Anglo-Saxons metalwork and jewelry

Anglo-Saxons jewelry like metalwork (for example the Fuller brooch), glass and enamel, Anglo-Saxon taste favoured brightness and colour. Anglo-Saxon jewerly mostly based on Roman models. The Anglo-Saxons who founded the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England preferred round disk brooches to either fibulae or penannular forms, also using gold and garnet cloisonné along with other styles. The finest and most famous collection of barbarian jewelry is the set for the adornment of an Anglo-Saxon king of about 620 recovered at the Sutton Hoo burial site in England in the mid-20th century. 

Pagan Anglo-Saxon metalwork initially uses the Germanic Animal Style I and II decoration that would be expected from recent immigrants, but gradually develops a distinctive Anglo-Saxon character, as in the Quoit Brooch Style of the 5th century. Anglo-Saxon brooches are the most common survivals of fine metalwork from the earlier period, when they were buried as grave goods. Round disk brooches were preferred for the grandest pieces, over continental styles of fibulae and Romano-British penannular brooches, a consistent Anglo-Saxon taste throughout the period; the Kingston Brooch and Harford Farm Brooch are 7th-century examples. Decoration included cloisonné (cellwork), in gold and garnet for high-status pieces. 

Despite a considerable number of other finds, the discovery of the ship-burial at Sutton Hoo, probably interred in the 620s, transformed the history of Anglo-Saxon art, showing a level of sophistication and quality that was wholly unexpected at this date. The most famous finds are the helmet and matching suite of purse-lid, belt and other fittings of the king buried there. Anglo-Saxon taste revelled in expensive materials and the effects of light on precious metals, which were also embroidered into fabrics and used on wall-paintings. 7th and 8th century metalwork pieces, mostly gold and military in nature, many with gold and garnet cloisonné inlays of high quality

Goldsmithing

The earliest Anglo-Saxon objects are in the animal style typical of the Great Migration period, but purely Anglo-Saxon features gradually appear. Thus, to Celtic fibulas and brooches, the Anglo-Saxons preferred disc-shaped brooches. The most important objects have cloisonné decorations of gold and garnet. The most important archaeological find from this period is the Sutton Hoo boat-grave, dating from the early 7th century.

Anglo-Saxon goldsmithing benefits from several types of continental influence: the polychrome style is thus adopted, as is the simple cloisonné technique, in the Pontic style. This technique is enriched with the more properly Nordic animal style and often associated with Celtic contributions as evidenced for example by the Kingston brooch or, in a later creation, the gold purse cover from Sutton Hoo.

Several sources mention the skill of Anglo-Saxon goldsmiths in goldworking. Two of them, clergymen, are known by name: the Abbot of Abingdon Spearhafoc and the Abbot of Evesham Mannig, who both lived during the first half of the 11th century. The blacksmiths of England were sufficiently renowned in the 10th century to participate in the making of the altar plates of St. Peter's Basilica. However, few of their works survived the depredations of the Norman Conquest of England, and later of the English Reformation, and while the sources mention large objects (doors, statues, crucifixes), none are known to have survived. On the other hand, several small objects are known, most of which come from tombs (especially for the pagan period, the Christian Church discouraging the burial of objects with the dead) or from buried treasure, the rare exceptions including the Fuller brooch, the Tassilon chalice (probably made by Northumbrian craftsmen) and Rupert's cross. From the 9th century onwards, Anglo -Saxon-style objects appear throughout Northern Europe.

Metalwork

Pagan Anglo-Saxon metalwork initially uses the Germanic Animal Style I and II decoration that would be expected from recent immigrants, but gradually develops a distinctive Anglo-Saxon character, as in the Quoit Brooch Style of the 5th century. Anglo-Saxon brooches are the most common survivals of fine metalwork from the earlier period, when they were buried as grave goods. Round disk brooches were preferred for the grandest pieces, over continental styles of fibulae and Romano-British penannular brooches, a consistent Anglo-Saxon taste throughout the period; the Kingston Brooch and Harford Farm Brooch are 7th-century examples. Decoration included cloisonné ("cellwork"), in gold and garnet for high-status pieces.

Despite a considerable number of other finds, the discovery of the ship-burial at Sutton Hoo, probably interred in the 620s, transformed the history of Anglo-Saxon art, showing a level of sophistication and quality that was wholly unexpected at this date. The most famous finds are the helmet and matching suite of purse-lid, belt and other fittings of the king buried there, which made clear the source in Anglo-Saxon art, previously much disputed, of many elements of the style of Insular manuscripts.

By the 10th century Anglo-Saxon metalwork had a famous reputation as far afield as Italy, where English goldsmiths worked on plate for the altar of St Peter's itself, but hardly any pieces have survived the depredations of the Norman Conquest in 1066, and the English Reformation, and none of the large-scale ones, shrines, doors and statues, that we know existed, and of which a few contemporary continental examples have survived.

The references to specific works by the 11th-century monastic artist Spearhafoc, none of which have identifiably survived, are about works in precious metal, and he is one of a small number of metalwork artists from the period whose name we know and whose work is described in any way. According to several sources, including the Norman chronicler Goscelin, who knew him personally, Spearhafoc "was outstanding in painting, gold-engraving and goldsmithery", the painting very likely mainly in illuminated manuscripts. It was probably his artistic work which brought him into contact with the royal family, and launched his rapid promotion in the church. Even the imprecise details given, mostly by Goscelin, are therefore valuable evidence of what Anglo-Saxon metalwork was like.

Anglo-Saxon skill in gold-engraving, designs and figures engraved on gold objects, is mentioned by many foreign sources, and the few remaining engraved figures closely parallel the far more numerous pen-drawn figures in manuscripts, also an Anglo-Saxon speciality. Wall-paintings, which seem to have sometimes contained gold, were also apparently often made by manuscript illuminators, and Goscelin's description of his talents therefore suggests an artist skilled in all the main Anglo-Saxon media for figurative art – of which being a goldsmith was then regarded as the most prestigious branch. One 11th-century lay goldsmith was even a thegn.

Many monastic artists reached senior positions; Spearhafoc's career in metalwork was paralleled in less sensational fashion by his contemporary Mannig, Abbot of Evesham (Abbot 1044–58, d. 1066), and at the end of the previous century Saint Dunstan had been a very successful Archbishop of Canterbury. Like Spearhafoc, Mannig's biography, with some precise details, is given in the chronicle maintained by his abbey. His work also had a miracle associated with it – the lay goldsmith Godric stabbed his hand with an awl during the work on the large shrine at Evesham, which was miraculously healed overnight. Spearhafoc and Mannig are the "only two goldsmiths of whom we have extended accounts", and the additional information given about Godric, the leader of a team brought in by Mannig for the shrine, is also unique among the surviving evidence. Some twenty years after the miracle, he joined the Abbey of Evesham, presumably in retirement, and his son later became Prior there.

In the final century of the period some large figures in precious metal are recorded; presumably these were made of thin sheets over a wooden core like the Golden Madonna of Essen, the largest example of this type of early medieval figure to survive from anywhere in Europe. These appear to have been life-size, or nearly so, and were mostly crucifixes, sometimes with figures of Mary and John the Evangelist on either side. Patronage by the great figures of the land, and the largest monasteries, became extravagant in this period, and the greatest late Anglo-Saxon churches must have presented a dazzling spectacle, somewhat in the style of Eastern Orthodox churches. Anglo-Saxon taste revelled in expensive materials and the effects of light on precious metals, which were also embroidered into fabrics and used on wall-paintings. Sections of decorated elements from some large looted works such as reliquaries were sawn up by Viking raiders and taken home to their wives to wear as jewellery, and a number of these survive in Scandinavian museums.

