Fibulae (singular: fibula) are brooches that were made popular by Roman soldiers, who wore them to hold a cloak or cape in place. Bow fibulae all consist of a body, a pin, and a catch — like safety pins. As a historian of the medieval period writes,A German archaeologist, Herbert Kuhn, first called the bow fibula an early medieval artifact par excellence. Textbooks and art history studies use it to illustrate sections dedicated to the Dark Ages. There are probably thousands and hundreds of thousands of bow fibulae in European museum collections. A still greater number of specimens come out of archaeological excavations and their incredible diversity defies any attempts to establish unequivocal typologies.
Ornate fibulae (Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\)) became all the rage in the early middle ages (c. 500 – 800), and are one of the most commonly found objects in barbarian grave sites. The word “barbarian” comes from the Greek word barbaros, meaning “foreign,” so it is often used as a blanket term for the non-Roman groups who migrated into western Europe in the early middle ages (such as the Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Franks, and Lombards). This was the time when Europe was becoming Christianized and the Roman Empire split apart. The Roman Empire ceased to exist in the west, but continued in the east as the Byzantine Empire, with its capital at Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul).
This period is also sometimes referred to as the Migration Period. Sparse written documentation of these people survives, so grave goods like fibulae provide the most concrete cultural information available.
Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): Three views of Crossbow Brooch, c. 430. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain)
The Sutton Hoo purse lid
by The British Museum
Figure \(\PageIndex{14}\): Purse lid from the Sutton Hoo ship burial, early 7th century. Gold, garnet and millefiori, 19 x 8.3 cm (excluding hinges). British Museum, London, England. (Photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Purse lid from the Sutton Hoo ship burial
Wealth, and its public display, was probably used to establish status in early Anglo-Saxon society much as it is today. The purse lid from Sutton Hoo is the richest of its kind yet found.
The lid was made to cover a leather pouch containing gold coins. It hung by three hinged straps from the waist belt, and was fastened by a gold buckle. The lid had totally decayed but was probably made of whalebone—a precious material in early Anglo-Saxon England. Seven gold, garnet cloisonné and millefiori glass plaques were set into it. These are made with a combination of very large garnets and small ones, deliberately used to pick out details of the imagery. This combination could link the purse-lid and the fine shoulder clasps (Figure \(\PageIndex{15}\)), which were also found in the ship burial, to the workshop of a single master-craftsman. It is possible that he made the entire suite of gold and garnet fittings discovered in Mound 1 as a single commission.
The plaques include twinned images of a bird-of-prey swooping on a duck-like bird and a man standing heroically between two beasts. These images must have had deep significance for the Anglo-Saxons, but it is impossible for us to interpret them. The fierce creatures are perhaps a powerful evocation of strength and courage, qualities that a successful leader of men must possess. Strikingly similar images of a man between beasts are known from Scandinavia.
Global Connections: The Decorative Art of Cloissonné
Cloisonné is a technique in which artists use metal strips (often gold) to define a pattern or imagery on an object’s surface, creating areas (cloisons) that can then be filled—like the spaces in a coloring book—with glass, enamel (powdered glass paste that fuses when heated in a kiln), or even actual gems, as is the case in the Sutton Hoo purse cover. The shiny gold borders remain visible, separating the colors and giving the object a rich, sumptuous, appearance.
The opulent materials, labor-intensive process, and the intricate detail cloisonné can produce meant that it was often chosen during the Middle Ages to decorate especially precious metalwork, architecture, and even fabric. The Coronation Mantle, discussed in the next chapter, pairs Islamic and Christian visual forms and Arabic calligraphy, and is embellished not only with jewels, gold, gems, and filigree, but also cloisonné enamel. Although the robe is sometimes misidentified as being Charlemagne’s, the Kufic inscription on the robe itself gives a much later date, and it was most likely made for the Norman ruler Roger II. The Fieschi Morgan cross reliquary (early 9th century, Constantinople) is another intricate Byzantine example of enamel worked in cloisonné.
