Jewelers Of The Middle Ages

(via 5000 Years of Gems and Jewelry) Frances Rogers and Alice Beard writes:

3. Master Goldsmiths And Apprentices

Sometime after the ninth century various groups of craftsmen, including the workers in gold and cutters of gems, had established guilds for mutual protection. The members of each guild were pledged to assist each other and to see to it that no outsider had equal opportunities.

The goldsmiths’ guild maintained a high standard of workmanship; all members were expected to begin at the foot of the ladder as apprentices and, after a long course of training in all branches of the craft, finally to work their way up to the top—the exalted rank of master craftsman.

The earliest mention of the famous goldsmiths’ guild of England dates from 1180. In common with other guilds, such as the Fishmongers’, the Grocers’ and the Drapers’ Guilds, they sought to prevent all competition. Non-members of a guild were not allowed to practise their trade or craft within town limits.

By 1357 the wealthy and all-powerful goldsmiths’ guild was in the position to erect the Hall of the Goldsmiths’ Company in London; and at a somewhat later date, in addition to carrying on the work of their own craft, the goldsmiths also went in for banking and lending money.

In Florence, by the fourteenth century, the Guild of Workers in Gold and Silver was most important. In fact, it was a school of training not only for all potential jewelers but also for artists in general. Any boy of sixteen who displayed marked artistic talent was a matter of course apprenticed to one of the goldsmiths. He was trained in the art of precious-metal work, even though after a time he might become a sculptor of stone or a painter of pictures. The education of a goldsmith-jeweler was a lengthy process covering many years.

First, the boy apprentice lived in the master craftsman’s house and for a period of from five to seven years exchanged his labor for his instruction. Then as a journeyman he was expected to work for a small wage during three more years. After that, provided the man could qualify, he might become a full-fledged master of his craft, highly skilled in all its many branches. Small wonder that the guild members could execute the intricate and elaborate jewelry so characteristic of the times.

However, it was during this same period of intensive training of the craftsman that there came widespread disaster. Not war, this time, but a still more deadly invader.

An Oriental plague, known as the Black Death, swept across the civilized world, killing people faster than the living could bury them. In Florence, the apprentice and his highly skilled master alike went down before this terrible scourge, and no precious gem or magic amulet had power to cure the victims, though many were the stones engraved and wore for the sole purpose.

For those few goldsmiths who did escape with their lives, however, there was no lack of patrons—patrons whose fortunes had been greatly increased by the wealth inherited from the many plague victims.

Seemingly the rich tried to forget their own terror by means of increased luxuries and diversions. Wealthy noblemen and abbots continued to display their rich costumes and jewels in the face of misery and despair, and the jewelers were set the task of decorating and ‘gemming’ fine muslin and laces. Ecclesiastical vestments were covered with gold filigree work and pearls. Likewise the moneyed layman, and especially his wife, fairly dripped with pearls and precious gems. One of the characteristic features in the dress of that day was the elaborate jeweled girdle fastened with an ornamental buckle. Pearls, sapphires, enamels,gold, silver—anything that was rich and precious and fitting went into the making and garnishing of the girdles of royalty.

But there were strict rules about mixing high-grade with low-grade materials. It was forbidden to ‘garnish any girdle of silk, wool, leather or linen thread with inferior metal’ such as lead, pewter or tin; ‘the same should be burned and the workmen punished for their false work.’ Furthermore, if a girdle-maker of London was caught ‘having secretly made in his chamber a certain girdle that was harnessed with silver’ he was liable to be fined. Only the goldsmiths could mount girdles and garters with gold and silver. That was the law in 1376. Not so different from some of our restrictive labor union rules of today.