While larger works are all lost, several small objects and fragments have survived, nearly all having been buried; in recent decades professional archaeology as well as metal-detecting and deep ploughing have greatly increased the number of objects known. Among the few unburied exceptions are the secular Fuller Brooch, and two works made in Anglo-Saxon style carried to Austria by the Anglo-Saxon mission, the Tassilo Chalice (late 8th century) and the Rupertus Cross. Especially in the 9th century, Anglo-Saxon styles, sometimes derived from manuscripts rather than metal examples, are found in a great number of smaller pieces of jewellery and other small fittings from across northern Europe.

From England itself, the Alfred Jewel, with an enamel face, is the best known of a group of finely worked liturgical jewels, and there are a number of high quality disk brooches. The most ornate of earlier ones are colourful and complicated with inlays and filigrees, but the 9th century Pentney Hoard, discovered in 1978, contained six splendid brooches in flat silver openwork in the "Trewhiddle style". In these small but fully formed animals, of no recognisable species, contort themselves in foliage and tendrils that interlace, but without the emphatic geometry of the earlier "ribbon" style. Ædwen's brooch, an 11th-century Anglo-Scandinavian silver disk brooch, shows influence from Viking art, and a fall-off from the highest earlier standards of workmanship.

In 2009 the Staffordshire hoard, a major hoard of over 1,500 fragments of 7th and ?8th century metalwork pieces, mostly gold and military in nature, many with gold and garnet cloisonné inlays of high quality, was found by a metal-detectorist in Staffordshire, then in Mercia. Jewellery is far more often found from burials of the early pagan period, as Christianity discouraged grave-goods, even the personal possessions of the deceased. Early Anglo-Saxon jewellery includes various types of fibulae that are close to their Continental Germanic equivalents, but until Sutton Hoo rarely of outstanding quality, which is why that find transformed thinking about early Anglo-Saxon art. Objects from the Royal Anglo-Saxon tomb in Prittlewell in Essex, dating from the late 6th century and discovered in 2003, were put on display in Southend Central Museum in 2019.

The earliest Anglo-Saxon coin type, the silver sceat, forced craftsmen, no doubt asked to copy Roman and contemporary continental styles, to work outside their traditional forms and conventions in respect of the heads on the obverse, with results that are varied and often compelling. Later silver pennies, with largely linear relief heads of kings in profile on the obverse, are more uniform, as representatives of what was a stable and respected currency by contemporary European standards. A number of complete seax knives have survived with inscriptions and some decoration, and sword fittings and other military pieces are an important form of jewellery. A treatise on social status needed to say that mere ownership of a gilded sword did not make a man a ceorle, the lowest rank of free men.

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Viking art

Viking art, also known commonly as Norse art, is a term widely accepted for the art of Scandinavian Norsemen and Viking settlements further afield—particularly in the British Isles and Iceland—during the Viking Age of the 8th-11th centuries. Viking art has many design elements in common with Celtic, Germanic, the later Romanesque and Eastern European art, sharing many influences with each of these traditions.

Generally speaking, the current knowledge of Viking art relies heavily upon more durable objects of metal and stone; wood, bone, ivory and textiles are more rarely preserved. The artistic record, therefore, as it has survived to the present day, remains significantly incomplete. Ongoing archaeological excavation and opportunistic finds, of course, may improve this situation in the future, as indeed they have in the recent past.

Viking art is usually divided into a sequence of roughly chronological styles, although outside Scandinavia itself local influences are often strong, and the development of styles can be less clear.

Historical context

The Vikings' regional origins lay in Scandinavia, the northernmost peninsula of continental Europe, while the term 'Viking' likely derived from their own term for coastal raiding—the activity by which many neighboring cultures became acquainted with the inhabitants of the region.

Viking raiders attacked wealthy targets on the north-western coasts of Europe from the late 8th until the mid-11th century CE. Pre-Christian traders and sea raiders, the Vikings first enter recorded history with their attack on the Christian monastic community on Lindisfarne Island in 793.

The Vikings initially employed their longships to invade and attack European coasts, harbors and river settlements on a seasonal basis. Subsequently, Viking activities diversified to include trading voyages to the east, west, and south of their Scandinavian homelands, with repeated and regular voyages following river systems east into Russia and the Black and Caspian Sea regions, and west to the coastlines of the British Isles, Iceland and Greenland. Evidence exists for Vikings reaching Newfoundland well before the later voyages of Christopher Columbus came to the New World.

Trading and merchant activities were accompanied by settlement and colonization in many of these territories.

By material

Wood and organic materials

Wood was undoubtedly the primary material of choice for Viking artists, being relatively easy to carve, inexpensive, and abundant in northern Europe. The importance of wood as an artistic medium is underscored by chance survivals of wood artistry at the very beginning and end of the Viking period, namely, the Oseberg ship-burial carvings of the early 9th century and the carved decoration of the Urnes Stave Church from the 12th century. As summarised by James Graham-Campbell: "These remarkable survivals allow us to form at least an impression of what we are missing from original corpus of Viking art, although wooden fragments and small-scale carvings in other materials (such as antler, amber, and walrus ivory) provide further hints. The same is inevitably true of the textile arts, although weaving and embroidery were clearly well-developed crafts." Woodworking was used on all sorts of items like ships, furniture, and ceremonial objects.

Stone

With the exception of the Gotlandic picture stones prevalent in Sweden early in the Viking period, stone carving was apparently not practiced elsewhere in Scandinavia until the mid-10th century and the creation of the royal monuments at Jelling in Denmark. Subsequently, and likely influenced by the spread of Christianity, the use of carved stone for permanent memorials became more prevalent.

Metal

Beyond the discontinuous artifactual records of wood and stone, the reconstructed history of Viking art to date relies most on the study of decoration of ornamental metalwork from a great variety of sources. Several types of archaeological context have succeeded in preserving metal objects for present study, while the durability of precious metals, in particular, has preserved much artistic expression and endeavor.

Jewelry was worn by both men and women, though of different types. Married women fastened their overdresses near the shoulder with matching pairs of large brooches. Modern scholars often call them "tortoise brooches" because of their domed shape. The shapes and styles of women's paired brooches varied regionally, but many used openwork. Women often strung metal chains or strings of beads between the brooches or suspended ornaments from the bottom of the brooches. Men wore rings on their fingers, arms and necks, and held their cloaks closed with penannular brooches, often with extravagantly long pins. Their weapons were often richly decorated on areas such as sword hilts. A small number of large and lavish pieces or sets in solid gold have been found, probably belonging to royalty or major figures.

Decorated metalwork of an everyday nature is frequently recovered from Viking period graves, on account of the widespread practice of making burials accompanied by grave goods. The deceased was dressed in their best clothing and jewelry, and was interred with weapons, tools, and household goods. Items were forged by casting, inlay, and engraving. Less common, but significant nonetheless, are finds of precious metal objects in the form of treasure hoards, many apparently concealed for safe-keeping by owners later unable to recover their contents, although some may have been deposited as offerings to the gods.

Recently, given the increasing popularity and legality of metal-detecting, an increasing frequency of single, chance finds of metal objects and ornaments (most probably representing accidental losses) is creating a fast expanding corpus of new material for study.

Viking coins fit well into this latter category, but nonetheless form a separate category of Viking period artefact, their design and decoration largely independent of the developing styles characteristic of wider Viking artistic endeavor.

Forms of Art

Beads

Beads were a significant part of Viking society for a multitude of reasons. They were a form of art commonly made out of glass but also from different types of metals and, more rarely, natural materials such as amber, carnelian, rock crystal, etc. These were used to create pendants and/or beads for Vikings. Typically, beads were globular and monochrome; however, the rarer beads were kaleidoscopic and had unique patterns.

Beads from the Viking age have been found primarily within Viking burial sites like Birka and also in known Viking settlement locations and trading towns like Hedeby. Beads during this era were costly items, so if used for individual purposes, they were an indicator of wealth and high social status; The role of beads in burial sites indicated their cultural significance and value within the Viking Society.

