All Things Medieval

The most popular gemstone in the world today is the diamond. We expect fine jewelry to have few colors, or possibly even none at all. The most expensive tiaras are so encrusted with diamonds that they appear to be pure white. This, however, was not medieval Europe’s idea of fine jewelry.

Through most of the Middle Ages, of course, the Islamic empire in one form or another controlled and guarded trade with the East. Imported gemstones mostly came from or through their territories, often by ship between India and the Arabian and Egyptian ports. Egypt itself had a large deposit of emeralds. Rubies came from India, sapphires from Ceylon and Persia. Persia also sent turquoise and lapis lazuli; some turquoise came from Tibet, one of the more distant points on the Silk Road. Most garnet came from Russia, probably traded through Constantinople.

Diamonds had to be imported from India and Africa, but that alone would be a point in their favor, since scarcity and cost were as important then as now. But until the late Middle Ages, gems were mounted uncut. If you look at the Oppenheimer Diamond, which is displayed in the Smithsonian, you can see why uncut diamonds did not catch on. It’s white and yellow, but it doesn’t refract light the way we’ve come to expect by seeing only cut diamonds. The other imported gems had vibrant colors that served as decoration even in round, polished form. Only diamonds have no real decorative value until they’re cut.

The first diamond cutters’ guild was established in 1375, in Nuremberg, Germany. Because Germany had such rich minerals in its mountains, it became the leader in all things having to do with metals, minerals and early chemistry. Diamonds’ greatest value may have been as cutting tools, more than as jewels. In fact, that may be where the tradition of diamond rings came from: a ring with a cut diamond could be used to write on glass.

Pearls were naturally polished and did not need to be cut; they could be mounted on jewelry or strung as beads. Some rivers in Scotland, of all places, contained mussels that made small pearls. But the finest pearls, and by far the most, came from outside Europe. The Mediterranean coast along North Africa had pearl beds, and the Persian Gulf had even more. The Crusader kingdoms spurred increased importation of pearls into Europe.

In addition to amber, Europe had immediate access to seven more gems. Some were actually native, others were imported but from within the ancient Mediterranean trading circuit.

Garnet is the second chief gemstone native to Europe. Like amber, it’s found around the world, but Bohemia had a large vein of deep red garnet. Red stones in early European jewelry are probably garnet, not rubies. As I’ll discuss more when talking about imported gemstones, medieval jewelers polished garnet, but did not cut it into facets as we do now.

Jet may have been the next most common gemstone. It’s really wood petrified into a very hard coal that can be polished. It was found in many parts of England, as well as in other parts of Europe. Whitby, in England, was the best-known medieval source. Its product was called “Whitby Jet.” Nobody was yet aware of coal’s value for energy; they saw it merely as a glossy black stone.

Beryl was also native to Europe, but not in its most valuable form, the emerald. Beryl’s crystal is by nature colorless, but it takes on color from other elements. For example, iron tints it to Aquamarine. It can also come in red, green, various blues, and golden. Only some of the colors we have today, mined in Africa and South America, were available in medieval Europe. Probably most of their beryl was golden or aquamarine blue.

Quartz isn’t valuable, but it’s pretty. Medieval jewelers could use it for a diamond-like effect, but nobody valued colorless gems as much as colored ones. Diamonds were not the peak favorite gem, as they are now, so imitating diamond was not important.

Coral came from the African side of the Mediterranean. Coral was believed to have natural magic, capable of protecting the wearer against lightning and other dangers. For those who could afford decorative stones for their children, coral was a top choice, since children needed extra protection against danger. Coral formed bead strings, including rosary strings (for counting prayer repetitions).

There were a number of minor “gemstones” of varying value. Europe didn’t have a good source of pearls, but some rivers—oddly, in chilly Scotland—-produced small pearl-making mollusks. A fossilized fish tooth, called Toadstone, was believed to come out of a toad’s head. It polished to a nice brown, but its main value was for luck.

Chalcedony, a kind of agate, gave Europe a number of minor gems: jasper, carnelian, onyx and others. Its most famous use was in making cameos. A mineral with layered colors could be carved in relief so that one color formed the figure (usually a portrait) while the other was a contrasting background. A higher surface layer might provide additional color to the carved figure. Making cameos was not an active art in medieval Europe (excluding Italy), but Roman cameos could be discovered in ruins around England and France. Roman cameos found this way were highly prized as jewelry. Medieval jewelers incorporated Roman cameos into contemporary designs without an eye to preserving them as found.

