II

MEDIEVAL AND MODERN HISTORY

II
MEDIEVAL AND MODERN HISTORY OF PEARLS

I’ll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail

Rich pearls upon thee.

Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, sc. 5.

The popularity of pearls in Rome has its counterpart in the Empire of the East at Byzantium or Constantinople on its development in wealth and luxury after becoming the capital of that empire in 330 A.D. Owing to its control of the trade between Asia and Europe, and the influence of oriental taste and fashion, enormous collections were made; and for centuries after Rome had been pillaged, this capital was the focus of all the arts, and pearls were the favorite ornaments. The famous mosaic in the sanctuary of San Vitale at Ravenna, shows Justinian (483–565) with his head covered with a jeweled cap, and the Empress Theodora wearing a tiara encircled by three rows of pearls, and strings of pearls depend therefrom almost to the waist. In many instances the decorations of the emperors excelled even those of the most profligate of Roman rulers. An examination of the coins, from those of Arcadius in 395 to the last dribble of a long line of obscure rulers when the city was captured and pillaged by Venetian and Latin adventurers in 1204, shows in the form of diadems, collars, necklaces, etc., the great quantity of pearls worn by them. The oldest existing crown in use at the present time, the Hungarian crown of St. Stephen, which is radiant with pearls, is of Byzantine workmanship.

Outside of Constantinople, the demand and fashion for pearls did not cease with the downfall of the Roman Empire and the spoliation of Rome in the fifth century. The treasures accumulated there, and the gems and jewels, were carried away by the conquering Goths and scattered among the great territorial lords of western and northern Europe.

In the ancient cities of Gaul, in Toulouse and Narbonne, the Ostrogoth and the Visigoth kings collected enormous treasures. The citadel of Carcassonne held magnificent spoils brought from the sacking of Rome in 410 by Alaric, king of the Ostrogoths, consisting in part of jewels from the Temple, these having been carried to Rome after the spoliation of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. Several beautiful objects of this and somewhat later periods are yet in existence, notably the Visigothic crowns and crosses, in the Musée de l’Hôtel de Cluny, Paris, the most beautiful of which are probably the crown and the cross of Reccesvinthus.[[23]]

Even as the treasures of Rome were despoiled by the Ostrogoths and the Visigoths, so, later, their collections were depleted by the military operations of the Franks, when Narbonne was pillaged; when Toulouse was sacked by Clovis, or Chlodowig, in 507; when the churches of Barcelona and Toledo were despoiled by Childebert in 531 and 542; and by various expeditions in succeeding years.