Beads were also a huge drive for trade; The Norse used them as portable wealth and leverage for economic determinism. While Scandivania’s beads were an attraction and gave wealth to early Viking establishments, over time and through widespread trade routes from Viking expansion, Eastern beads became more popular. However, beads were still used as a form of currency and a symbol of wealth. Beads were an incentive for trade further establishing Viking settlement and were a huge part of Viking art and culture.

Textiles

While often less preserved reveal a sophisticated tradition of weaving and embroidery, with silk and wool often adorned with elaborate patterns.

Other sources

A non-visual source of information for Viking art lies in skaldic verse, the complex form of oral poetry composed during the Viking Age and passed on until written down centuries later. Several verses speak of painted forms of decoration that have but rarely survived on wood and stone. The 9th-century skald poet Bragi Boddason, for example, cites four apparently unrelated scenes painted on a shield. One of these scenes depicted the god Thor's fishing expedition, which motif is also referenced in a 10th-century poem by Úlfr Uggason describing the paintings in a newly constructed hall in Iceland.

Origins and background

A continuous artistic tradition common to most of north-western Europe and developing from the 4th century CE formed the foundations on which Viking Age art and decoration were built: from that period onwards, the output of Scandinavian artists was broadly focused on varieties of convoluted animal ornamentation used to decorate a wide variety of objects.

The art historian Bernhard Salin was the first to systematise Germanic animal ornament, dividing it into three styles (I, II, and III). The latter two were subsequently subdivided by Arwidsson into three further styles: Style C, flourishing during the 7th century and into the 8th century, before being largely replaced (especially in southern Scandinavia) by Style D. Styles C and D provided the inspiration for the initial expression of animal ornament within the Viking Age, Style E, commonly known as the Oseberg / Broa Style. Both Styles D and E developed within a broad Scandinavian context which, although in keeping with north-western European animal ornamentation generally, exhibited little influence from beyond Scandinavia.

Academic Research

Although preliminary formulations were made in the late 19th century, the history of Viking art first achieved maturity in the early 20th century with the detailed publication of the ornate wood carvings discovered in 1904 as part of the Oserberg ship-burial by the Norwegian archaeologist Haakon Shetelig.

Importantly, it was the English archaeologist David M. Wilson, working with his Danish colleague Ole Klindt-Jensen to produce the 1966 survey work Viking Art, who created foundations for the systematic characterization of the field still employed today, together with a developed chronological framework.

David Wilson continued to produce mostly English-language studies on Viking art in subsequent years, joined over recent decades by the Norwegian art-historian Signe Horn Fuglesang with her own series of important publications. Together these scholars have combined authority with accessibility to promote the increasing understanding of Viking art as a cultural expression.

Styles

The art of the Viking Age is organized into a loose sequence of stylistic phases which, despite the significant overlap in style and chronology, may be defined and distinguished on account both of formal design elements and of recurring compositions and motifs:

Oseberg Style

Borre Style

Jellinge Style

Mammen Style

Ringerike Style

Urnes Style

Unsurprisingly, these stylistic phases appear in their purest form in Scandinavia itself; elsewhere in the Viking world, notable admixtures from external cultures and influences frequently appear. In the British Isles, for example, art historians identify distinct, 'Insular' versions of Scandinavian motifs, often directly alongside 'pure' Viking decoration.

Oseberg Style

The Oseberg Style characterises the initial phase in what has been considered Viking art. The Oseberg Style takes its name from the Oseberg Ship grave, a well-preserved and highly decorated longship discovered in a large burial mound at the Oseberg farm near Tønsberg in Vestfold, Norway, which also contained a number of other richly decorated wooden objects.

Currently located at the Viking Ship Museum, Bygdøy, and over 70 feet long, the Oseberg Ship held the remains of two women and many precious objects that were probably removed by robbers early before it was found. The Oseberg ship itself is decorated with a more traditional style of animal interlace that does not feature the gripping beast motif. However, five carved wooden animal-head posts were found in the ship, and the one known as the Carolingian animal-head post is decorated with gripping beasts, as are other grave goods from the ship. The Carolingian head represents a snarling beast, possibly a wolf, with surface ornamentation in the form of interwoven animals that twist and turn as they are gripping and snapping.

Broa style

The Broa style, named after a bridle-mount found at Broa, Halla parish, Gotland, is sometimes included with the Oseberg style, and sometimes held as its own.

Borre Style

The Borre Style embraces a range of geometric interlace / knot patterns and zoomorphic (single animal) motifs, first recognised in a group of gilt-bronze harness mounts recovered from a ship grave in Borre mound cemetery near the village of Borre, Vestfold, Norway, and from which the name of the style derives. Borre Style prevailed in Scandinavia from the late 9th through to the late 10th century, a timeframe supported by dendrochronological data supplied from sites with characteristically Borre Style artifacts Found in Brooches

The 'gripping-beast' with a ribbon-shaped body continues as a characteristic of this and earlier styles. As with geometric patterning in this phase, the visual thrust of the Borre Style results from the filling of available space: ribbon animal plaits are tightly interlaced and animal bodies are arranged to create tight, closed compositions. As a result, any background is markedly absent – a characteristic of the Borre Style that contrasts strongly with the more open and fluid compositions that prevailed in the overlapping Jellinge Style.

A more particular diagnostic feature of Borre Style lies in a symmetrical, double-contoured 'ring-chain' (or 'ring-braid'), whose composition consists of interlaced circles separated by transverse bars and a lozenge overlay. The Borre ring-chain occasionally terminates with an animal head in high relief, as seen on strap fittings from Borre and Gokstad.

The ridges of designs in metalwork are often nicked to imitate the filigree wire employed in the finest pieces of craftsmanship.

Jellinge Style

The Jellinge Style is a phase of Scandinavian animal art during the late 10th century. Bridging the earlier Borre style with the later Mammen style. The style is characterized by markedly ribbon -like stylized animal motifs and often band-shaped bodies of animals. It was originally applied to a complex of objects in Jelling, Denmark, such as Gorm's Cup (by King Gorm,) and Harald Bluetooth's great runestone, but more recently the style is included in the Mammen style.

Mammen Style

The Mammen Style takes its name from its type object, an axe recovered from a wealthy male burial marked a mound (Bjerringhø) at Mammen, in Jutland, Denmark (on the basis of dendrochronology, the wood used in construction of the grave chamber was felled in winter 970–971). Richly decorated on both sides with inlaid silver designs, the iron axe was probably a ceremonial parade weapon that was the property of a man of princely status, his burial clothes bearing elaborate embroidery and trimmed with silk and fur.

On one face, the Mammen axe features a large bird with pelleted body, crest, circular eye, and upright head and beak with lappet. A large shell-spiral marks the bird's hip, from which point its thinly elongated wings emerge: the right wing interlaces with the bird's neck, while the left wing interlaces with its body and tail. The outer wing edge displays a semi-circular nick typical of Mammen Style design. The tail is rendered as a triple tendril, the particular treatment of which on the Mammen axe – with open, hook-like ends – forming a characteristic of the Mammen Style as a whole. Complicating the design is the bird's head-lappet, interlacing twice with neck and right wing, whilst also sprouting tendrils along the blade edge. At the top, near the haft, the Mammen axe features an interlaced knot on one side, a triangular human mask (with large nose, moustache and spiral beard) on the other; the latter would prove a favoured Mammen Style motif carried over from earlier styles.

On the other side, the Mammen axe bears a spreading foliate (leaf) design, emanating from spirals at the base with thin, 'pelleted' tendrils spreading and intertwining across the axe head towards the haft.

