The Arts in the Middle Ages and at the Period of the Renaissance

by P. L. Jacob

The Emperor Henry II. was therefore welcomed (bien-venu), and, if one may say so, well served by the condition of art in Germany, when, elevated to the throne in 1002, and inspired by ardent piety, he sought, by princely liberality to the churches, to surpass even Constantine and

Fig. 91.—Enamelled Shrine, in Limoges Work of the Twelfth Century. (Museum of Cluny.)

Charlemagne. It is to Henry that the Cathedral of Basle owes the decorations of the altar, to which none can be compared for richness, except that of Milan; yet without recalling it by its style, which has lost every trace of the antique, and is a clearly-pronounced type of the art which the Middle Ages were to create as their own. It is right to mention also the crown of the sainted emperor, and that of his wife, now preserved in the Treasury of the King of Bavaria; both are in six jointed parts, making a circle; the former bears figures of winged angels; the other, stalks with four leaves designed with correctness and grace, and executed in a manner which evinces the greatest dexterity. “Moreover,” says M. Labarte, “the taste for jewellery was then generally diffused throughout Germany; and many prelates followed the example set by the emperor. Willigis, the first Archbishop of Mayence, may be cited; he endowed his church with a crucifix weighing 600 pounds, the several parts of which were adjusted with such art that each could be detached at the joints; and Bernward, Bishop of Hildesheim, who, like St. Eloi, was himself a celebrated goldsmith, and to whom is ascribed a crucifix enriched with precious stones and filigrees, and two magnificent candelabra, which still constitute a portion of the treasures of the church whereof he was the pastor.”

About the same period—that is, in the early days of the eleventh century—a monk of Dreux, named Odorain, who had made himself famous in France by his works in precious metals, executed a large number of objects for King Robert, intended for the churches the monarch had founded.

Fig. 92.—Shrine in Copper Gilt. (End of the Twelfth Century.)

It has been remarked in the preceding chapter, that the Crusades gave a great impulse to the goldsmith’s art in Europe, in consequence of the great demand for shrines and reliquaries intended for the reception of the venerated remains of saints which the soldiers of the faith brought back from their distant expeditions ([Figs. 91] and [92]). The offerings of consecrated vessels and of altar-fronts were also multiplied. The Holy Scriptures received cases and coverings which were so many splendid works entrusted to the goldsmiths. To speak truly, had it not been for the essentially religious direction which, at that period, certain departments of luxury acquired by the Crusaders in the East had taken, we might perhaps have seen the arts, that only in the West recommenced a real existence, become extinguished, and in a manner perish in the first burst of their revival.

It is chiefly to the minister of Louis le Gros, Suger, Abbot of Saint-Denis, who died in 1152, that the honour of this consecration of arts is due, for he distinctively proclaimed himself their protector; he endeavoured to render legitimate their position in the State, by opposing their pious aims to the too exclusive censures of St. Bernard and his disciples.

Conjointly with the powerful abbot, there is deserving of special mention a simple monk, Theophilus, an eminent artist who wrote in Latin a description of the Industrial Arts of his time (Diversarum Artium Schedula), and devoted seventy-nine chapters of his book to that of the goldsmith. This valuable treatise shows us, in the most unmistakable manner, that the goldsmiths of the twelfth century must have possessed a comprehensiveness of knowledge and manipulation, the mere enumeration of which surprises us the more now that we see industry everywhere tending to an almost infinite division of labour. At that time the goldsmith was required to be at once modeller, sculptor, smelter, enameller, jewel-mounter, and inlay-worker. He had to cast his own models in wax, as well as to labour with his hammer or embellish with his graver: he had to make the chalice, the vases, and the pyx, for the metropolitan churches, on which were lavished all the resources of art; and to produce, by the ordinary process of punching, the open-work or the designs of copper intended to ornament the books of the poor (libri pauperum), &c.