The Necklaces Of The Middle Ages

The European era of necklaces this article covers is from 1300’s to 1600’s. During the middle ages it was customary for men, women, and children to all wear jewelry. This era had two main themes for jewelry: religion and romantic love.
Very popular were busts and portraits of saints, altars, or ornaments worn on necklaces. Mythical creatures such as mermaids and dragons were very popular along with animals, such as dolphins and lions. European towns each developed their own unique design style, such as Venice which was influenced by the imports of precious gems and other items from the orient bringing forth oriental approaches to the designs. Engraving ranged from having ones initials to lengths of scriptures or poetry. A popular religious pendant was the Tau Cross, which was worn by itself or with many on the chain, sometimes just one tiny bell was worn with it. It was also popular to wear a necklace with just a tiny bell attached only.
The leading workshops were in, Paris, Limoges, Meuse, Belgian-Lorraine, Siena, Florence, and Venice. The main precious metals used in jewelry making were gold and silver with the main gemstones being sapphires, rubies, and pearls. During the early part of this era (14th century) gemstones were finished with the en cabochon method which is highly polishing smooth the stone and not cutting it into faceted angular cuts until later when cutting was more perfected. Other types of neck jewelry were glass beads of various colors combined with precious gems mounted in silver or gold. Covering certain areas of the piece with enamel was also a common practice. Niello was also used which was a mixture of silver, sulphur, and lead. Fashioning jewelry necklaces was often done with molten metal poured into molds. Germany was well known for using milled wire instead of pouring to make them.
The en cabochon method gave way to a new method during the 15th century which was the forerunner of the diamond facet cutting we know today. The Dutchman Louis de Berken, was the first to discover in Brussels that a diamond could be polished with pulverized diamond moistened with oil. In 1476 he was able to perform facet cutting to diamonds, which had previously been used for rock crystal. Charles the Bold employed Louis de Berken at his court for his newly discovered amazing ability.
Cloisonne\’ enameling was where the enamel was applied and fired in raised cells which would sometimes be done with soldered wire. Champleve\’ took over in popularity which is the carving out of areas and filing these areas with enamel and then leveling down (usually sanding) the surrounding metal with the level of the enamel. The copper champleve\’ work was a technique which allowed colorful jewelry to be produced from inexpensive material and was opaque with clearly outlined areas of color,. Paris goldsmiths have been credited with inventing translucent silver enameling. With this technique the goldsmith pours the opaque enamel into a bas-relief carved into the silver. The silver backing produces a delicate and diffused shimmer when the light hits it due to light colored enamel. The gold enameling technique en ronde bosse also developed by Paris goldsmiths in the late 14th century . This technique utilized various colors of glass flux which were melted over a gold core, and combined with beads and precious stones, including red rubies and blue sapphires being the most popular. In Hungary, which from the 13th to the 15th century was the European country richest in gold., wire enameling was taken over from Italy. This method consisted of twisted gold wire forming the contours of the design and the hollows were filled with an opaque enamel.
Gothic style came about during this era which were religious scenes portrayed similar to Gothic church cathedral art. The effect was a straight forward type of approach which started to change into a more elaborate free flowing style later on.
Short chokers were worn and light to heavy chains were worn on the neck. Necklace chains were of all manner of thicknesses and lengths, some had large round links with others having tightly woven type of braiding. Long thin chain necklaces were often weighed down with heavy pendants. Italian women were known for wearing a crown like brooch attached to a hair ribbon.
The middle ages may be one of the most famed in history for adventures and artifacts of this fantastic period including the unique jewelry. This era lives on in many of todays artist\’s designs as they have studied this amazing period in history.