Ringerike Style

The Ringerike Style receives its name from the Ringerike district north of Oslo, Norway, where the local reddish sandstone was widely employed for carving stones with designs of the style. The type object most commonly used to define the period is a 2.15-metre (7 ft 1 in) high carved stone from Vang in Oppland. Apart from a runic memorial inscription on its right edge, the main field of the Vang Stone is filled with a balanced tendril ornament springing from two shell spirals at the base: the main stems cross twice to terminate in lobed tendrils. At the crossing, further tendrils spring from loops and pear-shaped motifs appear from the tendril centres on the upper loop. Although axial in conception, a basic asymmetry arises in the deposition of the tendrils. Surmounting the tendril pattern appears a large striding animal in double-contoured rendering with spiral hips and a lip lappet. Comparing the Vang Stone animal design with the related animal from the Mammen axe-head, the latter lacks the axiality seen in the Vang Stone and its tendrils are far less disciplined: the Mammen scroll is wavy, while the Vang scroll appears taut and evenly curved, these features marking a key difference between Mammen and Ringerike ornament. The inter-relationship between the two styles is obvious, however, when comparing the Vang Stone animal with that found on the Jelling Stone.

With regard to metalwork, Ringerike Style is best seen in two copper-gilt weather-vanes, from Källunge, Gotland and from Söderala, Hälsingland (the Söderala vane), both in Sweden. The former displays one face two axially-constructed loops in the form of snakes, which in turn sprout symmetrically-placed tendrils. The snake heads, as well as the animal and snake on the reverse, find more florid treatment than on the Vang Stone: all have lip lappets, the snakes bear pigtails, while all animals have a pear-shaped eye with the point directed towards the snout – a diagnostic feature of Ringerike Style.

The Ringerike Style evolved out of the earlier Mammen Style. It received its name from a group of runestones with animal and plant motifs in the Ringerike district north of Oslo. The most common motifs are lions, birds, band-shaped animals and spirals. Some elements appear for the first time in Scandinavian art, such as different types of crosses, palmettes and pretzel-shaped nooses that tie together two motifs. Most of the motifs have counterparts in Anglo-Saxon, Insular and Ottonian art.

Urnes Style

The Urnes Style was the last phase of Scandinavian animal art during the second half of the 11th century and in the early 12th century. The Urnes Style is named after the northern gate of the Urnes stave church in Norway, but most objects in the style are runestones in Uppland, Sweden, which is why some scholars prefer to call it the Runestone style.

The style is characterized by slim and stylised animals that are interwoven into tight patterns. The animals heads are seen in profile, they have slender almond-shaped eyes and there are upwardly curled appendages on the noses and the necks.

Early Urnes Style

The early style has received a dating which is mainly based on runestone U 343, runestone U 344 and a silver bowl from c. 1050, which was found at Lilla Valla. The early version of this style on runestones comprises England Runestones referring to the Danegeld and Canute the Great and works by Åsmund Kåresson.

Mid-Urnes Style

The mid-Urnes Style has received a relatively firm dating based on its appearance on coins issued by Harald Hardrada (1047–1066) and by Olav Kyrre (1080–1090). Two wood carvings from Oslo have been dated to c. 1050–1100 and the Hørning plank is dated by dendrochronology to c. 1060–1070. There is, however, evidence suggesting that the mid-Urnes style was developed before 1050 in the manner it is represented by the runemasters Fot and Balli.

Late Urnes Style

The mid-Urnes Style would stay popular side by side with the late Urnes style of the runemaster Öpir. He is famous for a style in which the animals are extremely thin and make circular patterns in open compositions. This style was not unique to Öpir and Sweden, but it also appears on a plank from Bølstad and on a chair from Trondheim, Norway.

The Jarlabanke Runestones show traits both from this late style and from the mid-Urnes style of Fot and Balli, and it was the Fot-Balli type that would mix with the Romanesque style in the 12th century.

Urnes-Romanesque Style

The Urnes-Romanesque Style does not appear on runestones which suggests that the tradition of making runestones had died out when the mixed style made its appearance since it is well represented in Gotland and on the Swedish mainland. The Urnes-Romanesque Style can be dated independently of style thanks to representations from Oslo in the period 1100–1175, dendrochronological dating of the Lisbjerg frontal in Denmark to 1135, as well as Irish reliquaries that are dated to the second half of the 12th century.

International inspiration

Viking art has clear characteristics that distinguish it from the art traditions of neighboring cultures. One example is the bowl clasps, which are the most widespread jewelry items from the Viking Age. They were used as clasps on the upper part of women's dresses. The decoration on them was conservative, and only few stylistic changes can be traced over a period of about 400 years.. However, Iben Skibsted Klæsøe has collected a number of other stylistic features whose origins can be traced to specific areas in the Vikings' neighboring countries. For example, the geometric patterns and animal ornaments are found in Irish book illustrations from about the 6th to the 8th centuries. They are characterized by coiled and braided animal bodies and a number of plant motifs.

Another widespread group of finds are the three-lobed fibulae, which, together with the cup buckles, were part of women's standard jewellery. They were used to gather and hold a shawl or similar on the chest. Within this group, several variations and fashion trends have been found that were inspired by southwestern European traditions. In the Frankish Empire, this type of fibula was used as sword scabbard fittings, and the first examples were probably brought home by men who had served as mercenaries and used as gifts for women. However, uniqueness was not a distinctive feature of Nordic art, as European art in the early Middle Ages was generally characterised by large local variations. Skibsted Klæsøe notes that the nature of the objects apparently had some influence on which form of decoration was chosen. For example, vines and acanthus leaves, which gradually gained ground in Nordic art, were initially only used on the three-lobed fibula buckles. The most important foreign trends were symbolic Christian paradise figures in the form of lions, birds and vines, as well as the imperial/divine acanthus plants. 

The most widespread European style in the early Middle Ages was the Insular style, which had its roots in the Irish-Anglo-Saxon tradition, but which was spread throughout Western Europe through monasteries. Another British technique that gained popularity in the Nordic countries was ring pins with filigree in silver and inlaid amber or glass. There was even an influence from Middle Eastern traditions from the British Isles. In the 7th and 8th centuries, there was a clear Syrian influence in the English clergy due to the establishment of several Syrian monastic colonies, including Lindisfarne. The background was that several Syrians were elected popes, and they brought many monks with them to Western Europe. These monks brought with them, among other things, a slightly more graceful style with motifs of vines and birds depicted in pairs in the branches. Vines are explained in the Gospel of John, chap. 15;1 as a symbol of the church. This meant that the English animal style approached oriental styles and became more naturalistic. The animals had elongated bodies, but not distorted as in the Nordic style. These elongated shapes are found on Nordic bowl buckles from about the 9th to the 11th century, where they were often combined with traditional Nordic griffins. Skibsted Klæsøe believes that although the Christian motifs were thus often present in the motif language, they were used without their real meaning being fully understood until well into the 10th century. 

From the late 9th century to about the 950s, the Frankish acanthus style appears in Nordic decorations. This style had flourished in the Frankish Empire under Charlemagne in the 8th to 9th centuries. It is based on Greco-Roman traditions and is known, for example, from capital decorations on columns of the Corinthian type. The motifs are based on Mediterranean flora and are named after acanthus. The classical inspiration in the art of Charlemagne's empire reflects the emperor's intentions to recreate the Roman Empire. The artistic environment he built up was part of the Carolingian Renaissance. This environment was international, and influences therefore came from many places, including Syria and the Byzantine Empire in addition to the rest of Western and Southern Europe. For example, lion motifs of Byzantine origin were spread throughout Northern and Western Europe at the beginning of the 8th century. In the Nordic countries, lions were quickly incorporated into the local style. It has been suggested that refugees from the iconoclastic conflicts may have brought with them ornate gene stands and thereby inspired new motifs. Fibulae inspired by the Frankish style from around the 9th century are concentrated around Uppland in Sweden, suggesting strong connections between this area and Central Europe at that time. 

Both the Middle Eastern vine and the Frankish acanthus styles made their mark in the Nordic countries about 100 years after their emergence in their homelands. In the latter half of the 9th century, Frankish acanthus and British vine ornamentation merged in continental art. This new hybrid form later inspired the plant decoration in late Viking Age art. 

