ptural
subjei i tradition. The later < ,nes of gold
.and j- . time the religious subjects inherited
from the pilgrim's K a picture of Arthur Prince of
Wales, at Windsor,2 s him wearing a golden enseigne
decorated with the John tl ptist. a favourite
sul> while VIII at Hampton •' as
man1 h an er : enamelled with
;^ny are :< -ns d* ornaments
» Archvotogia, XXXIX, 186,; » Ibid., p. .
DESIGNS FOR JEWELS BY HANS HOLBEIN
OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE 73
figures of the Virgin and Child. The inventory of his jewels made in I5261 describes enseignes with the figures of St. Michael, between red and white roses, and of St. George. Holbein's designs for enseignes include one with a repre- sentation of the Annunciation in the centre, and a wreath border, inscribed "Origo mundi melioris" ; and another with a " majesty " or representation of the Trinity within a charming border of Tudor roses with " Trinitatis gloria satiabimur" A beautiful reliquary pendant of Sir Thomas More's (pre- served at Stonyhurst College, to which institution it was bequeathed by his descendant, a Jesuit Father, in 1773) is a circular locket of gold enamelled on one side with the figure of St. George, and on the other with the emblems of the Passion and the figure of Christ by the open sepulchre. It opens to disclose a relic ; round the rim is the inscription " O pas si graviora dabit his quoque finem" Sometimes the inscription alone was of a scriptural kind. The inventory of the royal jewels for I53O2 mentions a brooch with "a gentle- woman luting and a scripture about it." This brooch is depicted in a portrait of a lady in the possession of Mr. Ayerst Buttery,3 probably painted by Holbein just before his death and finished by another hand. (Plate XVII, 6.) The brooch, circular in shape, is wreathed in gold, with a pink enamel flower at the top and a satyr's head on either side. On the central medallion is enamelled a lady dressed in pink, with a plumed hat and slashed sleeves, seated on a green
1 Brewer, Letters and Papers of Henry VII 7, Vol. IV, pt. i, Nos. 1906 and 1907.
2 Ibid., IV, pt. 3, No. 9789.
3 From the time of Henry VIII till recently in the possession of the now extinct family of Bodenham of Rotherwas.
10
74 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
ground and playing on a lute, the body of which is set with a ruby. Above is a scroll with the motto " Praise the Lorde for ever more."
Figure work of another kind is characteristic of the new Italianate style. Several jewels decorated with "naked men" were given by the King to Katharine Howard on her marriage1 in 1541. One of these is described as "a fair brooch of gold enamelled with white, having a border of antique boys about the same, with a very fair square diamond holden by a man whose coat and boots are enamelled with blue, and a king, crowned, with a sceptre in his hand at th' one end thereof and V person mo' standing behind the same with scriptures over their heads, with the king's words under the said brooch."
A fine design in colours for a pendant, made in Antwerp for the English market in 1 546, shews the central stone sup- ported by a male and female faun enamelled in natural colours.2 The same mixture of faceted stones and enamelled figures is shewn in the jewels depicted in the portrait of Mary Tudor, belonging to the Society of Antiquaries. Besides a pearl and sapphire necklace supporting the Tau cross that appears in portraits of her mother, she wears a pendant com- posed of a large gem surrounded by figures of satyrs in enamel, and hanging from her waist a round pendant, the face of which is set with a cross crosslet of sapphires or diamonds with figures between the limbs.
Apart from their subject, jewels of the early Renaissance decorated with figure work tend to fall into two categories :
1 Stowe MS., 559.
2 Drawing at the Record Office, Calendar of State Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Vol. XXI, pt. i, p. 55.
OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE 75
pictorial jewels, usually carried out entirely in enamel, with gems, if used at all, only in the framework ; and jewels in which a single figure, or a group of half monstrous forms, is employed as the actual setting of the gems. Examples of this later type are to be found among the designs of Holbein. (Plate XVI). It was not until the second half of the century that enamelled and jewelled figures in the round were used.
