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Episode 3: Beyond the Glitter: Medical and Magical Medieval Gemstones
21 Plays14 days ago
Tune in to this art history podcast episode hear from Zoe about the magical powers of medieval gemstones.
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Reference Links:
Brigitte Buettner, The Mineral and the Visual: Precious Stones in Medieval Secular Culture
Marian Campbell, Medieval Jewellery: In Europe 1100-1500
Cynthia Hahn. What Do Reliquaries Do for Relics?
Artwork: 6th century Byzantine gold bracelet adorned with various gemstones and pearls, currently part of the Toledo Museum of Art collection, Ohio, USA.
Music: “Sailing Away” by HoliznaCC0
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Meet Me at the Art Museum'
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Meet Me at the Art Museum, a podcast all about the weird and wonderful world of art history. I'm your host, Zoe, and today we are talking about gems and precious stones in the medieval imagination.
Zoe's Background in Medieval Art
00:00:28
Speaker
So for those of you that don't know, I'm a PhD student in art history, and I'm currently working on my dissertation. I specialize in medieval and Byzantine art of the Mediterranean world,
00:00:40
Speaker
and specifically how communities thought about nature and natural phenomenon as living and agentic things. So how did they think about the ocean? Did they think that the ocean was alive?
00:00:53
Speaker
And what does their art tell us about these ideas of theirs?
Gemstones as Living Entities in Medieval Times
00:00:58
Speaker
um I also work with volcanoes and gemstones and dirt which is one of my favorites.
00:01:04
Speaker
But today we're going to focus on gemstones. Precious stones are perhaps one of the clearest examples of how medieval people thought of nature as a living and agentic power.
00:01:17
Speaker
Today we think of gemstones as beautiful and economically valuable objects, precious and lavish. But in the medieval imagination, these stones were alive and could actually take action.
00:01:30
Speaker
Ancient and medieval authors were fond of writing a particular genre of book. It's called a lapidary.
Key Authors of Lapidaries
00:01:37
Speaker
These books contain information about where stones come from, what their inherent powers are, and how to best use them for human purposes.
00:01:46
Speaker
One of the most famous lapidaries was written by Albertus Magnus, or Albert the Great, a monk and bishop who lived in the 1200s and wrote many scientific treaties. Marbottos of Wren is another famous lapidary author. He wrote the Liber Lapidum, the stone book.
00:02:04
Speaker
So what common gems are seen in medieval and Byzantine art? Garnets, pearls, rock crystal, sapphires, emeralds, carbuncles, and turquoise.
Trade and Transportation of Precious Stones
00:02:19
Speaker
Precious stones mostly originated outside of Europe and were transported to the medieval European world along trade routes through Constantinople, Venice, or Genoa. This really attests to an interconnected medieval world far more so than we typically imagine. when you think about knights and castles.
00:02:39
Speaker
Based on some scholars' works, which will of course be in the show notes, I've put together kind of a list of where these different gemstones were coming from. I think that it's important to read them out loud because it makes you realize that people in England and France and Germany were far more connected to the eastern side of the Mediterranean than we
Origins of Specific Gemstones
00:03:00
Speaker
typically think. If you find a piece of jewelry in the West, if it has rubies in it, those rubies came from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and India. The turquoise that we find today in I don't know, French collections actually came from Persia and Tibet.
00:03:20
Speaker
Sapphires came from Sri Lanka. Emeralds and diamonds came from India. Some gemstones did come from Europe. They were not entirely impoverished. Garnets and opals were mined in Eastern Europe.
00:03:33
Speaker
Amethysts came from Germany. Coral and pearls from Italy.
Carving and Iconography on Gemstones
00:03:38
Speaker
Amber, jet, and crystals also came from Northern Europe. Now, as many of you know, different stones have different hardnesses. There's a Mohs scale of hardness for for different substances, specifically stones, that you can kind of rate how difficult it is to carve them or cut them. Diamonds are famously a very hard stone. The softer stones, such as bloodstone, lapis lazuli, and crystal, were often carved with images in the medieval
Moral Debates over Gemstone Use
00:04:08
Speaker
period. We mostly find religious iconography, like the baptism of Christ and the Virgin Mary. um But we also get some interesting images of zodiac signs and other kind of magical properties, which ties into the apatropaic or magical character of these materials.