Literature and poetry

Literature was passed down orally, even though people had a written language. The runes were not suitable for actually writing down long texts. Written culture was not unknown, however, as it existed in several of the neighboring countries. Preben Meulengracht Sørensen believes that the runic monuments of the Viking Age can be interpreted as an incipient written culture, but that the reason it only emerged in the Nordic countries after the change of religion was that there was simply no need for it before then. Poetry had an important position in Nordic culture, and skilled bards had a high status in society, they were authorities in everything that had to do with language and communication. Throughout the entire period, there was also a close connection between poetry and images; bard poetry, with its artful and formalistic expression, where only form could give a stanza content, constituted a linguistic counterpart to the meandering pictorial style of the time. The genre contained many conventions, but still left plenty of room for innovations for the skilled poet. 

Myths were also retold in poetry, but in a simpler and more conservative form, called edda poems. In this type of poem, the emphasis was on simplicity and the dissemination of collective knowledge. Unlike the skaldic poems, they were not attributed to an original author, but were perceived as having originated in the distant past. Preben Meulengracht Sørensen believes that the genres and metrics that characterize the edda form were developed in the 9th century, and that the poems that have survived to this day were probably written around that time. However, there was never a single fixed form of the individual poems until they were written down in the Middle Ages, after they had lost their religious significance. Norse poetry assumed that the listener already possessed mythological and historical knowledge, as the story was often conveyed in fragmentary form. The story itself usually consisted of a single or several scenes, taken out of the mythological context. Several poems had a frame narrative, where the narrator addressed the audience directly. In general, there were two types of Edda poems, the knowledge poems and the epic poems. 

Literature and images

In Nordic culture there was a very close connection between visual and oral art, images carved in stone, carved in wood, woven on carpets, painted on wood, etc. have certainly served as inspiration for poets and mythologists who wrote poetry based on the images in which the central scenes of the myths were reproduced. Among other things, the story of Thor and the Midgard Serpent is preserved in five different skaldic poems, in the Edda poem Hymiskvidjá and in the Younger Edda, but also from several picture stones. In the five poems the story is told based on exactly the same motif, which is reproduced on the picture stones, where Thor has the serpent on his hook, while he has raised his hammer. A stone cross from Kirk Andreas on the Isle of Man is another example of mythological images. Here a scene from the Vølvens spådom is reproduced, which was used as an image of chaos and destruction, to illustrate death.

Another image that could serve as inspiration for poets comes from Hunnestad from around the year 1000. It shows a person riding a wild animal and using a snake as a rein. It has traditionally been interpreted as the giantess Hyrrokin, but Preben Meulengracht Sørensen points out that similar figures are known from other myths; and that the motif must have had an independent meaning that could be used both in isolation and as part of another story; for example, Snorri Sturlasson may have been inspired by such images for the scene with Hyrrokin arriving at Balder's pyre in his own story. Not all images therefore necessarily referred to specific myths, but were motifs that could be woven into different stories. In other cases, the connection is more unambiguous, for example the images of Thor and the Snake,. Similarly, several portraits of Sigurd Fafnersbane are known. Images were clearly important to ancient people, many decorated objects have been found. Alexandra Persch suggests that they may have been seen as a more important or correct way to convey mythical material than text. 

Accrual accounting

Art was not the same throughout the Viking Age, but the development of art was characterized by short-lived innovative periods, where a new style found its form. These were replaced by longer, more conservative periods. A significant innovation was the introduction of stone sculptures in the late Viking Age. When a style came into use, it did not completely replace the previous one, but they often existed side by side for a longer period. And from the Viking Age only a few and very small figures are known in comparison to the Roman Iron Age, from which a number of Roman or locally made statues originate. Instead, three-dimensional art was mostly made as heads, mostly of animals, which were used to highlight joints and ends on, for example, boxes and carts. 

Viking Age art can be divided into two main periods. The transition between them occurred around the middle of the 10th century and coincides with the transition between the early and late Viking Age in the 950s. This is also the time of the construction of the North Mound in Jelling. Early Viking Age art, from the end of the 8th century to the middle of the 10th century, is a further development of the raptor style from the Germanic Iron Age. The origin (around the 4th century possibly) of this style is debated. Skibsted Klæsøe points out that there are several parallels in contemporary art, for example, lion motifs were very common in Byzantine art, while the development of style in Western European art around the 7th century went from naturalism to more abstract banded animals. Early art actually consisted of a variety of styles. But the transition to the Viking Age meant, overall, that the band-shaped animals of the Iron Age were replaced by twisted cat-like predators. The development forward included a gradual stylization of the depicted animals, so that towards the end of the period they could no longer be determined zoologically. Alongside animal motifs, ring chains, pretzel patterns and exotic plant motifs were common, the latter in particular being a result of foreign influence, and showing the increased international contacts in the Nordic countries. 

According to archaeologist Lise Gjedssø Bertelsen, the art of the late Viking Age can generally be described as a refined play with lines and symbolic language linked to religious ideas. Colouring has been an integral part of the representation and has had a great impact on the expression. The style was a further development of traditional Nordic art with inspiration from British insular style in particular. Christian symbols now took on a greater and more central importance in the art. Although the styles were common to the Nordic countries and overlapped in time, Gjedssø Bertelsen believes that in several cases they may be particularly linked to specific kings; for example, the peak of the Mammen style coincided with the reign of Harald Bluetooth, while Ringerike did so with Canute the Great. 

Motif and structure are of great importance for the understanding of art. Symbols referred to other myths and stories, and could thereby give meaning to the individual object. A common example was, as in the previous one, the acanthus leaf, which was a symbol of the Tree of Life. In this period, it was particularly identified with the cross. The composition of the image is important for its understanding. And from Western European art, a new hierarchical arrangement of images came in this period. At the top, in the middle and/or on the center line was now the most prominent location, which was a reflection of the Christian monotheistic worldview. A figure that was placed with its face forward had eye contact with the viewer and gained authority, as it could thereby communicate. A position in profile had a more referential function. The periphery was of low status. 

Religion and iconography

Images and decorations are, together with the runes, the most important sources of Norse religion from pre-Christian times, as they represent the only contemporary remains of the religious ideas of the pagan era. This gives the study of image representations a key position in the study of Norse religion. 

Images with clear religious motifs have been found throughout the Nordic region, dating back a long time. From around the 5th century onwards, some motifs can be interpreted as early versions of deities known to us from later sources, but it is not until the Viking Age that we can connect motifs with known stories with relative certainty. However, images from the Viking Age are also known that illustrate stories that are unknown today and therefore impossible to interpret. In order to understand ancient images, it is necessary to use medieval literature, as no mythological texts have been handed down from that period. Studies of the images also show that people in the Nordic region had a special understanding of images, where they often functioned as a form of compressed texts. This also means that interpreting them required prior knowledge of the background history. One example is the Gotland picture stone. Their motifs can in many cases be interpreted as representations of known myths; in some cases the connection is clear, in others it is more ambiguous, while in still others we cannot connect them to any known myth. 

Afterlife in Romanesque art

The oldest stone churches built in the Romanesque style and the first frescoes probably date from the 1080s. After that, the Romanesque style quickly became dominant. This does not mean that the old Nordic style disappeared completely immediately, as in the first decades until 1150 there was a mixed style, where elements from the two styles could even appear on the same object. Art historian Lise Gotfredsen believes that this mixture was used quite deliberately. In Romanesque art, the distinction between lush and life-giving nature and chaotic and dangerous nature is a main theme. Her suggestion is that the old animal style with its distorted patterns represents chaos, while the new, stricter Romanesque style represents order. According to her, this distinction functions as an image of the kingdom of God versus evil. An example is the outer walls of the church, which symbolically mark the transition between the two domains; the kingdom of God and the profane world. The transition is reflected in the decoration around the entrance portals. They are often decorated with motifs where chaotic, tangled patterns, sometimes executed in the old urn style, are juxtaposed with patterns in strict geometric order. Another example is the altar from Lisbjerg Church. Here Gotfredsen has suggested that elements from the urn style are mixed with Romanesque ones with the aim of creating a symbolic representation of man's journey towards the divine. She believes that this journey is shown by means of a progression from the old chaotic style to the new pure style. 