A considerable proportion of the designs of Holbein and of the jewels described in contemporary inventories or depicted in Tudor portraits depend for their effect upon the precious stones with which they are set. The gems of the church shrines had fallen into private hands, and foreign merchants, such as the Fuggers of Augsburg, supplied many splendid gems to the King and to courtiers lately enriched by the grant of Abbey lands. Henry VIII had a passion for magnificence and real taste for fine jewels. Only a short time before his death he purchased the famous jewel, The Three Brothers," that had belonged to Charles the Bold of Burgundy — a great square diamond, surrounded by three balas rubies and four enormous pearls. Such ornaments are naturally more often reset than those that depend upon their workmanship for their beauty, and our knowledge of Tudor jewels of the kind is derived for the most part from con- temporary portraits and drawings. Two of Holbein's designs are for the setting of a larger and a smaller quadrilateral gem in a scrolled and foliated setting (Plate XVI, 8), and three others (Plate XVI, i, 3, and 7), are intended for the setting of another collection of gems in rather more elaborate work.
76 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
An ornamental pendant of this period is fortunately still in existence. The Penruddock jewel is believed to have been presented to Sir George Penruddock, of Compton Chamberlayne, by Catherine Parr, in 1 544 ; he is shewn wearing it in a portrait by Lucas de Heere, which has descended with the jewel to its present owner, Mr. Charles Penruddock, of Compton Chamberlayne. The jewel is a pendant formed of a triangular cabochon sapphire, surrounded by rubies and diamonds in an enamelled setting, with a round pearl hanging below.
Of even greater beauty are the jewels in which the im- portance of gems and enamel work are more evenly balanced. Holbein's splendid portrait of Anne of Cleves, in the Louvre, shews a necklace, pendant cross, and borders to the cap and dress made of leafy scrolls of gold divided by roses of white enamel with centres of ruby and pearl.1 (Plate XVII, 7.)
If the jewel had a solid background this was sometimes ornamented in champlevd enamel, usually in black, with a design of those arabesques introduced into Renaissance Europe by the Oriental metal workers of Venice. Such designs offer a close analogy with those of the embroidery known as " Spanish-work " in inventories of the time, and it is probably enamel of this kind that is meant by the phrase " in manner of Spanish work " in inventories of the XVI and early XVII century.2 Holbein uses such enamel as a back- ground to gems in some of the most beautiful of his designs
1 Cf. Inventory of Mary Tudor, 1543 (Madden, op. cit., p. 185), " a girdle of goldsmythes worke set wt Roses of rubies and perie." (Plate XVII, 7.)
2 e.g. Rymer, Fcedera, XVII, p. 509: "Twenty faire dymonds sett in Buttons of Goulde in manner of Spanish worke."
OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE 77
for pendants (Plate XVI, 2 and 5), combined with initials in a design for a "tabulet" (Plate XVII, 3), and as the sole decoration of a bracelet of linked plaques. (Plate XVII, 2.) The earliest engraved designs for gold-work known to have been printed in England are panels in this style.1 It again appears as the accessory to jewels on the Crown of Scotland, discovered early in the last century by Sir Walter Scott and some Edinburgh officials in a locked chest in Edinburgh Castle. The Crown is partly made of the gold and jewels of one of the crowns of Robert Bruce, taken by Edward I on the field of Methven, and was remodelled and considerably added to in the reign of James V (c. 1 540). The circlet is set with carbuncles, jacinths, amethysts, topazes, crystals, and Oriental and Scotch pearls. The enamelled bands above, the cresting of jewelled rosettes and fleurs-de-lys, the arches decorated with golden leaves enamelled in red, and the mound of blue enamel studded with golden stars, are all of the XVI century. The cross that crowns the whole — of black enamel in a design of delicate gold arabesques, set with amethysts and pearls — bears on the back the initials I.R. V., which shew that this also was added in the time of James V.
The Renaissance was an age of individualism, and the personal cipher, badge or device became of importance as the mark of the individual. One of the fashions of the Tudor period was for pendants in the form of initials. Designs for them, H. and I., perhaps Henry and Jane Seymour, and R.
1 Moryse and Damashin renewed and encreased very profitable for Goldsmythes and Embroderers by Thomas Geminus at London, Anno 1548. The author was a Fleming ; the only known copy of his work is in the Landesmuseum der Provinz Westfalen, at Miinster. See Proc. Soc. Ants. Land., 2nd series, XXIX, 1917, p. i.