Figure \(\PageIndex{17}\): Pectoral and Necklace of Sithathoryunet with the Name of Senwosret II, c. 1887–1878 BCE. Cloisonné with gold, carnelian, lapis lazuli, turquoise, garnet, 1 ¾ x 1¼”. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (Photo: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, public domain)
The Vikings
By Boundless Art History (excerpted)
Norse Ships in the Early European Middle Ages
Figure \(\PageIndex{18}\): Osberg Ship Head Post: Animal head post found in the Oseberg ship. Viking Ship Museum, Oslo, Norway. The exact function of the head post is unknown. (Photo: public domain)
Of Scandinavian descent, Norsemen are often called Vikings after their trading locations on the Norwegian shoreline. Known as pre-Christian traders and pirates, Vikings used their great ships to invade European coasts, harbors, and river settlements on a seasonal basis. They created fast and seaworthy longships that served not only as warring and trading vessels, but also as media for artistic expression and individual design.
The great ships of the Vikings contain some of the major artworks left from this time. For instance, the Oseberg Bow demonstrates the Norse mastery of decorative wood carving and intricate inlay of metal. Likewise, the ship head post (Figure \(\PageIndex{18}\))—representing a roaring beast—is five inches high with complicated surface ornamentation in the form of interwoven animals that twist and turn.
Other examples of artistic design on Norse ships include the “King” or “Chieftain” vessels designated for the wealthier classes. Chieftain ships were distinguishable by the design of the bow of their vessel with designs such as bulls, dolphins, gold lions, drakes spewing fire out of their nose, human beings cast in gold and silver, and other unidentifiable animals cast in bronze metal. Typically, the sides of these vessels were decorated using bright colors and wood-carvings.
A Ship Burial
The Oseberg ship (Norwegian: Osebergskipet) is a well-preserved Viking ship discovered in a large burial mound at the Oseberg farm near Tønsberg in Vestfold County, Norway. This ship is widely celebrated as one of the finest artistic and archaeological finds to have survived the Viking Age.
Figure \(\PageIndex{19}\): The Oseberg Ship: The Oseberg ship. Viking Ship Museum, Oslo, Norway. (Photo: Arnejohs, public domain)
The Oseberg burial mound contained numerous grave goods and the remains of two female human skeletons. The ship’s interment into its burial mound dates from 834 CE, but parts of the ship date from around 800 CE, and scholars believe that ship itself is older. The bow and stern of the ship are elaborately decorated with complex woodcarvings in the characteristic “gripping beast” style, also known as the Oseberg style. This style’s primary features are the paws that grip the borders around it, neighboring beasts, or parts of its own body. Although the Osberg style distinguishes early Viking art from previous trends, it is no longer generally accepted as an independent style. Although seaworthy, the ship is relatively frail. It is thought to have been used only for coastal voyages.
The skeletons of two women were found in the Oseberg burial mound. One may have been sacrificed to accompany the other in death. Regardless, the opulence of the burial rite and the grave goods suggests that this was a burial of very high status. For instance, one woman wore a very fine red wool dress of fabric woven in a lozenge twill pattern (a luxury commodity) and a fine white linen veil in a gauze weave. The other wore a plainer blue wool dress with a wool veil, showing some stratification in their social status. Neither woman wore anything entirely made of silk, although small silk strips were appliqued onto a tunic worn under the red dress.
The grave had been disturbed in antiquity and many precious metals that were initially buried with Oseberg ship went missing. Nevertheless, many everyday items and artifacts were found during the early 20th-century excavations of the site. These included four elaborately decorated sleighs, a four-wheel wooden cart, bedposts, wooden chests, and other richly decorated items. For instance, the so-called “Buddha bucket” is a well-known object from the Oseberg site that features a brass and cloisonné enamel ornament of a bucket (pail) handle in the shape of a figure sitting with crossed legs. The bucket itself is made from yew wood held together with brass strips, and the handle is attached to two anthropomorphic figures often compared to depictions of the Buddha in lotus posture (although any connection to Buddhism is uncertain). Archaeologists also found more mundane items, such as agricultural and household tools, and a series of textiles that included woolen garments, imported silks, and narrow tapestries. The Oseberg burial is one of the few sources of Viking-age textiles, and the wooden cart is the only complete Viking-age cart found so far.