Around 1100, a clear English influence can still be traced in Nordic art. But after that it gradually disappears, to be replaced instead by German and Lombard influence. Gotfredsen believes that this is apparently a result of the establishment of the Nordic archbishopric in Lund in 1103 and the cathedral construction that was started immediately afterwards. After 1150, the French influence becomes dominant, as the early Gothic style spread from there throughout Europe. 

Conservation

The art objects that have survived to our day consist mostly of applied art, which was intended to decorate everyday objects; for example, clothing, tools, weapons, kitchen utensils, ships and carriages. The majority of the art objects that have been preserved to our time have been found in graves, and of these, most are made of metal or stone. Only in rare cases have wood and textiles survived, although they were probably the most commonly used materials for art objects. These remains show that the Vikings also decorated these types of materials to a large extent. Small metal art is therefore known in large quantities from graves and treasure finds. 

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Viking metalworking and jewelry

Viking jewelry intricate and masterful artistry, with a strong preference for silver. The two methods most used by the Vikings were filigree and repoussé. The main themes in Viking jewelry are patterns of nature and animals, increasing in abstraction as the time period progressed. Later Viking jewelry also starts to exhibit simplistic geometric patterns. The most intricate Viking work recovered is a set of two bands from the 6th century in Alleberg, Sweden. Barbarian jewelry was very similar to that of the Vikings, having many of the same themes. Geometric and abstract patterns were present in much of barbarian art. Like other barbarian women Viking women needed jewelry to keep their clothes on.

Arts and crafts

In the Viking Age, both craftsmen and artists were referred to by the same word, smith (Old Norse: smidr), sometimes combining it with the material they worked in; a carpenter could, for example, be referred to as a tresmidr. Gunsmiths and shipsmiths had high status in Nordic society, but we do not know what the status of jewelers and other artisans was. Elaborately crafted jewelry made of precious metals was used to signal wealth and prestige. Gold and silver were used for the most distinguished objects, either in pure form or embedded as decoration in other materials. Precious metals were imported from the rest of Europe – either as jewelry or coins – and melted down. In the Roman and Germanic Iron Ages, large quantities of gold were imported, and some of it may have been reused in the Viking Age. Objects from foreign countries are usually made of gold or silver, decorated objects were luxury products (luxury objects of high value were easier to transport). Jewellery was also made from less noble metals, especially bronze, which was gilded or silvered to make it appear as if it were made from more expensive materials. During the 10th century, production sites for particularly exclusive items were established in Denmark. Until then, the most exclusive jewellery had been produced abroad. Otherwise, local craftsmen had only produced items from cheaper materials and using simpler techniques. 

Artists and craftsmen of the time were generally anonymous, the only ones who could sign their works were the rune carvers. Trends in art and craft were conveyed by itinerant craftsmen (Nordic and European), traders, missionaries and warriors. 

The art of the time was characterized by contrast, color, and harmonious movement. The style was flashy, but the best artists executed individual elements with the same care as the whole, so that the ornamentation can only be seen very close up. Overall, a certain figurative language and style were common throughout the period. The same applies to the motifs; new ones were not simply invented. Alexandra Persch therefore suggests that specialists may have produced the images. The figurative language was different from that prevalent in modern times, as events that were otherwise chronologically separate in a story were often depicted as appearing simultaneously on the picture field, so that the individual scenes of the story are put together so that they function as a whole. The majority of the decorations were found on everyday objects, and a recurring motif throughout the period was stylized animal figures, often designed in complicated patterns. Animals as a motif have long traditions in European art, but Nordic art is characterized by a close connection between decoration and object, where the ornamentation is made as an integrated part of the object. 

In most cases the patterns were non-figurative, and their meaning is therefore difficult to interpret. Preben Meulengracht Sørensen has suggested that they may have had no meaning other than ornamentation. The decoration with raptors usually shows, like the pictures that illustrate stories, a moment in the middle of a scene where it is up to the viewer's imagination what happens next; for example, a predator about to pounce on another animal. Plant motifs flourished in the first half of the Viking Age, but disappeared again around the year 1000. 

Metalworking

Beyond the discontinuous artifactual records of wood and stone, the reconstructed history of Viking art to date relies most on the study of decoration of ornamental metalwork from a great variety of sources. Several types of archaeological context have succeeded in preserving metal objects for present study, while the durability of precious metals, in particular, has preserved much artistic expression and endeavor.

Jewelry was worn by both men and women, though of different types. Married women fastened their overdresses near the shoulder with matching pairs of large brooches. Modern scholars often call them "tortoise brooches" because of their domed shape. The shapes and styles of women's paired brooches varied regionally, but many used openwork. Women often strung metal chains or strings of beads between the brooches or suspended ornaments from the bottom of the brooches. Men wore rings on their fingers, arms and necks, and held their cloaks closed with penannular brooches, often with extravagantly long pins. Their weapons were often richly decorated on areas such as sword hilts. A small number of large and lavish pieces or sets in solid gold have been found, probably belonging to royalty or major figures.

Decorated metalwork of an everyday nature is frequently recovered from Viking period graves, on account of the widespread practice of making burials accompanied by grave goods. The deceased was dressed in their best clothing and jewelry, and was interred with weapons, tools, and household goods. Items were forged by casting, inlay, and engraving. Less common, but significant nonetheless, are finds of precious metal objects in the form of treasure hoards, many apparently concealed for safe-keeping by owners later unable to recover their contents, although some may have been deposited as offerings to the gods.

Recently, given the increasing popularity and legality of metal-detecting, an increasing frequency of single, chance finds of metal objects and ornaments (most probably representing accidental losses) is creating a fast expanding corpus of new material for study.

Viking coins fit well into this latter category, but nonetheless form a separate category of Viking period artefact, their design and decoration largely independent of the developing styles characteristic of wider Viking artistic endeavor.

Beads

Beads were a significant part of Viking society for a multitude of reasons. They were a form of art commonly made out of glass but also from different types of metals and, more rarely, natural materials such as amber, carnelian, rock crystal, etc. These were used to create pendants and/or beads for Vikings. Typically, beads were globular and monochrome; however, the rarer beads were kaleidoscopic and had unique patterns.

Beads from the Viking age have been found primarily within Viking burial sites like Birka and also in known Viking settlement locations and trading towns like Hedeby. Beads during this era were costly items, so if used for individual purposes, they were an indicator of wealth and high social status; The role of beads in burial sites indicated their cultural significance and value within the Viking Society.

Beads were also a huge drive for trade; The Norse used them as portable wealth and leverage for economic determinism. While Scandivania’s beads were an attraction and gave wealth to early Viking establishments, over time and through widespread trade routes from Viking expansion, Eastern beads became more popular. However, beads were still used as a form of currency and a symbol of wealth. Beads were an incentive for trade further establishing Viking settlement and were a huge part of Viking art and culture.

Styles

Archaeologists have classified the two main periods of Viking art into seven main styles: Broa (formerly Oseberg), Berdal, Borre, Jelling, Mammen, Ringerike and Urness style. Extensive studies of the decorations have shown a chronological development of the styles; therefore, today, decorations on excavated objects are often used to make an approximate date for them. Each of them is named after the location of prominent objects decorated in the style in question; for example, the Jelling style, with its prominent animal figures, was named after findings in one of the royal burial mounds in Jelling. The Ringerike style, characterized by elaborate plant decorations, is named after an area in Norway where a number of images carved into sandstone were found. The youngest style was named after a carved wooden door section in the Urnes stave church in Sognefjorden. Overview of styles in Viking Age material art:

The Broa style, named after Broa on Gotland, was used from the second half of the 8th century to the beginning of the 9th century. Like both the preceding and succeeding styles, it is characterized by stylized animal figures, either designed as twisted ribbons or with more rounded shapes.

