Spanish Decorative Letters of the 8th Century

Illustration: Decorative letters from a book of the Sacraments, 8th century.

Although from the eighth century onwards Islamic decoration tended to dominate the Iberian peninsula and much has been written and identified with the long-lasting culture that derived from North Africa, it is sometimes forgotten that the Visigoths ruled the peninsula from the end of the Roman period until the invasion of Islamic forces at the beginning of the eighth century.

The Visigoths derived from Eastern Europe, though could well have had original homelands in Central Asia. They were strongly related to the Ostrogoths who made their own homeland in the Italian peninsula. Being ostensibly a Germanic tribe, the Visigoths produced decorative work that had many similarities and even origin points to that of the patchwork of Germanic tribal communities that made up much of Western and Central Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Many of these communities were to become the foundation stones of the modern European national and regional states.

The decorative letters that are illustrated in this article derive from the Spanish peninsula during the eighth century and therefore were produced at, or just after, the Islamic invasion. They are typically Germanic in flavour with references to animals, both real and mythical, along with complex pattern work. They were very often produced in bright colours, as in this particular case.

Although the Visigoths were no doubt influenced by a number of factors through their movement across various Roman provinces, as well as their eventual settling amongst the communities of the Iberian peninsula, it is interesting how little obvious classically inspired work is apparent in the lettering. The decoration and pattern work is vibrant in both colour and composition and has a real feel of youth and vitality, borrowing little if anything from the sophisticated palette of the later Roman Empire. Although adopting the Roman version of Christianity, as practiced by the local population, the decorative lettering does imply that much remained of the strong connection with both their original pagan Visigoth roots, along with a connectedness with other tribal communities across Western Europe.

By all accounts, many of the Visigoths kept themselves separate from the indigenous population of the Iberian peninsula and perhaps this helps to explain the lack of obvious impact even after nearly two centuries of rule. In many respects, the new rulers of the peninsula were still very much tribally led with different origins, social manners and customs than those communities they now found themselves ruling over. The differences could often appear to be much more fundamental, making the Visigoths at odds with the local classically raised population. Therefore, it is perhaps not so much a separation through elitism between Visigoth and indigenous communities, but perhaps more a case of few if any connecting points of common reference that kept the two communities apart.

Because the lack of an obvious significant cultural identity compared with both the Imperial Roman period and that of the Islamic, the Visigoths have often been relegated to a small interim period between the two. However, this particular Germanic tribe, although sharing many similarities with other Goth tribes, as well as with Franks, Germans, Anglo-Saxons and others, was also a unique community that approached both life and the arts with an understanding that was peculiar to themselves, their roots and their world view. 

This is true of all communities, even those that seem, on first examination, to be of one mind. The nation state of Europe is an imposed identity projected onto many small but distinct communities and regions that have their own historical pathways, and very often separate origins. Many also have very different cultural and world views than that of the ruling nation state. What this means is that nation states in Europe are a complex patchwork of successive occupations and tribal movements, with each new migration serving yet another different and uniquely individual cultural perspective. As far as the decorative arts are concerned, this complexity of cultural outlooks has added that same complexity to traditional decoration and pattern work. 

Every community, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant within the grand scheme of things has made a contribution. Therefore, the unique Visigoth approach to decoration has been incorporated into the traditions of the Iberian Peninsula along with each distinct community throughout its long history. If the Visigoths had not settled in the peninsula, the decorative arts would be the poorer as that one strand would be missing.

To understand the relevance, uniqueness but eventual collaborative nature of migrative communities as seen through the accumulation of creativity within the decorative arts, may go someway into understanding the concept of long-term European multi-culturalism.

Further reading links:
The Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians
The Goths (The Peoples of Europe)
History of the Goths
Visigothic Spain 409 - 711 (A History of Spain)
The Visigoths from the Migration Period to the Seventh Century: An Ethnographic Perspective (Studies in Historical Archaeoethnology)
The Visigoths in History and Legend (Studies and Texts)
Jews, Visigoths and Muslims in Medieval Spain: Cooperation and Conflict (Medieval Iberian Peninsula : Texts and Studies, Vol 10)
Vandals to Visigoths: Rural Settlement Patterns in Early Medieval Spain 
Hispanic Art of the Visigothic Period
The Visigothic Basilica of San Juan de Baños and Visigothic art
The Sculpture of Visigothic France
Arts of the Migration Period in the Walters Art Gallery Hunnish, Gothic, Ostrogothic, Frankish, Burgundian, Langobard, Visigothic, Avaric, Irish and Viking
The Story of Wamba: Julian of Toledo's Historia Wambae Regis
Spain a Study of her Life and Arts
Early Spanish Manuscript Illumination

Stained Glass Work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Illustration: Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The Fight Between Sir Tristram and Sir Marhaus, 1862.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti produced artwork for these two stained glass window designs in 1862. They were part of a series produced by Edward Burne-Jones, William Morris, Ford Madox Brown, Valentine Princep, Arthur Hughes and Rossetti under the guidance of Morris in the form of his original company of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co that had been set up in the previous year.

