 |
Use
the handy links below to zoom to your vintage jewelry needs!
Vintage
Jewelry
Vintage
Bracelets
Vintage
Jewelry Necklaces
Vintage
Jewelry Rings
Vintage
Earrings
Vintage
Silver
Vintage
Box
Vintage
Heart
Vintage
Jewelry Brooches
Vintage
Jewelry Pins
Some
medieval jewelry background
The
sapphire, the most appraised stone up to the end of the thirteenth century,
later yielded to the ruby not only in symbolic value but also in price.
In the late Middle Ages the diamond became the most valuable and expensive
of all stones, although in Spain and Portugal the emerald held superior
position, due to the characteristic Iberian fondness for emeralds. Pearls
circulated in huge quantities and were usually sold by weight. The greatest
European market for pearls imported from the East was Venice. Venice was
also a principal centre of forgeries, at any rate in the thirteenth century.
For instance, glass cameos, Byzantine in style but produced in Venice,
gave cause for concern for the fourteenth-century Paris purchasers.
Kings
and princes, great noblemen and even rich merchants invariably kept a store
of precious and semi-precious stones and cameos. By merchants and those
noblemen, who had relatively little jewelry, stones were kept as a reserve
of valuables but in noble and princely circles they were stored for use
in jewelry and plate or to give away as presents. Precious stones were
often given as presents at weddings and at New Year and on other occasions.
The stones and bits and pieces from the objects which had been broken up
were also preserved with care. The practice of keeping a store of precious
stones and pearls was fostered by the conditions of medieval goldsmith’s
work, in which the commissioner was so often expected to supply the costly
gold and gems which were the raw materials of the art. For safe preservation
precious stones were frequently mounted in rings or fixed in wax. They
were also kept loose, wrapped in a bag or cloth.
In
the late fourteenth century the significance of stones of price is shown
by the fact that they often received their own special names. Jean, Duc
de Berry (1340 - 1416), owned the Great Balas of Venice, bought from Valentina
Visconti in 1407, the Balas of Orange, bought in 1408 from two French courtiers,
the Balas of the Chestnut, the Balas of David, the Balas of the Cock-Crest,
the Ruby of the Ear, the Ruby of the Quail, the Ruby of Gloucester, the
Ruby of Apulia, the Ruby of the Dimple, a fine small ruby called the Barley
Grain, the Ruby of the Mountain, bought in 1405, the Ruby of Berry, bought
in 1408, a ruby called the Coal of Burgundy, and the King of Rubies, bought
for him as a present by his nephew Jean Sans Peur, Duke of Burgundy, in
1413, and given this name by Jean de Berry, so great was his delight in
its splendour.
Some
stones or jewels were cherished not so much for their price or beauty as
for their family associations. In 1370 Jeanne d’Evreux, Queen Dowager of
France, left a small diamond which her brother Philippe, King of Navarre
(1305 - 43) had given her many years before ‘that he ever wore upon his
person because it had been their father’s.’
The
acquisition and possession of precious stones were matters of thrilling
interest and deep satisfaction to medieval princes, as well as providing
them with a treasure which could be used to increase their magnificence
of array and largesse in the form of dress, jewelry and plate. Sometimes
it is difficult to decide whether medieval lovers of stones, such as Jean
de Berry, should not be properly called connoisseurs and collectors.
Individual
jewels or collections of jewels were sometimes sold by their noble owners
to other great personages. An exchange of jewels between distant courts
was a custom among rulers. On occasions precious stones passed down as
heirlooms. In many cases jewels that had once been worn by secular noblemen
and noble women were later included into a devotional bequeath to the Church
and ended up in an ecclesiastical treasury or as a part of church decoration.
It was a common custom to offer jewels as pious donations to churches,
shrines, and statues of the saints.
The
giving of jewelry to a bride first at her betrothal and then on marriage
was a recognised social custom among all social classes throughout Western
Europe. In most countries it seems also to have been expected that either
her family or the bridegroom should provide the bride with the ornaments
suitable to her standing as a married woman. In addition to these the bridegroom
must often have given the bride-to-be some personal token of love – usually
a ring or a brooch.
Among
the classes that could afford gold and silver there was no social situation
in which two lovers -- in the illicit sense of the word – could freely
make each other gifts of jewelry or openly wear such gifts. In the chivalric
relationship of courtly love the lover had of necessity to conceal his
affection under enigmatic language and symbols, so as not to expose the
lady of his thoughts to scandal and dishonour. In the fourteenth century
the device and motto provided a resolution of this problem, for they enabled
the chivalric lover to conceal with an image – a flower or bird, a letter
– the object of his cult, while figuring, if only by remote allusion and
private significance, the mood of his passion, whether of hope, longing,
or despair.
Men
could receive gifts of jewelry as a prize for a victory at a tournament,
as a gift from the patron, or for the knightly initiation.
From
the Central European University.
[
Return to top ]
|
|