00:04:29
Speaker
Harder stones are much less likely to be carved with images, but could instead be cut and shaped or set into specific patterns, like a cross,
00:04:40
Speaker
Oftentimes we'll see garnets, which were associated with the blood of Christ because garnet is such a deep red color, set into a cross pattern. In the medieval period, there was much debate regarding the legitimate moral use of gemstones. Of course there was.
00:04:56
Speaker
Some writers, such as Tertullian and Augustine of Hippo, criticize people, especially women, for bedecking themselves in glittering jewels. They thought it was an ostentatious sign of pride and vanity.
00:05:10
Speaker
But it doesn't seem as though elite women took these admonitions very seriously.
Religious Use of Gemstones in the Church
00:05:14
Speaker
Byzantine mosaics and textiles often portray elite women as bejeweled. Theodore's fabulous crown of Mother of Pearl in the mosaic of San Vitale, Ravenna, is the most famous example of this. But in fact, her entire retinue, all of the women with her, are depicted in different luxury gems. Even Justinian, across from her, sports a rather large orange-red brooch that may be intended to signify something like coral.
00:05:44
Speaker
Now, despite moral objections from some prominent authors, the medieval church often used gemstones in religious spaces. Abbot Sougere of Saint-Denis in the 12th century, um which is where the Gothic was invented, he was a big fan of luxurious and la lavish things within his church, all towards a spiritual end, of course. He argued that gemstones served a kind of a spiritual purpose within the church, and this is a quote from
Reliquaries and the Symbolism of Gems
00:06:14
Speaker
him.
00:06:14
Speaker
The loveliness of the many colored gems has called me away from external cares. And that is a lovely sentiment. The idea of the loveliness of these gems calls us away from the worries that we have.
00:06:28
Speaker
So reliquaries are these displays, usually very ornate, usually with gold or silver and gemstones, which display and contain little pieces of saints.
00:06:42
Speaker
These can be bodily parts. Or they can be pieces of clothing, so that's called a contact relic. It's not physically a part of the body, but it's something that touched the holy body of the saint. These reliquaries were often encrusted with gems.
00:06:56
Speaker
The contrast between the decaying bits inside of the reliquary and the gems surrounding it is Visually very striking. But to medieval viewers, the gems signified the spiritual power of the relic that they surrounded. The gems told viewers, this isn't just a piece of bone. This is a powerful religious thing that can perform miracles.
00:07:20
Speaker
The most famous, if it isn't the most famous, it should be, and weirdest reliquary with gemstones as a crucial factor is the reliquary of Sanfrois. from Conch, France. This is a child-sized golden statue that is said to contain the skull and other relics of a young Christian girl who was martyred in the Roman times, Saint-Foy, Saint-Faith.
00:07:45
Speaker
Pilgrims who came to this abbey that had this reliquary often brought offerings to the saint of gemstones, which they then soldered onto her reliquary statue. so So you bring a gemstone and it gets added to the collection on the physical reliquary.
00:08:03
Speaker
In this way, the glittering surface is a physical imprint of the prayers of pilgrims who believed in the power of the saint.
Medieval Beliefs in Gemstone Powers
00:08:11
Speaker
Relics such as the skull of Saint-Foy were and still are believed to hold a literal power by some, such as the ability to heal the sick. But our modern world has forgotten that medieval people also believed gemstones themselves were agentic.
00:08:28
Speaker
One thing that I love about the medieval world is the sheer enchantment of it. Medieval people viewed their world as active and teeming with these hidden powers. we could perhaps learn something from their enchanted view, which gave importance and reverence to the natural world, natural materials, and the environments.
Specific Powers of Gemstones
00:08:50
Speaker
Not saying that medieval people were perfect in an environmental way, they definitely weren't, don't get me started on silver mining and lead poisoning, but this idea of the enchantment and the power of the natural world is something that we're definitely lacking today that that might help us in kind of an eco-critical way.