The commission was to provide a stained glass sequence of the popular medieval romance of Tristram and Ysoude, for Harden Grange in Yorkshire. Although the Grange no longer exists, luckily the stained glass windows are still with us and are kept at the Bradford Art Galleries and Museum. Although superficially a sequence, the individual glass pieces have much to do with each artist's interpretation and approach to the story; this also includes different levels of ability, Rossetti being classed as a professional fine artist, with William Morris very much on an amateur level.

Although Rossetti was only commissioned to complete two of the stained glass designs, compared to Burne-Jones five, these two tend to be much more dynamic and intense than Burne-Jones pieces and say much about the character of the two differing artists as well as their own unique approach to both the story and its interpretation.

Much of the early work of Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co was not in fact the textile and wallpaper design work that was to so much colour our perception of the much later reincarnation of the company as Morris & Co. This early period relied fairly heavily on stained glass commissions. The competition was rigorous and ecclesiastical commissions in particular were heavily fought over. Many traditional companies with long histories in the supply of stained glass work were having to compete against a number of new and innovative companies such as Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co who were often set up with the intention of diverting some of the expanded trade in ecclesiastical interiors and accessories, towards themselves. In this respect, Morris used contemporary fine artists in order to try to gain an edge on potential rivals.

Illustration: Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Sir Tristram and La Belle Ysoude, 1862.

Although not always successful ecclesiastically, Morris was adaptable enough to understand the growing market in domestic stained glass. The 1860s saw the architectural potential of the medievalist inspired Gothic Revival, which up to that point had been largely limited to the ecclesiastical; widen its horizons towards the civic and domestic market. In this respect, many public buildings and private estates started to take on the appearance of various forms of medieval inspiration. These buildings in turn, needed interior fittings and accessories. Many of the new companies such as the one Morris initially set up in 1861, soon found themselves supplying a wealth of different interior pieces in the guise of Victorian Gothic.

Stained glass, which had been classed as a needful necessity during the medieval period, was also to become the same for many a domestic home built or rebuilt during the mid-nineteenth century. No domestic home, particularly those that were built to reinforce newfound status, could be considered complete without at least some form of stained glass work. This was very often in the guise of family arms or crests, which were produced in order to copy those aristocratic and long-lived families that had maintained status for many more generations than the newly formed wealth of the nineteenth century.

Considering how mundane much of the domestic stained glass market must have been in the 1860s, it must have seemed a welcome relief to Morris and his clutch of artists, to be producing a series of work featuring such a contemporary theme as a medieval romance. It is sometimes difficult for us to realise that these Victorian medieval themes were very much part of the contemporary world. Just as our present day costume dramas do not in reality signify a true understanding of historical context, but reflect much more about aspects of our own contemporary culture through our continued reinterpretation of themes, so the same was true of the Victorian medieval romances.

Issues of selflessness, duty, fidelity, betrayal, jealousy and lust were all part of the Victorian interpretation of the medieval world and were much more powerful issues than forms of historical accuracy and truth regarding interpretation. In this respect, looking anew at the stained glass work interpretations conceived by Rossetti, although wearing a fine mist of medieval chivalry and romance, the work reflects both the individual beliefs and ideas of the artist, but also that of the culture he inhabited. The story of Tristram and Ysoude as interpreted in stained glass in 1862, is a reflection of the individual characters of six young men, but seen through the prism of the social setting as understood by those living in mid-nineteenth century Britain.

It is always important to see any creative individual within the context of their contemporary society. To interpret work purely from their creative individualism alone can never really give a full understanding of the work involved and indeed, of the creative.

Further reading links:
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Pre-Raphaelite Painters)
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
The Demon and the Damozel: Dynamics of Desire in the Works of Christina Rossetti & Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Tate British Artists: Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the Game That Must Be Lost
Collected Writings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Dante Gabriel Rossetti And the Late Victorian Sonnet Sequence: Sexuality, Belief And the Self (Nineteenth Century Series)
The Poetry of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Modes of Self-Expression
The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti 9: The Last Decade, 1873-1882: Kelmscott to Birchington IV. 1880-1882
The Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: The Formative Years, 1835-1862: Charlotte Street to Cheyne Walk. II. 1855-1862 (Correspondence of Dante Gabriel Rossetti)
The Pre-Raphaelites: From Rossetti to Ruskin (Penguin Classics)
Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (Art of Century)
Pre-Raphaelites in Love
Art of the Pre-Raphaelites
The Pre-Raphaelites
Desperate Romantics: The Private Lives of the Pre-Raphaelites
The Pre-Raphaelite Dream: Drawings and Paintings from the Tate Collection
The New Painting of the 1860s: Between the Pre-Raphaelites and the Aesthetic Movement (The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art)
The Pre-Raphaelites and Their Circle (A Phoenix Book)
Pre-Raphaelite Women Artists