Constantinople, standing at the crossroads of continents, always had access to imported gemstones. But Northern Europe depended mainly (and for a long time) on its native gems. Chief among them: amber, traded since the Stone Age.

Amber was cut, polished and drilled into pendants and beads. Chips of amber were set into gold brooches, with colored glass and other gemstones. Amber could be the gemstone in a ring or on earrings. Like other medieval gemstones, it was never cut into facets as we do now. It was round and polished, prized mainly for its bright color.

Baltic amber is honey-colored and translucent. When it’s heated (or drilled with a hot needle to create a bead), it gives off a distinct smell of pine resin. It really is fossilized pine resin, occasionally containing some insects or bits of other plants. Amber is found around the world, and its color worldwide can vary from gold to brown, red and black and even, more rarely, green and blue.

The largest known deposit of amber is in the area now called Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania. In the past, this area was known as Prussia, and before that, it had other names. The region remained pagan, outside the civilized network of Europe, until late in the Middle Ages. It was never an impoverished, starving outback, though, because since Stone Age times, its people could always depend on a market for their yellow stones.

Lithuanians call it “gintaras,” and Russians say, similarly, “yintar.” Something like “yintar” is probably what the early medieval miners and traders called it, perhaps as far back as the Bronze Age. But as the honey-colored gem traveled farther away, it developed some other significant names.

Pliny reports that the Roman-era Germanic tribes called it something like “glass.” Anglo-Saxons called it “glaer.” The word probably meant “resin” (as did “yintar”). We no longer refer to amber this way, but translucent resin appears to be the origin of our word for glass.

Modern English’s word “amber” was adopted in the Middle Ages and apparently it meant something like “beach glass.” Amber (from Arabic anbar, referring to perfume) was one of two valuable substances that could be picked up on the beach. Amber gris (grey amber) came from sperm whales and was used in perfume; amber jaune (yellow amber) is the fossilized pine gem but could also be used for perfume making. They may have been considered different colors of the same substance; they were certainly both collected to sell to perfumers in the city. Only later did “amber” come to mean only the gemstone.

In Classical times, amber was traded as far away as Greece (and probably much farther). In Greek, it was called “elektron,” relating its color to the sun. The myth of Phaeton, who foolishly drove the sun’s chariot, included the detail that his grieving sisters turned to trees and these golden drops were their tears. Persians called the gem kahruba, and this word was borrowed into Arabic (anbar had been about perfume, not gems). In Arabic, kahrabah came to mean electricity; of course, we easily recognize the same meaning in the Greek name.

Amber’s molecular structure allows it to pick up a static electric charge easily. Since furs were the other main export from the Baltic forests of Prussia, traders would have realized very early that rubbing amber on fur creates a crackling, flickering charge. Amber was used in early experiments with creating electrical charges. This is why the name of amber in Greek and Arabic became the basis for talking about electrical charges. Later experiments used glass and silk, but now we see that “glass,” too, has some indirect reference to amber.

Jewelry illustrates one of the fundamental problems with historical artifacts: some were targeted for destruction and only survived in small numbers through unusual circumstances. Jewelry is wearable wealth; the fashion for wearing it changes, but the wealth is conserved. Gold and silver are melted down and recast, while gems are re-set and perhaps re-cut. The same gems and gold might stay in the family for years, but each century they look different.

The medieval world had no concept of antique fashion having value. We see interest and value in preserving the past only after the Reformation, when civil wars caused so much destruction that people saw severe losses in their lifetimes. They began to search for anything really old that had not been destroyed, like Roman coins and parchment books that were still unburnt. More time passed before old clothes began to have value; cloth was generally cut up and restyled. Worn-out shoes went into the trash in every generation, as they do now. Even now, when antiques are highly prized, many people have outdated jewelry re-designed, and so they continued to do in all centuries.

