(see Chapter 12). Anglo-Saxons controlled what had
been Roman Britain. Celts inhabited France and
parts of the British Isles, including Ireland. In Scan-
dinavia, the seafaring Vikings held sway.
Art historians do not know the full range of art
and architecture these non-Roman peoples pro-
duced. What has survived is not truly representative
and consists almost exclusively of small portable “sta-
tus symbols”—weapons and lavish items of personal
adornment such as bracelets, pendants, and belt
buckles that archaeologists have discovered buried
with the dead. Earlier scholars, who viewed medieval
art through a Renaissance lens, ignored these “minor
arts” because of their small scale, seeming utilitarian
nature, and abstract ornament, and because the peo-
ple who made them rejected the classical notion that
the representation of organic nature should be the
focus of artistic endeavor. In their own time, people
regarded these objects, which often display a high de-
gree of technical and stylistic sophistication, as trea-
sures. They enhanced the prestige of their owners
and testified to the stature of those buried with them.
In the great early (possibly seventh-century) Anglo-
Saxon epic Beowulf,his comrades cremate the hero
and place his ashes in a huge tumulus(burial mound)
overlooking the sea. As an everlasting tribute to Be-
owulf ’s greatness, they “buried rings and brooches in
the barrow, all those adornments that brave men had
brought out from the hoard after Beowulf died. They
bequeathed the gleaming gold, treasure of men, to
the earth.”^1
MEROVINGIAN FIBULAE Most characteristic, perhaps, of
the prestige adornments was the fibula,a decorative pin the Romans
wore (and the Etruscans before them;FIG. 9-2). Men and women
alike used fibulae to fasten their garments. Made of bronze, silver, or
gold, the pins often feature profuse decoration, sometimes incorpo-
rating inlaid precious or semiprecious stones. The pair of fibulae
illustrated here (FIG. 16-2) is part of a larger find of jewelry of the
mid-sixth century, when Merovingian kings (r. 482–751) ruled large
parts of what is France today. The pins once must have been the
proud possession of a wealthy Merovingian woman and seem to
have been buried with her. They resemble, in general form, the
roughly contemporaneous but plain fibulae used to fasten the outer
garments of some of the attendants flanking the Byzantine emperor
Justinian in the apse mosaic (FIG. 12-10) of San Vitale in Ravenna.
(Note how much more elaborate is the emperor’s clasp. In Rome,
Byzantium, and early medieval Europe alike, these fibulae were em-
blems of office and of prestige.)
Covering almost the entire surface of each of the Merovingian
fibulae are decorative patterns adjusted carefully to the basic shape
of the object. They thus describe and amplify the fibula’s form and
structure, becoming an organic part of the pin itself. Often the early
medieval metalworkers so successfully integrated zoomorphic ele-
ments into this type of highly disciplined, abstract decorative design
that the animal forms became almost unrecognizable. For example,
the fibulae in FIG. 16-2incorporate a fish just above the center of
each pin. The looped forms around the edges are stylized eagles’
heads with red garnets forming the eyes.
SUTTON HOO SHIP BURIALThe Beowulfsaga also re-
counts the funeral of the warrior lord Scyld, who was laid to rest in a
408 Chapter 16 EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE16-2Pair of Merovingian looped fibulae, from Jouy-le-Comte, France,
mid-sixth century. Silver gilt worked in filigree, with inlays of garnets
and other stones, 4high. Musée d’Archéologie nationale, Saint-
Germain-en-Laye.
Jeweled fibulae were status symbols among the warlords of the early
Middle Ages. This pair belonged to a Merovingian woman and features
eagle heads and fish integrated into a highly decorative design.MAP16-1The Carolingian Empire at the death of Charlemagne in 814.UrnesOsebergLindisfarne
Jarrow
YorkSutton HooDurrowKells MonasterboiceLiébana
Tábara LéonCórdobaBaños de CerratoTours
PoitiersAhennyOrléans
ParisJouy-le-ComteHautvillersReimsMetzCentula Aachen
CologneBasel Lindau
St. GallReichenauCorveyHildesheim
GernrodeLorschMagdeburgBamberg
RegensburgAquileia
RavennaRomeNursiaATLANTIC
OCEANATLANTIC
OCEANNorth
SeaNorth
Sea
Baltic
SeaBaltic
SeaMediterranean SeaMediterranean SeaTyrrhenian
SeaTyrrhenian
Sea Ionian
SeaIonian
SeaAdr
iat
ic
SeaAdr
iat
ic
SeaEnglish ChannelRhine
R.IonaSicilyUMAYYAD
CALIPHATEKINGDOM
OF ASTURIASCAROLINGIAN
EMPIREBRITISH ISLESNORMANDYNORTHUMBRIADUCHY OF
BENEVENTOSCANDINAVIA0 200 400 miles
0 200 400 kilometers1 in.