The Lindisfarne Gospels
by Dr. Kathleen Doyle at the British Library and Louisa Woodville
A medieval monk takes up a quill pen, fashioned from a goose feather, and dips it into a rich, black ink made from soot. Seated on a wooden chair in the scriptorium of Lindisfarne, an island off the coast of Northumberland in England, he stares hard at the words from a manuscript made in Italy. This book is his exemplar, the codex (a bound book, made from sheets of paper or parchment) from which he is to copy the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
Figure \(\PageIndex{22}\): Lindisfarne Gospels, St. Matthew (detail), second initial Page, f.29, early 8th century. (Photo: British Library, via Smarthistory)
For about the next six years, he will copy this Latin. He will illuminate the gospel text with a weave of fantastic images—snakes that twist themselves into knots or birds, their curvaceous and overlapping forms creating the illusion of a third dimension into which a viewer can lose him or herself in meditative contemplation (Figure \(\PageIndex{22}\)).
The book is a spectacular example of Insular or Hiberno-Saxon art—works produced in the British Isles between 500-900 CE, a time of devastating invasions and political upheavals. Monks read from it during rituals at their Lindisfarne Priory on Holy Island, a Christian community that safeguarded the shrine of St Cuthbert, a bishop who died in 687 and whose relics were thought to have curative and miracle-working powers.
A Northumbrian monk, very likely the bishop Eadfrith, illuminated the codex in the early 8th century. Two-hundred and fifty-nine written and recorded leaves include full-page portraits of each evangelist; highly ornamental cross “carpet pages,” each of which features a large cross set against a background of ordered and yet teeming ornamentation; and the Gospels themselves, each introduced by an historiated initial. The codex also includes sixteen pages of canon tables set in arcades. Here correlating passages from each evangelist are set side-by-side, enabling a reader to compare narrations.
In 635 C.E. Christian monks from the Scottish island of Iona built a priory in Lindisfarne. More than a hundred and fifty years later, in 793, Vikings from the north attacked and pillaged the monastery, but survivors managed to transport the Gospels safely to Durham, a town on the Northumbrian coast about 75 miles west of its original location.
The Book of Kells
by Trinity College, Dublin
Figure \(\PageIndex{29}\): Chi Rho carpet page, Folio 34r of the Book of Kells. Tempera on vellum, 1'1" x 9 1/2". Trinity College Library, Dublin. (Photo: public domain)
What is the Book of Kells?
The Book of Kells (Trinity College Dublin MS 58) contains the four Gospels in Latin based on the Vulgate text which St Jerome completed in 384AD, intermixed with readings from the earlier Old Latin translation. The Gospel texts are prefaced by other texts, including "canon tables", or concordances of Gospel passages common to two or more of the evangelists; summaries of the gospel narratives (Breves causae); and prefaces characterizing the evangelists (Argumenta).
The book is written on vellum (prepared calfskin) in a bold and expert version of the script known as "insular majuscule." It contains 340 folios, now measuring approximately 330 x 255 mm; they were severely trimmed, and their edges gilded, in the course of rebinding in the 19th century.
Where and when was the Book of Kells written?
The date and place of origin of the Book of Kells have attracted a great deal of scholarly controversy. The majority academic opinion now tends to attribute it to the scriptorium of Iona (Argyllshire), but conflicting claims have located it in Northumbria or in Pictland in eastern Scotland. A monastery founded around 561 by St Colum Cille on Iona, an island off Mull in western Scotland, became the principal house of a large monastic confederation. In 806, following a Viking raid on the island which left 68 of the community dead, the Columban monks took refuge in a new monastery at Kells, County Meath, and for many years the two monasteries were governed as a single community. It must have been close to the year 800 that the Book of Kells was written, although there is no way of knowing if the book was produced wholly at Iona or at Kells, or partially at each location.
Why is the Book of Kells famous?
The manuscript’s celebrity derives largely from the impact of its lavish decoration, the extent and artistry of which is incomparable. Abstract decoration and images of plant, animal and human ornament punctuate the text with the aim of glorifying Jesus’ life and message, and keeping his attributes and symbols constantly in the eye of the reader.
