Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places Part 10

[100-*] Engraved as an ill.u.s.tration to the volume describing the congress of the British Archaeological a.s.sociation at Winchester, in 1845.

[108-*] He was elected 1418, and died 1464.

[115-*] J. Y. Akerman on Gnostic Gems, in _Archaeologia_, vol. x.x.xii.

[116-*] T. Wright, M.A., &c., in _Archaeologia_, vol. x.x.x.

[117-*] Masarius, quoted in Topsel's "History of Serpents," 1611.

[136-*] He was a draper; and his seal has a device upon it consisting of a skull with a bone in the mouth; the letters W. S. are under it, and very small. This ring was most probably of silver. It is unlikely that a small trader like Smith should wear a heavy gold ring, like this which claims to be Shakspere's.

[136-] The concluding words of the will are--"in witness whereof I have hereunto put my seale," the last word being struck through with a pen, and _hand_ subst.i.tuted.

[137-*] Heminge was the old stage-manager, who, like Shakspere, became very wealthy by the profession. Burbage was the great tragedian, and the original performer of Richard III. Condell was a comedian, part-proprietor of the Globe Theatre; it is to him and Heminge we are indebted for the first complete edition of Shakspere's works, the folio of 1623.

[144-*] Motley's "Rise of the Dutch Republic."

[147-*] In the Koran this wild version of the story occurs:--"Solomon entrusted his signet with one of his concubines, which the devil obtained from her, and sat on the throne in Solomon's shape. After forty days the devil departed, and threw the ring into the sea. The signet was swallowed by a fish, which being caught and given to Solomon, the ring was found in its belly, and thus he recovered his kingdom."--SALE'S _Koran_, chap. x.x.xviii.

ANCIENT BROOCHES AND DRESS FASTENINGS.

ANCIENT BROOCHES AND DRESS FASTENINGS.

Every artist who paints an historical picture knows the difficulty of obtaining the necessary _minutiae_, in order to give _vraisemblance_ to his picture, as the authorities are widely scattered, and can only be brought together by those who know where to look for them; for often they lie hidden in illuminated MSS., or in books of considerable rarity, seldom looked at by the general reader, and only fully appreciated by literary men and students. We propose to show how varied and curious the history of any article of dress becomes if studied carefully, and how such minor details indicate clearly defined periods, as faithfully as any other historic _data_ left for our guidance.

The use of the fibula, or brooch, was, in all probability, first adopted by men to secure the outer cloak upon the shoulders. It originated among the ancient Greeks, and appears to have been considered as a characteristic of Greek costume, even after it had long been adopted by the Romans, as may be understood from a pa.s.sage of Suetonius in his life of Augustus. "He distributed among various other persons, togae and pallia, and made a law that the Romans should wear the Greek habit, and the Greeks the Roman habit;" that is, that the Greeks should wear the toga, and the Romans the pallium. Now, though it is certain that the pallium, or cloak, was peculiar to the Greeks, and that many authors, besides Suetonius, testify the same, yet it is as evident that this article of dress became afterwards the common habit of Greeks and Romans.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 201.]

The earliest form in which we meet with a fibula is that of a circular disc, having a pin crossing it behind, which pa.s.sed through the folds of the cloak, and was hidden from sight by this outer disc. It retained that form for ages, and is rarely seen upon antique monuments in any other shape. It is very clearly represented upon the statue of Paris, as shown in Fig. 201. It will be seen that the cloak covered the left arm, the opening being upon the right one, where the brooch reposed on the shoulder, leaving the right arm free. There is a very beautiful and well-known antique statue of Diana, representing the G.o.ddess fastening her mantel in the same manner.

The character of this outer garment varied with the seasons, but whether heavy and warm, or light and cool, it was usually plain in its character, or simply decorated with a border, and corner ornament.

Sometimes, when worn by great personages, it appears to have been decorated with needlework, and shot with threads of gold. Such a one is described in the Odyssey (book xix.) as worn by Ulysses:--

"In ample mode A robe of military purple flow'd O'er all his frame: ill.u.s.trious on his breast The double-clasping gold the king confest.

In the rich woof a hound, mosaic drawn, Bore on full stretch, and seized a dappled fawn: Deep in the neck his fangs indent their hold; They pant and struggle in the moving gold."

When the brooch secured the short military cloak of the Romans, it was usually worn in the centre of the breast. As the desire for personal display increased, a brooch was worn on each shoulder; the ladies often wearing a row of them to close the sleeve left open down the arm.