78 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
and E., of foliated gold, jewelled and hung with pearls, are included among the drawings of Hans Holbein. (Plate XVI, 4.) A golden B with three pendant pearls is shewn in a portrait of Anne Boleyn in the National Portrait Gallery, and a miniature of Queen Jane1 shews her wearing one formed of the initials A. B., which may have been given her by Anne Boleyn when Jane Seymour acted as her maid-of- honour. The 1530 inventory of the jewels of Henry VIII includes "a diamond Y, with a hanging pearl; a diamond M, standing in a flower, and an E, enamelled red," while the 1587 inventory of Elizabeth's jewels2 describes a brooch in the form of a jewelled H that she probably inherited from her father. The many matrimonial ventures of the King led to much altering and resetting of these initial jewels.3 The fashion extended to other ornaments — in 1528* the King had "a carkayne with a blue heart and H. and K." -and even to the decoration of the whole dress. Hall in his Chronicles records this fashion in describing the pageantry of some jousting held in February, 151 1.5 "In the garden was the Kyng and V. with him appareiled in garments of purple satyn, all of cuttes wth H. and K., every edge garnished with frysed gold, and every garment full of poysees, made of letters of fine gold in bullyon as thicke as they might be, and euery persone had his name in like letters of massy gold. The fyrst Cuer loyall^ the second Bone volure, in the iii Bone espoier,
1 Ascribed to Holbein. Shewn at the Archaeological Institute in 1861 by Mr. John Carr. 2 British Museum, MS. Royal Append., 68.
3 See Brewer, Letters and Papers, II, pt. I, No. 284.
4 Ibid., IV, pt. 2, No. 5114.
5 1809 edition, p. 519. For an illustration of this tournament see Vetusta Monumenta, I, Nos. 21-26. ° Motto of Henry VIII at the Field of the Cloth of Gold.
OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE 79
The iiii Valyaunt desyre, The fyft Bone foy, The vi Amoure Loyall, their hosen, Cappes and cotes, were full of poyses and H. and K. of fine gold in bullion, so that the grounde coulde scarce appeare and yet was in euery voyde place spangles of gold. . . . After the kyng and his compaignions had daunced, he appointed the ladies, gentlewomen and the Ambassadours to take the letters of their garmentes, in token of liberalitie, which thing the common people perceyuyng ranne to the kyng, and stripped hym into his hosen and dublet, and all his com- paignions in likewise. . . . At this banket a shipeman of London caught certayn letters which he sould to a goldsmyth for iii 1. xiii s. viii d. by reason whereof it appeared that the garmentes were of a great value." This liking for emblems and impresas is typical of the Renaissance. The designs of Holbein include two inscribed with the motto " Servar voglio quel che ho giurato" and one ornamented with a design in which dolphins, horns of abundance, and a pair of compasses are introduced with " Pmdentement et par compas incontinent viendras."
Collars of private badges and devices, however, gave way before the collars of the formally constituted orders of knighthood. In the fourteenth year of Henry's reign the collar of the Garter was ordered to be officially worn * on solemn occasions, weighing thirty ounces and formed of medallions of red and white roses and encircled by the Garter. At other times the pendant known as the Lesser George was to be worn hanging from a small gold chain, and in time of war, illness, or travel, depending from a silk lace.
1 Anstis, op. cit., II, p. 339.
8o ENGLISH JEWELLERY
The collar itself existed before this edict. John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, in the last year of the reign of Henry VII bequeathed to his cousin "a coler of Garters and rede Roses of Gold." The inventory made after the death of Henry VIII1 mentions "a coller of crowne golde of garters con- teyning xxiij garters and xxiij laces knytt together." The modern collar, however, has twenty-six medallions and knots, and was probably lengthened in order to hang free of the wigs of the XVII and XVIII centuries. The original statute prohibits the decoration of the collar with anything but enamel, and has always been obeyed. The absence of early surviving examples of this collar may be due to the practice illustrated in the will of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk (d. 1544) of melting the collar on the death of the owner into a cup and presenting this to the King.2
The decoration of the Great George was left to the dis- cretion of the owner.3 Its design, with the figure of the mounted saint slaying the dragon hanging free, without the encircling garter of the Lesser George, was well fitted to display the skill of the Renaissance goldsmith. A good example is shewn in the portrait of Sir William Fitzwilliam,
1 B.M., Stmve MS., 560.
2 Existing official collars of this date are the Beverley Waits' collars, formed of pierced linked medallions with alternately a beaver and an eagle ; those of the Exeter Waits (c. 1500) with small round medallions with X and R, and of the civic minstrels of Norwich and Bristol. The last, of the time of Mary Tudor, are formed of circles of purled wire enclosing the letters C.B., alternating with medallions in the shape of a rose and pomegranate impaled.