The Oseberg style has great similarities to the Broa style, but the animals here are equipped with claws that grasp either themselves or something else; these figures are called griffins, and are prevalent from around 800 to around 875. It is the Oseberg grave from 834 that gives the style its name.

The Berdal style is named after a locality in the Sognefjord. It is characterized by asymmetrical elongated animals with rounded bodies and triangular heads. Known from the late 8th century to the early 9th century. Ribe has apparently been the main production site for bowl buckles in this style. 

The Borre style is named after two pieces of gilded bronze harness found at Borre in Norway. They are decorated in a more geometric and formalized pattern of compound circles or squares than previously used. The style is primarily known from decorations on personal objects from about 850 and 100 years later. Objects in the Borre style have been found not only in Scandinavia, but throughout Northern Europe from Iceland to Russia. The style appears alongside English-inspired vine motifs. 

The Jelling style was widespread in the first half of the 10th century, and is primarily characterized by ribbon-shaped animals that intertwine in S-curves. Decorations in this style are also known from finds outside Scandinavia. It is contemporary with late Carolingian acanthus and plant vine ornamentation, which in several cases appear next to each other on objects. 

The Mammen style is named after the objects from a well-equipped nobleman's grave from Mammen in northwestern Jutland. Like the Ringerike style, it is characterized by semi-naturalistic motifs surrounded by intertwined plant vines, which are a fusion of Carolingian acanthus and Nordic animal style. It was widespread in the latter half of the 10th century. The style was perhaps especially associated with the circle around the Danish royal house, and perhaps even directly inspired by the decoration on the great Jelling stone. 

The Ringerike style was apparently limited to the Ringerike region in southwestern Norway, where there are large deposits of the reddish sandstones that this style is particularly known from. Like the Mammen style, it is characterized by animals that are almost hidden in creepers.

The Urness style is the youngest style. It originated around 1050 and was widespread throughout Scandinavia until the 12th century. It is characterized by more stylized and thinner animals than the previous styles. Iben Klæsøe characterizes it as more stylistically monotonous, less lively and diverse than the previous styles. They are usually surrounded by elegant patterns with multiple loops. The encircling plant tendrils in the two previous styles have disappeared in this style, and are instead integrated into the motif. 

Around the turn of the 11th and 12th centuries, the traditional Nordic style was replaced by the international Romanesque style. This led to a renewal of motifs and the symbolic imagery. 

International inspiration

Viking art has clear characteristics that distinguish it from the art traditions of neighboring cultures. One example is the bowl clasps, which are the most widespread jewelry items from the Viking Age. They were used as clasps on the upper part of women's dresses. The decoration on them was conservative, and only few stylistic changes can be traced over a period of about 400 years.. However, Iben Skibsted Klæsøe has collected a number of other stylistic features whose origins can be traced to specific areas in the Vikings' neighboring countries. For example, the geometric patterns and animal ornaments are found in Irish book illustrations from about the 6th to the 8th centuries. They are characterized by coiled and braided animal bodies and a number of plant motifs.

Another widespread group of finds are the three-lobed fibulae, which, together with the cup buckles, were part of women's standard jewellery. They were used to gather and hold a shawl or similar on the chest. Within this group, several variations and fashion trends have been found that were inspired by southwestern European traditions. In the Frankish Empire, this type of fibula was used as sword scabbard fittings, and the first examples were probably brought home by men who had served as mercenaries and used as gifts for women. However, uniqueness was not a distinctive feature of Nordic art, as European art in the early Middle Ages was generally characterised by large local variations. Skibsted Klæsøe notes that the nature of the objects apparently had some influence on which form of decoration was chosen. For example, vines and acanthus leaves, which gradually gained ground in Nordic art, were initially only used on the three-lobed fibula buckles. The most important foreign trends were symbolic Christian paradise figures in the form of lions, birds and vines, as well as the imperial/divine acanthus plants. 

The most widespread European style in the early Middle Ages was the Insular style, which had its roots in the Irish-Anglo-Saxon tradition, but which was spread throughout Western Europe through monasteries. Another British technique that gained popularity in the Nordic countries was ring pins with filigree in silver and inlaid amber or glass. There was even an influence from Middle Eastern traditions from the British Isles. In the 7th and 8th centuries, there was a clear Syrian influence in the English clergy due to the establishment of several Syrian monastic colonies, including Lindisfarne. The background was that several Syrians were elected popes, and they brought many monks with them to Western Europe. These monks brought with them, among other things, a slightly more graceful style with motifs of vines and birds depicted in pairs in the branches. Vines are explained in the Gospel of John, chap. 15;1 as a symbol of the church. This meant that the English animal style approached oriental styles and became more naturalistic. The animals had elongated bodies, but not distorted as in the Nordic style. These elongated shapes are found on Nordic bowl buckles from about the 9th to the 11th century, where they were often combined with traditional Nordic griffins. Skibsted Klæsøe believes that although the Christian motifs were thus often present in the motif language, they were used without their real meaning being fully understood until well into the 10th century. 

From the late 9th century to about the 950s, the Frankish acanthus style appears in Nordic decorations. This style had flourished in the Frankish Empire under Charlemagne in the 8th to 9th centuries. It is based on Greco-Roman traditions and is known, for example, from capital decorations on columns of the Corinthian type. The motifs are based on Mediterranean flora and are named after acanthus. The classical inspiration in the art of Charlemagne's empire reflects the emperor's intentions to recreate the Roman Empire. The artistic environment he built up was part of the Carolingian Renaissance. This environment was international, and influences therefore came from many places, including Syria and the Byzantine Empire in addition to the rest of Western and Southern Europe. For example, lion motifs of Byzantine origin were spread throughout Northern and Western Europe at the beginning of the 8th century. In the Nordic countries, lions were quickly incorporated into the local style. It has been suggested that refugees from the iconoclastic conflicts may have brought with them ornate gene stands and thereby inspired new motifs. Fibulae inspired by the Frankish style from around the 9th century are concentrated around Uppland in Sweden, suggesting strong connections between this area and Central Europe at that time. 

Both the Middle Eastern vine and the Frankish acanthus styles made their mark in the Nordic countries about 100 years after their emergence in their homelands. In the latter half of the 9th century, Frankish acanthus and British vine ornamentation merged in continental art. This new hybrid form later inspired the plant decoration in late Viking Age art. 

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Ottonian art

Ottonian art is a style in pre-romanesque German art, covering also some works from the Low Countries, northern Italy and eastern France. It was named by the art historian Hubert Janitschek after the Ottonian dynasty which ruled Germany and Northern Italy between 919 and 1024 under the kings Henry I, Otto I, Otto II, Otto III and Henry II. With Ottonian architecture, it is a key component of the Ottonian Renaissance (circa 951–1024). However, the style neither began nor ended to neatly coincide with the rule of the dynasty. It emerged some decades into their rule and persisted past the Ottonian emperors into the reigns of the early Salian dynasty, which lacks an artistic "style label" of its own. In the traditional scheme of art history, Ottonian art follows Carolingian art and precedes Romanesque art, though the transitions at both ends of the period are gradual rather than sudden. Like the former and unlike the latter, it was very largely a style restricted to a few of the small cities of the period, and important monasteries, as well as the court circles of the emperor and his leading vassals.

After the decline of the Carolingian Empire, the Holy Roman Empire was re-established under the Saxon Ottonian dynasty. From this emerged a renewed faith in the idea of Empire and a reformed Church, creating a period of heightened cultural and artistic fervour. It was in this atmosphere that masterpieces were created that fused the traditions from which Ottonian artists derived their inspiration: models of Late Antique, Carolingian, and Byzantine origin. Surviving Ottonian art is very largely religious, in the form of illuminated manuscripts and metalwork, and was produced in a small number of centres for a narrow range of patrons in the circle of the Imperial court, as well as important figures in the church. However much of it was designed for display to a wider public, especially of pilgrims.

