Hir knives were ychaped not with bras
But all with silver wrought ful clene and wel
Hir girdeles and hir pouches every del.
The passion for personal ornaments, or "bravouries" as they were termed, reached its zenith in England during the reign of the elegant and unfortunate Richard II, whose courtiers outvied one another in such extravagances. An anonymous writer of the period quoted by Camden in his Remaines concerning Britain speaks of hoods, even those worn by men of moderate means, as commonly set with gold and precious stones, while "their girdles are of gold and silver, some of them worth twenty marks." The king, in constant want of money, was obliged on several occasions to deposit the royal jewels with the Corporation of London as security for loans, and detailed lists of the objects selected for the purpose are preserved in the inventories of the Exchequer, and among the city archives.
In spite of attempted restrictions, and notwithstanding the disastrous Wars of the Roses, immense demands appear to have been made upon the productive powers of the jewellers throughout the whole of the fifteenth century. The remarkable list of Henry IV's jewels in the inventories of the Exchequer, and the most important of royal English inventories of the Middle Ages, that taken after the death of Henry V in 1422 (Rotuli Parliamentorum, IV, pp. 214-241), serve to show that until the end of the century, which may serve as the termination of the period, extraordinary extravagance in the style and nature of ornaments as well as of costume was the order of the day.
Every one who had acquired wealth, or even a modest competence only, displayed a magnificence far beyond his means. It was a time when wealth was required in a compact and tangible form. Owners did not hesitate to melt down their jewels when desirous of employing them for other purposes. The change of taste which shortly came about tended towards similar destruction; while the Wars of the Roses involved the breaking up of much that was most sumptuous in material and beautiful in workmanship.
Throughout the whole of the Christian Middle Ages the highest efforts of the goldsmith were directed to the enrichment of the Church and the adornment of its ministers, and the magnificence which the ritual of the Church fostered found expression in the jewelled ornaments of ecclesiastic vestments. In Norman times ecclesiastical jewellery was extremely luxurious and costly, and the illuminations of the period show the cope and chasuble richly bordered with precious stones. St. Thomas à Becket wore an extraordinary profusion of jewels, and descriptions are preserved of the magnificence of his own person and of his attendants during a progress he once made through the streets of Paris. Innocent III, memorable in this country as the Pope to whom the pusillanimous John surrendered his crown, is recorded to have commented on the richness of the costumes and ornaments of the English clergy, with a hint at the possibility of extracting further sums for the increase of the papal revenue. The early inventories all record the splendour of the vestments used in public worship, and show how pearls, precious stones, and even ancient cameos, all rendered more beautiful by exquisite settings, were employed for their enrichment. No bishop, indeed, was suitably equipped without a precious mitre with delicate goldsmith's work and inlaid gems, without a splendid morse or brooch to fasten his cope, and without a ring, set with an antique gem or a stone en cabochon, to wear over his embroidered glove.
Of all these rich ornaments scarcely any examples have survived save a number of rings recovered from the graves of ecclesiastics. All the more precious, therefore, are the jewelled ornaments bequeathed in 1404 by William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, to New College, Oxford, where they are still preserved as relics of its munificent founder. These unique examples of mediæval jewellery date from the closing years of the fourteenth century—the period of transition from Decorated to Perpendicular architecture: a time when Gothic art had reached its climax; and not only the architect, but the painter and the goldsmith were still devoting their utmost efforts on behalf of the Church, the centre of the whole mediæval system.
PLATE XV
