THE Anglo-Saxon goldsmith shared the love of colour which was such a feature of the other art forms of the period (see chapter 6), and there are many examples where various non-metallic materials have been introduced to add colour to the designs. These materials included garnets, glass, enamel and white materials such as shell, ivory and bone. Each of these required specialised skills, and deliberate adaptations in the form and structure of the work in order to accommodate them.

GARNET AND GARNET CLOISONNè

Garnet is a common stone which is found abundantly all over Europe, although gem-quality deposits are rarer. They were used extensively by the Anglo-Saxon goldsmiths during the sixth and seventh centuries, but the source or sources of the stones they used is unknown as yet. Arrhenius and Mellis believed that those used in Merovingian cloisonne’ may have come from Bohemia (see below, p. 144). Recent analytical work by Farges, using proton-particle X-ray emission analyses of fifth-/sixth-century Merovingian material from Louvres (north Paris), France identified three types of garnet, none of which was almandine, the commonest form. Of the three types identified, type I probably came from the area of Podsedice, Bohemia, while types II and III, which came from the richest of the finds, were stones with a very localised geological distribution in areas of central Europe, Scandina- via or India-Sri Lanka. The implication is that the rarest stones were deliberately chosen for the richest work. Von Freeden et al. have argued that there was a dearth of larger garnets in the second half of the sixth century, which they attribute to the severing of trade routes through the Arabian Peninsula due to the activities of the Sassanids. They based their conclusions mainly on Merovingian period jewellery from Germany, and argued that after this date, there was a decline in the use of fine-celled cloisonne’, especially in copper alloy. If they are right, this contrasts with the great flowering of this type of work in England in the late sixth, seventh and early eighth centuries. We are fortunate in the number of pieces of this work which survive to us, many of them being among the finest expressions of the goldsmith’s art from any period in our history. Because of their obvious attractions, such examples as the collection from Sutton Hoo and the Kingston Down brooch (44, pl. Ib) have become well-known outside the field of Anglo-Saxon scholarship.