00:09:11
Speaker
So within this enchanted medieval imagination, certain stones were believed to have certain powers. Stones were seen as active, protective and curative. Medieval lapidaries reported exactly what these powers of stones were. So I'm going to run through a couple of these.
00:09:31
Speaker
Sapphires protect the body. They also have cooling powers to soothe headaches and sweats. They're good for the eyes and stammers. They promote chastity and peace. They expel envy.
00:09:45
Speaker
They detect fraud and witchcraft. And they cure snake bites. So next time you have a stammering witch who has a snake bite grab the sapphire. I'll mention now that some of these, in order for them to be curative, there's instructions for how to apply them. Sometimes you have to crush the gem and physically ingest it Sometimes you just have to hold it against your body. Sometimes you have to plunk it in a goblet of wine. Rubies promote health.
00:10:15
Speaker
They dispel bad thoughts. And they promote the reconciliation between people. Emeralds cure epilepsy. They also cure eye troubles. And they increase wealth, which in quite a literal sense is definitely true.
00:10:31
Speaker
Turquoise guards against poison and prevents falls specifically from horseback. Diamonds promote courage and dispel nightmares. Agate brings dreams and makes the bearer eloquent.
00:10:46
Speaker
Amethyst prevents drunkenness. And rock crystal was believed to actually scientifically be petrified ice, and thus if If you put it under your tongue, it was thought to relieve thirst. And if crushed and combined with honey and ingested by a woman, she will lactate. Garnets fill the heart with gladness and dispel sorrow. And as I mentioned, they're also associated with the blood of Christ due to that deep red blood color. Jasper both prevents conception and aids childbirth.
00:11:20
Speaker
It reduces menstruation, gets rid of fevers, and protects from licentiousness. Pearls, at times, were crushed and ingested to promote fertility. Pearls also helped with breathing and heart attacks, as well as fainting and diarrhea. Now, not all of these uses of gemstones or stones in general are very nice. I actually found magnets. Magnets, if placed under the head of a sleeping woman,
00:11:47
Speaker
You could tell by her reaction if she was faithful to her husband or not. It's also reported that thieves would use magnets to drive people away from their home so that they could steal stuff because apparently magnets produce nightmares when they are burnt in the corners of a home.
00:12:08
Speaker
I don't think that I have to say this caveat, but please don't try any of
Gemstones in Jewelry and Magical Properties
00:12:12
Speaker
these. This is purely an educational entertainment podcast. I'm not trying to give you any sort of medical advice. This is this is just weird stuff medieval people thought, and I love sharing it.
00:12:27
Speaker
So generally you can tell that there's a lot of magical protective qualities about these gemstones. They were generally thought to be a patropaic, some sort of a protective device, a bit magical.
00:12:41
Speaker
Oftentimes gems would be set into jewelry mounts of gold or silver so that they could hang close to the body of the one who was invoking their power. We see many pendants, bracelets, rings, belt buckles, and fibulae or clasps with gems set inside of them.
00:13:00
Speaker
These gems would also be carved with words and images. These words and images gave them extra power. They they sort of focused the the power of the gemstones. One of my favorite examples of this, where we clearly see that the image that was being carved and the material of the stone overlapped is a bloodstone carved with an image from one of the Christian gospels. This gem is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It comes from Egypt around the 6th to the 7th century CE, and it has a depiction of
00:13:36
Speaker
a woman who was healed of a hemorrhage, an issue of blood, by touching the cloak of Christ as he walked past. So this is a beautiful instance where we think that maybe it was a woman who owned this gemstone at one time and was hoping to be healed or protected against some blood-related maladies. And so not only got this gemstone as a powerful token, but also had it inscribed with prayers and images that reinforced the healing power of the stone.
00:14:13
Speaker
Thank you for listening to this episode. You can find images of all these art objects on my Instagram, which is at art history podcast.
Conclusion and Invitation to Explore Art
00:14:21
Speaker
I hope you've enjoyed this dive into the weird and wonderful world of medieval gemology.
00:14:28
Speaker
love that something so pretty was viewed as so powerful, and I'm very happy that I could share it with you today.