There are full pages of decoration for the canon tables; symbols of the evangelists Matthew (the Man), Mark (the Lion), Luke (the Calf) and John (the Eagle); the opening words of the Gospels; the Virgin and Child; a portrait of Christ; complex narrative scenes, the earliest to survive in gospel manuscripts, representing the arrest of Christ and his temptation by the Devil. The Chi Rho page (folio 34r), introducing Matthew’s account of the nativity, is the single most famous page in medieval art. There are portraits of Matthew and John, but no portrait of Mark or Luke survives. These were probably executed, like other major pages of the manuscript, on single leaves and they are presumed to have become detached over time and lost. In all, around 30 folios went missing in the medieval and early modern periods.
Figure \(\PageIndex{30}\): The four Evangelists (clockwise from top left, Matthew, Mark, John, Luke), Folio 27v of the Book of Kells. Tempera on vellum, 1'1" x 9 1/2". Trinity College Library, Dublin. (Photo: public domain)
How many artists produced the Book of Kells?
Three artists seem to have produced the major decorated pages. One of them, whose work can be seen on the Chi Rho page, was capable of ornament of such extraordinary fineness and delicacy that his skills have been likened to those of a goldsmith. Four major scribes copied the text. Each displayed characteristics and stylistic traits while working within a scriptorium style. One, for example, was responsible only for text, and was in the habit of leaving the decoration of letters at the beginning of verses to an artist; while another scribe, who may have been the last in date, tended to use bright colours—red, purple, yellow—for the text, and to fill blank spaces with the unnecessary repetition of certain passages. The extent to which there was an identity between scribe and artist is among the key unanswered questions about the manuscript.
What pigments did the Book of Kells artists use?
A range of pigments was employed, including blue made from indigo or woad, native to northern Europe. Recent research in the Library of Trinity College Dublin has indicated that blue from lapis lazuli was probably not used in the manuscript as had previously been thought. Orpiment (yellow arsenic sulphide) was used to produce a vibrant yellow pigment. Red came from red lead or from organic sources which are difficult at present to identify. A copper green, reacting with damp, was responsible for perforating the vellum on a number of folios. The artists employed a technique of adding as many as three pigments on top of a base layer.
How was the Book of Kells used in the Middle Ages?
The transcription of the text was remarkably careless, in many cases due to eye-skip, with letters and whole words omitted. Text already copied on one page (folio 218v) was repeated on folio 219r, with the words on 218v elegantly expunged by the addition of red crosses. Such carelessness, taken together with the sumptuousness of the book, have led to the conclusion that it was designed for ceremonial use on special liturgical occasions such as Easter rather than for daily services.
The history of the Book of Kells
The Book of Kells seldom comes to view in the historical record. The Annals of Ulster, describing it as "the chief treasure of the western world", record that it was stolen in 1006 for its ornamental cumdach (shrine). It remained at Kells throughout the Middle Ages, venerated as the great gospel book of St Colum Cille, a relic of the saint, as indicated by a poem added in the 15th century to folio 289v. In the late 11th and 12th centuries, blank pages and spaces on folios 5v-7v and 27r were used to record property transactions relating to the monastery at Kells. In 1090, it was reported by the Annals of Tigernach, that relics of Colum Cille were brought to Kells from Donegal. These relics included ‘the two gospels’, one of them probably the Book of Kells, the other perhaps the Book of Durrow. Following the rebellion of 1641, the church at Kells lay in ruins, and around 1653 the book was sent to Dublin by the governor of Kells, Charles Lambert, Earl of Cavan, in the interests of its safety. A few years later it reached Trinity College, the single constituent college of the University of Dublin, through the agency of Henry Jones, a former scoutmaster general to Cromwell’s army in Ireland and Vice-Chancellor of the University, when he became Bishop of Meath in 1661. It has been on display in the Old Library at Trinity College from the mid 19th century, and now attracts in excess of 500,000 visitors a year. Since 1953 it has been bound in four volumes. Two volumes can normally be seen, one opened to display a major decorated page, and one to show two pages of script.