Occasionally, they were also used to fasten the tunic above the knee, in the way that Diana,

"Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,"

appears to have secured hers before she indulged in the chase.

As luxury increased in the Roman Empire, these articles of utility became also ornaments of much cost and splendour. The art of the goldsmith was devoted to enrichments for them; that of the enameller to brilliant colouring. They increased in size greatly, and became distinctive of rank and wealth. The influence of Eastern taste, when the seat of royalty was transferred from Rome to Constantinople, was visible in the jewellery afterwards usually worn; nor was the taste by any means confined to the fair s.e.x, the men in the East being still as fond of jewellery as the ladies of the harem. The poorest persons eagerly wear what their limited means allow, and load themselves with cheap ornaments, although a pound weight of them would not be worth five shillings.

These enamelled brooches are frequently found in places where Roman towns once stood. They may, in fact, be said to abound in most museums.

We select two, as examples, from the York Museum, a collection singularly rich in relics of Roman art. York was one of the most important stations in England, and here died the Emperor Septimus Severus, in the year 211, at the age of sixty-five, "worn out with anxiety, fatigue, and disease," says the Rev. C. Wellbeloved, the historian of York. He had returned from his successful war in the north, but had achieved victory with the loss of fifty thousand of his soldiers. Caracalla, his eldest son, was with him at the time, but immediately set out for Rome. In the year 304, when the empire was divided between the Caesars, Galerius, Maximia.n.u.s, and Constantius Chlorus, Britain fell to the share of the latter, who immediately came over, and fixed his residence in York. He died two years afterwards, and his son, Constantine the Great, by Helena, a British princess, succeeded him, being proclaimed emperor by the army at York, where he was at the time of his father's death. The first of these elegant brooches is of circular form (Fig. 202), like a raised shield divided into several compartments. The side view placed with it will enable the reader to understand the arrangement of the pin, which moves freely on a pivot, the point held by a curve in the lower projecting bar. The second example (Fig. 203) was found near Bootham bar, and is of more elaborate design. The raised centre is divided into ornamental compartments, filled with rich purple and white enamel colours. The point of the pin is here brought closer to the brooch, as if it had been intended to fasten a finer kind of material than the preceding one, which from its width would take in a coa.r.s.er texture.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 202.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 203.]

The use of enamel colours as enrichments to metal ornaments belongs to the later days of Rome. Sometimes the work is very coa.r.s.e, but specimens occur (though rarely) of extremely delicate execution. It was executed in what the French antiquaries term the _champ-leve_ manner; that is, the part to be enamelled was cut, or hollowed, by a graving tool, in the surface, and then filled with fusible colours, rubbed when cool to a level surface. This decoration was not confined to small articles of jewellery, but was used for belts and sword-handles. An admirable example of a small bronze vase, thus beautifully enriched, was found in excavating the triple tumuli popularly known as the Bartlow Hills, in Cambridgeshire. Horse-trappings were highly enriched in the same manner.

Boxes, and small articles of furniture, were also inlaid with enamelled plaques of metal.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 204.]

A tendency to great variety of design characterised the jewellery of the Byzantine empire; and the old circular fibula, that had been worn contentedly for so very many centuries, was discarded for new forms; which were again cast aside at the caprice of the wearer, attracted by the ever-varying designs of the jeweller. The bow or harp-shaped fibula, however, retained its place when once introduced, nearly as long as its circular forerunner. One of the finest specimens of a fibula of this kind is here given, copied from the original, which was discovered about twenty years ago by labourers employed on the railway near the town of Amiens, at a spot where other objects of the Gallo-Roman period were met with. The place may probably have been the cemetery of the town, when the masters of the world ruled there. The workmen found a leaden coffin of great thickness, which contained two skeletons, the smaller having within it many articles of female ornament. These consisted of a pair of gold ear-rings of very peculiar and original design; a gold ring set with a carnelian, on which was engraved a youthful figure riding on a goat; a pair of slender armlets of gold; a pendent ornament of gla.s.s, evidently formed to wear as a charm to keep off the baneful effect of the evil eye, so much dreaded by the ancients; and this buckle (Fig.