So we tend to know old jewelry four ways. (1) pictures. People usually wore their best finery in having a portrait painted, and by the late medieval years, portraits were more common. (2) grave goods. It’s very expensive to bury your best things in a grave, never to be seen again. Christian belief said it wasn’t necessary, so for the most part, Christian converts stopped burying jewelry. Thus we only have large amounts of jewelry from pagan times. (3) items treasured for ceremonies, like crowns. Kings always tried to keep treasures, and some hoards were never looted. (4) rare lost and found items. These are the best, since they are the only random samples we have. But they’re rare and often decayed.

Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity during the 600s; by the 700s, grave goods were not as common. The best archeological find was at Sutton Hoo, in Suffolk; it was probably the grave of King Raedwald, one of the last pagans. Grave goods show us a range of wealth, from Raedwald’s dazzling splendor to the much less generous everyday brooches and beads of common graves.

Let’s start with simpler brooches and beads. Brooches pinned cloaks; chiefly they were the stable surface on which to mount a hinged pin, so they had to be thick enough not to break easily under tension. Here’s a simple swastika design, obviously long before it had the meaning Hitler gave to it. The person who owned this brooch could afford iron, which in those times was not cheap. There were many humble brooches made from copper, and also many very small “button brooches” from as early as the 5th century.

Anglo-Saxon brooches of silver and gold used a kind of inlay called “niello.” Niello applied an alloy of lesser metal sulphides to the grooves molded into a design. Its black color made the design stand out much more boldly. This exact technique was not used in later medieval times, so we can date some startlingly shiny and unspoiled pieces to early centuries. Sutton Hoo provides us with some pretty amazing workmanship.

Here are two buckles that show off the high-level craftsmanship available to those who could pay for it. The belt buckle uses niello to outline the tiny dots and lines inside the interlacing. It’s also worth noting that this buckle shows little sign of contact with the Byzantine Empire. Its style is only found in the Irish and Norse cultures.  Another belt buckle uses colored inlay, and you can clearly see the gold rivets that once held it to fine leather. One of the most beautiful Sutton Hoo artifacts is this set of shoulder clasps. Their style could be influenced by exposure to Byzantine mosaics, but they also have the interlaced-snake design of the North.

Anglo-Saxon brooches were usually either round, shaped like saucers, or square-headed. Other royal burials provide us with four outstanding examples of fine workmanship. This brooch comes from Kent, where Christianity was adopted by the early 7th century. Even more spectacular is the Kingston Down Brooch, also from Kent. It may have been worn by a royal woman who was included in a burial mound.

We have two splendid niello brooches from the Christian period, and their history has been lost. Both are first known to us in the collections of antiquaries, and these collections provide their names. The Strickland Brooch shows sixteen tiny dogs. The brooch is silver with niello, but it also has gold and even blue glass for the dogs’ eyes. The Fuller Brooch is even more interesting. It’s clearly the product of Latin education, since it carefully depicts the Five Senses of taste, smell, sight, sound and touch. It could even be the work of household craftsmen to King Alfred, the greatest and best educated of the Anglo-Saxon kings.

Square-headed brooches also came in simple, practical forms, which we have from early graves. These brooches made of copper seem to have minimal decoration, but they were stout enough to hold the hinged pin’s clasp under the square end. This copper square-headed brooch is much finer, as well as better-preserved. Notice the niello outlines. Aristocrats could afford gold brooches, though the one pictured here is not as rich as Sutton Hoo’s gold work. The last word in square-headed brooches goes to early pagan Kent; here we see gold set with garnets, a gem native to Europe.

Epics like Beowulf are full of references to arm rings handed out by kings as awards for valor in battle. Warriors probably wore all of their arm rings to major feasts, showing off their awards like Plains Indians with eagle feathers. But very few from the earliest period have survived, probably because they got melted down for other purposes. The only image I could find of an Anglo-Saxon (not Viking) arm ring is this one from the 10th century, a time when the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms were completely Christian.

Beads seem to have been only for women’s use. Early grave goods have given us many scattered beads, starting on the humble scale with carved bone. It’s clear that Byzantine traders used beads as highly portable trade goods for furs, as American settlers did a few centuries later. Their bright, multi-colored glass beads are found mixed with native amber. Sometimes they are full necklaces, but always with more beads toward the front. Other times, they appear to be strands of beads that may have hung between a set of round brooches.