8 - Real Goldsmiths: the Historical Evidence

Summary

CHRONICLES

THE goldsmiths named in chronicles were only mentioned because they were saints themselves, or involved in a miraculous event, or important in some way in the history of a monastery. None can be associated, by inscription or by tradition, with any surviving artefact, unlike the sixth- to seventh-century Frankish goldsmith saint, Eligius. His story, and those of other continental artists are of some interest, however. Eligius was born near Limoges in Acquitaine in 588, and died on 1 December 660 as bishop of Noyon and Tournai. This cleric, the patron saint of medieval goldsmiths, first became enormously wealthy as a layman because he was a moneyer - a connection between minting and goldsmithing which we shall see in the Anglo-Saxon evidence too - a role which also made him a royal counsellor. Eligius is unusual, even exceptional, in that apart from his chronicled life, a garnet and gold inlaid altar cross from St Denis which is ascribed to him (though it survives now only as a fragment) was pictured complete in a painting by the Master of Saint-Gilles c. 1500. Other works possibly by him, however, survive only as drawings or reconstructions. Like the chronicled Anglo-Saxon goldsmiths, he seems to have been recorded only because of his important position as a cleric and counsellor - his craft was a secondary though still important aspect of his fame. He is especially interesting however, because he became a cleric after winning fame as goldsmith and moneyer. Other continental goldsmiths of the same period seem to have been clerics, such as Tuotilo of St Gall, who, like some of the Anglo-Saxons to be described below, worked in many arts including ivory carving. He was also recorded as having made an image of the Virgin in gold sheet in Metz.

There are other named smiths from western Europe, including Wolvinus who is known only from an inscription like several Anglo-Saxon gold- smiths. It is an important inscription, however, on the back of one of the most important examples of a goldsmith’s work to have survived from the early medieval period. This is an altar of the first half of the ninth century in Milan, decorated with gold, silver and enamels, commissioned by arch- bishop Angilbert: on one panel on the back it shows the patron saint, St Ambrosius, blessing Wolvinus, who is described as a master smith (pl. VIIa).