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Decorated Window-Glass and Millefiori from Monkwearmouth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Summary

Recent excavation of the monastic sites of Monkwearmouth and Jarrow has produced a quantity of plain and coloured window-glass sealed within the destruction levels of the buildings. Monkwearmouth was founded in 674, and Jarrow in 685; both sites were abandoned in the mid ninth century.

In the 1969 excavations at Monkwearmouth a complete quarry of amber window-glass decorated with white trails was discovered, and this piece is discussed and compared with other glass from the sites. Two millefiori settings from Monkwearmouth are also discussed and compared with a composite rod from Jarrow and other mosaic glass settings from the British Isles.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1970

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References

page 327 note 1 The literary evidence for the importation of Gaulish glaziers in 675 (Bede, Historia Abbatum, ed. C. Plummer, 1896, cap. 5) has been discussed in the interim report on this site (Medieval Archaeology, vol. xiii forthcoming) and in Studies in Glass History and Design (Eighth International Congress on Glass, London, 1968), pp. 1619Google Scholar.

page 327 note 2 Studies in Glass History and Design, p. 16. Not mentioned in previous discussions of this glass is the remarkable fragment from Jarrow (see pl. livc, d) which is an opaque greenish-blue in reflected light and clear amber in transmitted light. The only parallel I can find for this phenomenon (though the colours are different) is the famous Lycurgus Cup in the British Museum.

page 328 note 1 Studies in Glass History and Design, p. 16 and fig.1.

page 328 note 2 D. B. Harden has claimed that all Saxonwindow-glass is of this type, ‘Domestic window-glass, Roman, Saxon, and Medieval’, Studies in Building History, ed. Jope, E. M., London, 1961, p. 55Google Scholar, and has subsequently examined glass from Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, stating that this is the same type. His judgement is unquestionably confirmed by the spectrographic analysis (see Appendix). Such glass is also known in the north from the Saxon site at Escomb and will be published in a forthcoming volume (J.B.A.A.

page 328 note 3 Pilloy, J. and Socard, E., ‘Le vitrail carolingien de la chasse de Séry-lès-Mézières’, Bulletin Monu. mental, 64 (1910), pp. 525Google Scholar. When first discovered these fragments, which were reconstructed into a cross pattée accompanied by alpha and omega, were thought to be part of a reliquary. They have been very convincingly described as window-glass and assigned to an earlier date by Lafond, Jean, Le Vitrail (Les Arts Chretiens 12), Paris, 1966, pp. 1921Google Scholar.

page 328 note 4 For the Ravenna glass see Cecchelli, C., ‘Vetri di finestra del San Vitale’, Felix Ravenna, N.S. 35 (1930), 2, pp. 1420Google Scholar and Bovini, G., ‘Gli antichi vetri da finestra della Chiesa di S. Vitale’, Felix Ravenna, ser. 3, 91 (1965), pp. 98108Google Scholar. Traditions of East and West Christian glassmaking are discussed by J. Lafond in his review of Megaw, A. H. S., ‘Notes on Recent Work of the Byzantine Institute in Istanbul’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 17 (1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, in Cahiers Archéogiques, xviii (1968), pp. 231–8Google Scholar.

page 329 note 1 Charlemagne: Oeuvre, Rayonnementet Survivances (Catalogue, Council of Europe, Tenth Exhibition, Aix-la-Chapelle, 1965), no. 641 and pl. 113.

page 329 note 2 Studies in Glass History and Design, p. 22 and figs. 4–10.

page 329 note 3 Harden, D. B., ‘Medieval glass in the West’, Proceedings of the Eighth International Congress on Glass, 1968, 1920, pp. 97111Google Scholar.

page 329 note 4 Ljubinkovic, Radivojé, ‘Sur un exemplaire de vitraux du monastère du Studenica’, Archaeologia Jugoslavica 3 (1959), pp. 137–41Google Scholar.

page 330 note 1 Bruce-Mitford, R. L. S., ‘The Codex Amiatinus’ (J.B.A.A. xxxii (1969)Google Scholar, pl. xix) and Rosemary Cramp, Med. Arch., xiii, forthcoming.

page 331 note 1 I am grateful to Mr. R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford for kindly allowing me to examine the Sutton Hoo material in detail.

page 331 note 2 Kendrick, T. D., ‘A Late Saxon Hanging Bowl’, Antiq. Journ. xxi (1941), 161–2Google Scholar and pls. xxxiv–v. The bowl, which Kendrick ascribed to the ninth century, has now been more convincingly assigned to the eighth; see Wilson, D. M., Anglo Saxon Ornamental Metalwork yoo-noo (1964), pp. 1819Google Scholar.

page 331 note 3 T. D. Kendrick, ‘The Scunthorpe Bowl’, ibid. 236–8, pls. lii and liii.

page 331 note 4 Early Medieval Prints and Drawings, p. 61 a.

page 332 note 1 And possibly Wales; cf.L. Alcock, Dinas Powys 1963), fig. 41, 10–12.

page 332 note 2 O'Riordain, S. P., ‘The excavation of the large earthen fort at Garranes, Co. Cork’, Proc. Roy. Irish Acad. sect C. 47, no. 2 (1942), 77 ffGoogle Scholar.

page 332 note 3 Hencken, Hugh, ‘Lagore Crannog’, Proc. Roy. Irish Acad. sect. C. 53, no. 1 (1950), 121 ffGoogle Scholar

page 333 note 1 I am grateful to Mr. Robert Stevenson for providing a drawing of the section of the rod and giving me permission to publish it.

page 333 note 2 ‘Irish Enamels of the Dark Ages and their relationship to the cloissoné techniques’, Dark-Age Britain, ed. D. B. Harden (1956), p. 82, and note 45.

page 333 note 3 lam grateful to Mrs. M. Allen for her drawing of the rods, to Miss M. Firby for her colour photographs of the glass, and to Dr. D. B. Harden for his constant help in the interpretation of this material.