Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages | Page 5

slave in his youth. An old legend tells that one time a wild boar came rooting in the field, and brought up a lump of gold; and Patrick brought it to a tinker, and the tinker said, "It is nothing but solder. Give it here to me." But then he brought it to a smith, and the smith told him it was gold; and with that gold he bought his freedom. "And from that time," continues the story, "the smiths have been lucky, taking money every day, and never without work, but as for the tinkers, every man's face is against them!"
In the Middle Ages the arts and crafts were generally protected by the formation of guilds and fraternities. These bodies practically exercised the right of patent over their professions, and infringements could be more easily dealt with, and frauds more easily exposed, by means of concerted effort on the part of the craftsmen. The goldsmiths and silversmiths were thus protected in England and France, and in most of the leading European art centres. The test of pure gold was made by "six of the more discreet goldsmiths," who went about and superintended the amount of alloy to be employed; "gold of the standard of the touch of Paris" was the French term for metal of the required purity. Any goldsmith using imitation stones or otherwise falsifying in his profession was punished "by imprisonment and by ransom at the King's pleasure." There were some complaints that fraudulent workers "cover tin with silver so subtilely... that the same cannot be discovered or separated, and so sell tin for fine silver, to the great damage and deceipt of us." This state of things finally led to the adoption of the Hall Mark, which is still to be seen on every piece of silver, signifying that it has been pronounced pure by the appointed authorities.
The goldsmiths of France absorbed several other auxiliary arts, and were powerful and influential. In state processions the goldsmiths had the first place of importance, and bore the royal canopy when the King himself took part in the ceremony, carrying the shrine of St. Genevieve also, when it was taken forth in great pageants.
In the quaint wording of the period, goldsmiths were forbidden to gild or silver-plate any article made of copper or latten, unless they left some part of the original exposed, "at the foot or some other part,... to the intent that a man may see whereof the thing is made for to eschew the deceipt aforesaid." This law was enacted in 1404.
Many of the great art schools of the Middle Ages were established in connection with the numerous monasteries scattered through all the European countries and in England. The Rule of St. Benedict rings true concerning the proper consecration of an artist: "If there be artists in the monastery, let them exercise their crafts with all humility and reverence, provided the abbot shall have ordered them. But if any of them be proud of the skill he hath in his craft, because he thereby seemeth to gain something for the monastery, let him be removed from it and not exercise it again, unless, after humbling himself, the abbot shall permit him." Craft without graft was the keynote of medi?val art.
King Alfred had a monastic art school at Athelney, in which he had collected "monks of all kinds from every quarter." This accounts for the Greek type of work turned out at this time, and very likely for Italian influences in early British art. The king was active in craft work himself, for Asser tells us that he "continued, during his frequent wars, to teach his workers in gold and artificers of all kinds."
The quaint old encyclop?dia of Bartholomew Anglicus, called, "The Properties of Things," defines gold and silver in an original way, according to the beliefs of this writer's day. He says of gold, that "in the composition there is more sadness of brimstone than of air and moisture of quicksilver, and therefore gold is more sad and heavy than silver." Of silver he remarks, "Though silver be white yet it maketh black lines and strakes in the body that is scored therewith."
Marco Polo says that in the province of Carazan "the rivers yield great quantities of washed gold, and also that which is solid, and on the mountains they find gold in the vein, and they give one pound of gold for six of silver."
Workers in gold or silver usually employ one of two methods--casting or beating, combined with delicacy of finish, chasing, and polishing. The technical processes are interestingly described by the writers of the old treatises on divers arts. In the earliest of these, by the monk Theophilus, in the eleventh century, we have most graphic accounts of processes very similar to those