204). The latter is constructed of the finest gold, the bow decorated with an upright row of pellets, and three small flowerets across the centre. The shaft is covered with most delicate chased ornament, or reeded patterns, soldered to the surface; a row of raised studs are each in the middle of a curved quatrefoil, the outer border raised in lines of indented decoration. The whole bears traces of the influence of Greek art, the workmen of that highly-cultivated and artistic nation always excelling their Roman brethren, and the richer cla.s.ses in Rome patronising them in preference. Nothing can exceed the delicacy and beauty of Greek jewellery; the Roman being of a heavier and less artistic taste. The character of the two nations may thus be clearly traced in so insignificant an article as a breast-pin.

Figs. 205 and 206 represent two of the most ordinary forms of the bronze bow-shaped fibulae, as worn by the ordinary cla.s.ses. Fig. 205 was found at Strood, in Kent, in a brick-field opposite Rochester Castle, on the other side of the Medway, which field had been the cemetery of the city when the Romans ruled it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 205.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 206.]

The reader will notice, in both the latter instances, the pin is a continuation of a coil of strong metal, of which it is formed, and which gives it great strength and elasticity. When the latter was pa.s.sed through the several folds of the dress, and the end secured in the strong metal catch below, it would not be easy to unfasten the garment or lose the pin. The second example is less stiff in contour, and from it the reader may more clearly comprehend the arrangement for securing the pin. Here, again, the pin proceeds from spirals at the upper part of the brooch.

These common articles were sometimes made more attractive to the eye by decorating the upper portion with coa.r.s.e enamel colours; a specimen is given in Fig. 207; it is of clumsy form, and cheap construction; it was found, with many other minor antiquities, among heaps of bones, in the well-known caves at King's Scarr, about two miles north-east of Settle, in Yorkshire--caves that are conjectured to have been the homes of the old Britons who once lived a semi-savage life in them.

In the excellent museum at Boulogne are preserved many articles found in the immediate neighbourhood, and belonging to the Gallo-Roman period.

Among them is the bronze fibula Fig. 208, which shows the very decided arc formed by the upper part, and the mode by which the point of the pin was secured in the sheath below.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 207.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 208.]

Sometimes these bow-shaped fibulae were made with an extremely large and ugly bow, as in Fig. 209, which hung over the dress. They are occasionally met with six inches in width, with a pin an inch or two longer: being used for the heavier winter cloaks. The gore-shaped pendant is made hollow, and is often decorated with incised lines and zigzag patterns. They appear to have been in most favour among the Roman provincials in Gaul and Britain, particularly as the nature of the winters obliged them to seek in the heavy woollen _sagum_, or in the skin mantle, some greater protection against the inclemency of the weather than their southern conquerors required.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 209.]

Allusion has already been made to the extreme taste for showy jewellery, and gaudy personal decoration, indulged in by the later Roman rulers, after the seat of government had been removed to Constantinople. It seems to have increased as their power decayed: for the rude paintings and mosaics of the eighth and ninth centuries depict emperors and empresses in dresses literally covered with ornament and jewellery--indeed, the artists must have put forth their best strength in depicting the dresses, as if they had received similar orders to those given by good Mrs. Primrose, who expressly desired the painter of her portrait to put as many jewels on her stomacher "as he could for the money."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 210.]

Fig. 210, the bust of the Emperor Constantine Pogonatus (so called from the ample beard the monarch wore), is an example of male foppery. This emperor came to the throne A.D. 668, and died in 685. It will be perceived that two brooches fasten his outer garment, one upon each shoulder. That upon the right one is highly enriched, but the original, as really worn by the emperor, was most probably much more so, by chasing, enamel, and jewels which the artist had not s.p.a.ce, or perhaps ability, to express. From it hang three chains, which were most probably formed of hollow gold beads, cast in an ornamental matrix; such having been found in Crimean graves; and less frequently in those of the Germanic and Gaulish chieftains and aristocrats. To the ends of these chains were affixed circular ornaments, sometimes decorated with enamel, like the York fibulae already described, and sometimes with cameos, set in a gold framework: for as the Arts decayed, the finer works of this kind, executed in the palmy days of Rome, were much prized and valued as the works of a race who were acknowledged to be mentally superior.

The empresses naturally wore a greater abundance of jewellery than their lords; they also wore great circular brooches on each shoulder, but they increased the pendent ornaments by adding heavy gold chains, which hung across the breast, and from the brooches on both sides nearly to the waist; at the ends of these chains was a group of smaller chains, each supporting a jewel of varied form, so that a heavy bunch of them was formed. Ultimately other chains with pendent jewels were attached to the chain that pa.s.sed across the breast, and completely covered that part of the person with decoration.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 211.]