3 Cf. the Georges described in the inventory of the jewels of Henry Howard, Earl of Northumberland, in 1614: "A large Agatt George set with diamonds; a george cutt in blewe stone called Lapis Lazarus circuled with golde and enamelled onelie ; a round embossed George of Gold and enamelled which usually hanged at the Collar of the order ; a pomander George, with three pendant rubies, and a watche George."
OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE 81
Lord High Admiral, in the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cam- bridge. One is described in the inventory of the jewels of Henry VIII, made after his death: a "George on horse- backe the foreparte of the George of dyamounte the mayle of the coate and rivets of the same of silver half gilte with a sworde in his hands of golde a lozenged Dyamount like sheelde and a dragon of golde."
A fashion which gives the modern world an idea of the somewhat barbaric splendour of this time is that for jewelled tooth and ear-picks of gold. The most distinguished artists of the day designed these little objects, which were generally worn slung by a cord from the neck.1 Canon W. S. Bevan exhibited at the Tudor Exhibition at the Grosvenor Galleries in 1890 an ornament said to have belonged to Anne Boleyn : a pendant whistle of engraved gold in the shape of a pistol,2 containing various tooth and ear-picks of the same metal. Designs for these whistles by such distinguished artists as Diirer and Woeiriot are still in existence ; and Henry VIII's inventory for I5i93 records one hanging from a ring and set with a ruby and seven diamonds.
1 Thomson, Collection of Inventories of the Royal Jewel House of Scotland, p. 5. Inventory of jewels of James II in 1488 : Item twa tuthpikes of gold with a cheny a perle and erepike.
Brewer, Letters and Papers, IV, No. 6789. Inventory of jewels of Henry VIII in 1530. Two gold toothpicks with H. and E., a gold toothpick and earpick with a chain, and two others, one with a ruby and pearl, and one with a ruby and diamond.
Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth, I, p. 380. New Year's Gifts in 1573-4, "Six small tothe picks of golde, geven by Mrs. Snow, one of them lost by her Majestic."
Ibid., I, p. 412. New Year's Gifts in 1574-5, "An eare picke of gold enamuled, gar- nished with sparcks of rubyes, blue saphirs, and seede pearle."
Ibid., II, p. 52, 1576-7, "a Tothe and ear picke of gold, being a dolphin enamuled, with a perle pendaunte, 16 small rubyes being but sparcks, and 5 sparks dyamonds."
2 Cf. Nichols, Progresses of Elizabeth, II, p. 255, New Year's Gifts for 1578-9, " A tothe picke of golde made gonne fation."
3 Brewer, Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, Vol. Ill, pt. i, No. 463.
ii
82 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
The rosary or reliquary worn hanging from the girdle in the XV century was replaced by books of devotion or "tabulets" in ornamental bindings. This seems to have been -a fashion favoured by Anne Boleyn : not only did she give such books to the ladies of her Court, but when Cardinal Wolsey was ill "she took incontinent a tabulet of gold hanging at her girdle, and delivered it to Master Buttes with very gentle and comfortable words and commendations to the Cardinal."
The great inventory made on the death of Henry VIII2 records among the jewels in the Secret Jewel House of the Tower, "A booke of golde enamelled clasped with a Rubie having on thone syde a crosse of Dyamountes and vj other Dyamountes and thother syde a flower de Luce of Dyamountes and iiij Rubies with a pendant of white saphyrs and the Armes of England. Whiche Booke is garnished with small Emerades and Rubies hanging to a cheyne pillor fashion sett with xv knottes everie one conteyning iii Rubies (one lacking) and a vyce to open a clocke with one rubie and a Dyamounte."