English Tile Pavement from 1340

Illustration: Tile pavement from Higham Ferrers, Northamptonshire, c1340

Decorative tiled floors have been popular for thousands of years and can be found in most regions irrespective of cultural or religious affiliation. The example shown in this article comes from the church of the market town of Higham Ferrers in the county of Northamptonshire, in the middle of England. It was laid in about 1340, although the church is much older and originally dates from 1220. This particular floor would have been laid when the church was being extended during the early fourteenth century.

The pattern is remarkably contemporary in feel and composition, although geometrically abstract pattern work is as ancient as the human species itself. It has and is still used in a staggering variety of disciplines, particularly within many of the textile crafts. Geometrically inspired pattern work was used extensively in the medieval period and therefore it would not be surprising if the example shown here was not also, in some form or another, used for either inspiration or part of the vocabulary of medieval pattern work.

While there have always been differences, sometimes exclusively so, between religious and domestic pattern work, there has also been energised and beneficial crossovers between the two systems. They have never been consistently mutually exclusive, nor should they be. This is true of the wealth of pattern work that was produced in the two big religious cultures that largely helped to form contemporary Europe, North Africa and Western Asia, namely Christianity and Islam.

Although pattern work was not as strong a component of Christianity as it was of Islam, this did not change the fact that it was used regularly across a number of church, abbey and cathedral interiors. While much of the abstract pattern work in Christianity can be traced back to usage in Imperial Rome, Byzantium and Islam were also strong contenders as was the work of many of the tribes that came to settle in Europe. Most of these were eventually to become the foundation stones that formed the nation states of contemporary Europe.

The illustration above, although a copy of the pattern work found on the floor of the church at Higham Ferrers, does not necessarily closely follow either the colour or present state of the floor. This is a Victorian illustration and as always with many Victorian interpretations of ancient and medieval pattern work, it was given to readers, as it would have appeared when newly formed. The nineteenth century saw a prodigious amount of analysis and record making of all available remaining examples from previous eras, whether that be through architecture, or the crafts that often supplied that discipline. In Britain in particular there was a passion for recording its medieval past.

The passion was perhaps initially guided by political events in Europe, rather than the subject matter itself. Because of the French Revolution and then the Napoleonic wars, the British found themselves cut off from European exploration through their Grand Tours. Therefore, during the early nineteenth century mini tours of Britain became popular. Whereas a European Grand Tour would have specifically taken in much of the classical heritage of Europe, the mini tours of Britain took on a different outlook. Classical remains from Imperial Rome have always been thin on the ground in Britain, but medieval remains have always been extensive and covered all of the main cultural eras of the medieval period.

Although there are other factors that go to make up the British early nineteenth century interest in the medieval that was to eventually form the Gothic Revival of the 1830s onwards, denial of the classically motivated Grand Tour was a significant aspect. It could be seen that in some ways at least, the turmoil in Europe helped the British to rediscover and reconnect with their own medieval heritage, rather than that borrowed from Imperial Rome.

Further reading links:
English Medieval Tiles (British Museum Paperbacks)
Old English Tile Designs for Artists and Craftspeople (Dover Pictorial Archives)
English Tilers (Medieval Craftsmen)
Decorated Medieval Floor Tiles of Somerset
Medieval Floor Tiles Of Northern England: Pattern And Purpose: Production Between The 13th And 16th Centuries
Medieval Tile Designs (Dover Pictorial Archives)
Illustrations of medieval romance on tiles from Chertsey abbey
Irish Medieval Tiles (Royal Irish Academy Monographs in Archaeology,)
Medieval Tiles of Wales: Census of Medieval Tiles in Britain
Medieval England: A Social History and Archaeology from the Conquest to 1600 AD
Medieval Decorated Tiles in Dorset
Early Christian and Byzantine Art: Textiles, Metalwork, Frescoes, Manuscripts, Jewellery, Steatites, Stone Sculptures, Tiles, Pottery, Bronzes, Amulets, Coins and other items 4th to the 14th Centuries
Welsh Mediaeval Paving Tiles
Medieval Tiles (Shire Library)
The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Culture (Cambridge Companions to Culture)
English Medieval Industries: Craftsmen, Techniques, Products
English Medieval Furniture and Woodwork 
The People of the Parish: Community Life in a Late Medieval English Diocese (The Middle Ages Series)
When Towns had Walls: Life in a Medieval English Town
A History of Everyday Life in Medieval Scotland (A History of Everyday Life in Scotland)