picture, known as the "legend of st. eloy and st. godeberta," representing the interior of a goldsmith's shop in the fifteenth century
by petrus christus of bruges
BRACELETS
Bracelets were as little in vogue as earrings during the Middle Ages, and remarks made concerning the latter apply also to bracelets, in that they only appear as the lingering traces of Byzantine fashions which, until the commencement of the twelfth century, made themselves strongly felt throughout the whole of Europe.
In the National Museum at Munich is a gold armlet formed of two hinged halves covered with filigree and beaded ornament. Its outer rims are of twisted gold, and within are bands of fine plaited wire. It is adorned with bosses of filigree alternating with pyramidal projections. The origin of this fine ornament is unknown, but it probably dates from about the eleventh or twelfth century ([Pl. XVIII, 6]). The National Museum of Buda-Pesth contains a pair of very similar armlets. In connection with these ornaments the persistence of tradition in goldsmith's work is curiously seen, since armlets closely resembling the earlier examples are made and worn in Cairo at the present day.
During the latter part of the Middle Ages it appears to have been a common practice for ladies to wear rosaries or chaplets of beads upon their wrists as bracelets. With these exceptions, the long sleeves that were worn throughout the greater part of the Middle Ages did not favour the use of an ornament that demanded the bare skin as a foundation. Ornamental circlets round the upper arm, which are not infrequently met with in pictures, must be regarded as gold-embroidered edgings or bands. It is true they were frequently set with pearls, stones, and decorations in gold, but as they were sewn upon the sleeves they have no actual claim to the name of armlets.
Armlets or bracelets appear to have been worn to a certain extent towards the close of the fifteenth century, but to have been reserved chiefly for summer wear. "If the bracelets we ordered months ago are not here till the summer is over and we no longer wear our arms bare, they will be of no use." So, about 1491, says Mrs. Ady, wrote the famous Isabella d'Este, Marchioness of Mantua, to the skilled goldsmith, Ercole Fedeli, of Ferrara, who had failed to execute her order punctually. The dilatoriness of the same artist on another occasion kept the marchioness waiting four years for a pair of silver bracelets, and they would never, she declared, have been finished in her lifetime if Duke Alfonso had not thrown him into the Castello dungeon.[105]
Though there are other references to the use of bracelets in the fifteenth century, it was not until about the middle of the century following that this species of ornament came into general use.
A goldsmith in his workshop.
From Hortus Sanitatis
(Strasburg, 1536).