Among Holbein's designs for jewels is one for the covers of such a book, decorated with the initials T. W. and I. W.3 (Plate XVII, 3) on a ground of arabesques. Mary Tudor in I5424 owned several such books, including one of gold, "wt the Kings face and his graces mothers." The jewelled covers of a Prayer Book said to have been worn by Queen
1 Cavendish, Life of Wolsey, p. 288, 1827 edition.
2 Incomplete copy, B.M. Stowe MS. , p. 560.
3 A Prayer Book, said to have been given by Anne Boleyn to a lady of the Wyatt family, is bound in a gold cover enamelled black in a design closely resembling Holbein's drawing, but without initials. It is now in the possession of the Earl of Romney. Archceologia, XLIV, 1873, p. 259.
4 Madden, op. cit., p. 175.
\GLISH JEWEL I
Y
The rosary or reliquary worn han ardle in
vV century was replaced by ! >tion or
"tabulets" in ornamental bindings. This seems to have
n-ci fashion favoured by Anne Boleyn : not only did she uch books to the ladies of her Court, but wh< rdinal
Wolsev was ill "she took in* nt a tabulet cv!
KT girdle, and delivered it to Master Buttes with an fortable words and commendations to the C
The great inventory made on the death of Henry VIII2 records among the jewels in the Secret Jewel House of the Tower, "A booke of golde enamelled clasped with a Rubie having on thone syde a crosse of Dyamountes and vj other Dyamountes and thotlv de a flower de Luce of Dyamountes and iiij Rubies w' nt of white saphyrs
and the Armes of I d. \\ B ke is garnished
with small Kmer ing to a cheyne pillor
fashion setjt with xv knottcs everie one ;ng iii Rul
(one lacking) and a vyce to open a cloc. :o rubie and
a Dyamounte."
Among icin's designs for jewels is one for the covers
of such a b -I with the initials T. W. and I. W.3
(Plate XVII, { of arabesques. Mary Tudor
in i 542* owni including one of gold,
"wttheKing^ mothers." The jewelled
covers of a Pr by Queen
» A Prayer Book, said to family* is bound in a gojd «ov« drawing, but without Jr. Archteoiogia, XLIV,
y Anne B idy of the Wyatt
mbjing Holbein's
of Romney.
TUDOR JEWELS
OF THE EARLY RENAISSANCE 83
Elizabeth, now in the British Museum (Plate XVII, i), are decorated in coloured enamel on a gold ground with the Worshipping of the Serpent in the Wilderness and the Judgment of Solomon.
The same subject is also represented on another pair of covers, now unmounted, in the same collection. On this certain figures are enamelled in opaque white, but the greater part of the design is executed in gold. One side shews the mothers coming to Solomon for judgment, the other the rightful mother kneeling before the King to beseech the life of her child. Another beautifully mounted book, a manu- script copy of the last prayer of Edward VI, is known to have been worn by Elizabeth, and is now preserved among the Hunsdon heirlooms in the possession of Lord Fitzhardinge. (Plate XVII, 5.) The covers are of gold, inlaid with black enamel, with a rosette of white enamel in each corner. The centre of one side is filled with a shell cameo head, and that of the other with a boss of translucent red and green enamel. This, like all the examples described, has a loop for suspension on each of the upper sides.
Another XVI century fashion was the use of jewels filled with aromatic gums, of which the perfume did some- thing to counteract the foul air of the cities. The mode for such pomanders was introduced into England from Bur- gundy, and references to "pomes de muske" may be found in some inventories of the XV century. They are shewn hanging from the girdle in several female effigies.1 The
1 For instance, Dame Ellen Legh (c. 1527) in Winwick Church, Lanes, and the daughters of Sir Robert Newport (d. 1570) in Wroxeter Church, Shropshire.
84 ENGLISH JEWELLERY
scented ball was usually enclosed in a metal case, pierced and opening in the middle. A XVI century globular pomander of this kind, found by a bargeman on the Surrey side of the Thames, is now in the British Museum. (Plate XVII, 4.) It is made of six half hoops of gold, ornamented with purled wire, held together by a slightly broader band similarly orna- mented. One end has a ring for suspension, the other ter- minates in a small flat flower of gold. Each angle between the hoops has been set with a pearl, several of which remain. When discovered it still retained some of its original contents, which when warmed gave off a strong aromatic scent.
The reign of Edward