The National Museum of Antiquities at Edinburgh possesses a large and important collection of Scottish brooches, while a few Highland families have preserved for many generations massive silver brooches of elaborate workmanship. Formerly in the possession of the Campbells of Glenlyon, and now in the British Museum, is a brooch known as the Glenlyon brooch. It dates from about the fifteenth century. It is about 3½ inches in width, and is formed of a flat ring set with pearls on tall cone-shaped turrets, alternating with crystals and pieces of amethyst. Across the centre is a richly decorated bar, upon which rest the points of two pins attached to the edge of the ring. On the back of the brooch, in black-letter, is the favourite inscription of mediæval amulets: caspar . melchior . baltazar . consumatum. The last word, the declaration of the dying Saviour, "It is finished," was often inscribed upon brooches and other ornaments of the Middle Ages, as were likewise the Angelic Salutation, the titulus i.n.r.i., and other so-called caracts, all of which were considered to possess some talismanic efficacy.
PLATE XXI
mediæval scottish brooches
(the glenlyon and loch buy brooches)
In many cases the open space in the middle of the ring, as in modern brooches, was filled up, and in the early examples was sometimes occupied by a turret-like ornamentation set with a crystal, while obelisks rising from the ring of the brooch were set with polished stones such as cairngorms (still popular on Scottish jewellery), or with Scottish pearls.
The finest examples of this type of brooch are known as the "brooch of Lorn," the "Ugadale brooch," and the "Loch Buy brooch." The brooch of Lorn, still in the possession of the lineal descendants of the Macdougals of Lorn, dates from the fifteenth century. It consists of a disc of silver 4½ inches in diameter, enriched with filigree. In the centre is a raised capsule crowned with a large rock crystal, and round the ring of the brooch a circle of eight obelisks. The Ugadale brooch, the property of the Macneals of Firfergus, is of somewhat similar nature, save that the turrets, eight in number, are towards the centre of the brooch and arranged close round the raised crystal. The Loch Buy brooch, of more elaborate workmanship, is likewise surmounted by a cabochon crystal on a raised dais. On the ring, within a low border, are ten tall turrets, each surmounted with a Scottish pearl. This famous brooch, long in the possession of the Macleans of Loch Buy in the Isle of Mull, came later into the collection of Ralph Bernal, one of the first and most eminent of latter-day connoisseurs, at whose sale in 1855 it was purchased by the British Museum.
In addition to the Highland circular brooches, a considerable number in the shape of hearts have been found in Scotland, sometimes surmounted with a crown, and in a few instances set with jewels (p. 165). They were mostly love-tokens and betrothal gifts, and many of them bear on the reverse the word love. Brooches of this form are known as "Luckenbooth" brooches, from their having been commonly sold in the Luckenbooths, the street stalls around St. Giles' Church on the High Street, Edinburgh.
The use of the word Luckenbooth calls to mind the fact that the goldsmiths of Paris also worked and dwelt in booths, which as late as the fourteenth century were situated on the Pont du Change and the Pont Nôtre Dame. In this connection it is worth noticing that in England, as well as in France and Scotland, the working goldsmiths, like the followers of other trades, occupied distinct quarters by themselves, and they had in London one part of the Chepe set apart for them to dwell and trade in. The custom of the various crafts thus confining themselves to particular quarters, which is of remote antiquity, greatly facilitated the formation and government of trade guilds.