In the following century another labor dispute arose over who had the best right to make a certain type of bead. The lapidary had long been laboriously turning and polishing rock crystal, fashioning the hard crystal into beads for rosaries. But while he was plodding over his task the glassworker of Murano had forged ahead and attained high rank among the craftsmen of Venice. Indeed he was the pet (and incidentally the slave) of the Venetian Government. The glass-worker, having learned at long last to make clear colorless glass, could turn out no end of rosaries that looked very like rock crystal, while the lapidary was still polishing a single bead. Besides, glass was cheaper.

So through the ‘Turners of Beads’ branch of his guild, the wrathful lapidary laid his complaint before the Council of Ten, demanding a new law to suppress clear glass beads. But the Council proved deaf to the plea. One of Venice’s chief sources of revenue was her glass, and she had no intention of curtailing it even by so much as a bead.

The disgruntled lapidary had to swallow his chagrin as best he could. But he still had many materials, out of range of the glass-worker, from which to make rosaries. As well as from rock crystal and its rival, glass, rosaries were made of amber, coral, jet, bone, horn, ivory and mother-of-pearl. They were also made of precious metal—especially in silver gilt. In size rosaries varied considerably. Sometimes they were worn about the neck, but more often were attached to the girdle and occasionally even to a finger ring.

In London, the making of rosaries was a flourishing industry. Its trading center was the thoroughfare known as Paternoster Row. Here the rosary makers lived and had their workshops. Some of the beads were turned in a lathe, others slowly ground into shape by hand. Frequently an elaborately carved pendant in the form of crucifix was added to the rosary; another pendant much in favor was a little hollow case which when opened was found to contain a number of tiny figures exquisitely carved.

There were also little pendants shaped like an apple or a pear, which opened to receive the minute image of a saint or some treasured relic. The little fruit-shaped pendants, however, did not always serve religious purposes; often they were used as perfume cases and were likely to contain ambergris, prized then as it is now for its aromatic properties. In former days, however, ambergris had also the enviable reputation of being a curative.

The perfume cases were called ‘pomme ď ambre—apple of amber. Later the pomme ď ambre developed into an elaborate perfume ball of ornamental openwork called a pomander. Inside were many little subdivisions in which different perfumes could be carried, each in a separate compartment. It was a charmingly poetic jewel, exalting the volatile soul of a flower. Poetic, that is, unless one inquired too deeply into the reason for its popularity. The unsavory fact is that the streets of most cities were narrow and unclean. Sewer pipes were conspicuously absent, and the gentry, clad in all its finery, might be forced to the side by pigs that roamed at all through the thoroughfares. Even in the houses of the wealthy the air was none too free from unpleasant odors. And so the little pomander was called to the Herculean task of supplying all the perfumes of Araby to counteract less pleasant emanations—to put it conservatively.

The Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths of London, like many of the older guilds, was a semi-religious organization. It enjoyed the benefit of a patron saint who had himself been a worker in precious metals. St Dunstan’s Day was duly observed with prayers for the souls of deceased members of the Guild. The Company was jealous of its high reputation and viewed with a critical eye the quality of materials, workmanship, and trade conditions. Most of the goldsmiths had their shops near the market of ‘Chepe’ (Cheapsides) in Goldsmiths’ Row.

In Paris, the guild of goldsmiths had their quarters on the Pont du Change and the Pont Nôtre Dame; and the goldsmiths of Florence had forty four shops on the Ponte Vecchio, where, according to the rules of the Guild of Workers in Gold and Silver, the master must both work and live, as he was not allowed to work outside his dwelling place. Emigration of skilled craftsmen from Florence was strictly forbidden.

But presently, what with the demands of the Church and the diversity of commissions from wealthy customers, no one goldsmith could hold in his own hands alone all the many branches of his calling. There were far too many different things asked for, particularly utilitarian things. So the latter demand had been gradually turned over to groups known as girdle-makers, brooch-makers, jet-workers, and many others. These craftsmen formed a class apart from the master goldsmith who erstwhile attended to all the branches of his craft. It was the first step toward the specialization so complete today that any one jewel has to go through many different hands before it is ready for the shop.

Jewelers Of The Middle Ages (continued)