The style is generally grand and heavy, sometimes to excess, and initially less sophisticated than the Carolingian equivalents, with less direct influence from Byzantine art and less understanding of its classical models, but around 1000 a striking intensity and expressiveness emerge in many works, as "a solemn monumentality is combined with a vibrant inwardness, an unworldly, visionary quality with sharp attention to actuality, surface patterns of flowing lines and rich bright colours with passionate emotionalism".

Context

Following late Carolingian styles, "presentation portraits" of the patrons of manuscripts are very prominent in Ottonian art, and much Ottonian art reflected the dynasty's desire to establish visually a link to the Christian rulers of Late Antiquity, such as Constantine, Theoderic, and Justinian as well as to their Carolingian predecessors, particularly Charlemagne. This goal was accomplished in various ways. For example, the many Ottonian ruler portraits typically include elements, such as province personifications, or representatives of the military and the Church flanking the emperor, with a lengthy imperial iconographical history.

As well as the reuse of motifs from older imperial art, the removal of spolia from Late Antique structures in Rome and Ravenna and their incorporation into Ottonian buildings was a device intended to suggest imperial continuity. This was clearly the intention of Otto I when he removed columns, some of porphyry, and other building materials from the Palace of Theoderic in Ravenna and reused them in his new cathedral at Magdeburg. The one thing the ruler portraits rarely attempt is a close likeness of the individual features of a ruler; when Otto III died, some manuscript images of him were re-purposed as portraits of Henry II without the need being felt to change the features.

In a continuation and intensification of late Carolingian trends, many miniatures contain presentation miniatures depicting the donors of the manuscripts to a church, including bishops, abbots and abbesses, and also the emperor. In some cases successive miniatures show a kind of relay: in the Hornbach Sacramentary the scribe presents the book to his abbot, who presents it to St Pirmin, founder of Hornbach Abbey, who presents it to St Peter, who presents it to Christ, altogether taking up eight pages (with the facing illuminated tablets) to stress the unity and importance of the "command structure" binding church and state, on earth and in heaven.

Byzantine art also remained an influence, especially with the marriage of the Greek princess Theophanu to Otto II, and imported Byzantine elements, especially enamels and ivories, are often incorporated into Ottonian metalwork such as book covers. However, if there were actual Greek artists working in Germany in the period, they have left less trace than their predecessors in Carolingian times. The manuscripts were both scribed and illuminated by monks with specialized skills, some of whose names are preserved, but there is no evidence as to the artists who worked in metal, enamel and ivory, who are usually assumed to have been laymen, though there were some monastic goldsmiths in the Early Medieval period, and some lay brothers and lay assistants employed by monasteries. While secular jewellery supplied a steady stream of work for goldsmiths, ivory carving at this period was mainly for the church, and may have been centred in monasteries, although wall-paintings seems to have been usually done by laymen.

Manuscripts

Ottonian monasteries produced many magnificent medieval illuminated manuscripts. They were a major art form of the time, and monasteries received direct sponsorship from emperors and bishops, having the best in equipment and talent available. The range of heavily illuminated texts was very largely restricted (unlike in the Carolingian Renaissance) to the main liturgical books, with very few secular works being so treated.

In contrast to manuscripts of other periods, it is very often possible to say with certainty who commissioned or received a manuscript, but not where it was made. Some manuscripts also include relatively extensive cycles of narrative art, such as the sixteen pages of the Codex Aureus of Echternach devoted to "strips" in three tiers with scenes from the life of Christ and his parables. Heavily illuminated manuscripts were given rich treasure bindings and their pages were probably seen by very few; when they were carried in the grand processions of Ottonian churches it seems to have been with the book closed to display the cover.

The Ottonian style did not produce surviving manuscripts from before about the 960s, when books known as the "Eburnant group" were made, perhaps at Lorsch, as several miniatures in the Gero Codex (now Darmstadt), the earliest and grandest of the group, copy those in the Carolingian Lorsch Gospels. This is the first stylistic group of the traditional "Reichenau school". The two other major manuscripts of the group are the sacramentaries named for Hornbach and Petershausen. In the group of four presentation miniatures in the former described above "we can almost follow... the movement away from the expansive Carolingian idiom to the more sharply defined Ottonian one".

A number of important manuscripts produced from this period onwards in a distinctive group of styles are usually attributed to the scriptorium of the island monastery of Reichenau in Lake Constance, despite an admitted lack of evidence connecting them to the monastery there. C. R. Dodwell was one of a number of dissident voices here, believing the works to have been produced at Lorsch and Trier instead. Wherever it was located, the "Reichenau school" specialized in gospel books and other liturgical books, many of them, such as the Munich Gospels of Otto III (c. 1000) and the Pericopes of Henry II (Munich, Bayerische Nationalbibl. clm. 4452, c. 1001–1024), imperial commissions. Due to their exceptional quality, the manuscripts of Reichenau were in 2003 added to UNESCO's Memory of the World International Register.

The most important "Reichenau school" manuscripts are agreed to fall into three distinct groups, all named after scribes whose names are recorded in their books. The "Eburnant group" covered above was followed by the "Ruodprecht group" named after the scribe of the Egbert Psalter; Dodwell assigns this group to Trier. The Aachen Gospels of Otto III, also known as the Liuthar Gospels, give their name to the third "Liuthar group" of manuscripts, most from the 11th century, in a strongly contrasting style, though still attributed by most scholars to Reichenau, but by Dodwell also to Trier.

The outstanding miniaturist of the "Ruodprecht group" was the so-called Master of the Registrum Gregorii, or Gregory Master, whose work looked back in some respects to Late Antique manuscript painting, and whose miniatures are notable for "their delicate sensibility to tonal grades and harmonies, their fine sense of compositional rhythms, their feelings for the relationship of figures in space, and above all their special touch of reticence and poise". He worked chiefly in Trier in the 970s and 980s, and was responsible for several miniatures in the influential Codex Egberti, a gospel lectionary made for Archbishop Egbert of Trier, probably in the 980s. However, the majority of the 51 images in this book, which represent the first extensive cycle of images depicting the events of Christ's life in a western European manuscript, were made by two monks from Reichenau, who are named and depicted in one of the miniatures.

The style of the "Liuthar group" is very different, and departs further from rather than returning to classical traditions; it "carried transcendentalism to an extreme", with "marked schematization of the forms and colours", "flattened form, conceptualized draperies and expansive gesture". Backgrounds are often composed of bands of colour with a symbolic rather than naturalistic rationale, the size of figures reflects their importance, and in them "emphasis is not so much on movement as in gesture and glance", with narrative scenes "presented as a quasi-liturgical act, dialogues of divinity". This gestural "dumb-show soon to be conventionalized as a visual language throughout medieval Europe".

The group were produced perhaps from the 990s to 1015 or later, and major manuscripts include the Munich Gospels of Otto III, the Bamberg Apocalypse and a volume of biblical commentary there, and the Pericopes of Henry II, the best known and most extreme of the group, where "the figure-style has become more monumental, more rarified and sublime, at the same time thin in density, insubstantial, mere silhouettes of colour against a shimmering void". The group introduced the background of solid gold to Western illumination.

Two dedication miniatures added to the Egmond Gospels around 975 show a less accomplished Netherlandish version of Ottonian style. In Regensburg St. Emmeram's Abbey held the major Carolingian Codex Aureus of St. Emmeram, which probably influenced a style with "an incisive line and highly formal organization of the page", giving in the Uta Codex of c. 1020 complex schemes where "bands of gold outline the bold, squares circles, ellipses, and rhombs that enclose the figures", and inscriptions are incorporated in the design explicating its complex theological symbolism. This style was to be very influential on Romanesque art in several media.

Echternach Abbey became important under Abbot Humbert, in office from 1028 to 1051, and the pages (as opposed to the cover) of the Codex Aureus of Echternach were produced there, followed by the Golden Gospels of Henry III in 1045–46, which Henry presented to Speyer Cathedral (now Escorial), the major work of the school. Henry also commissioned the Uppsala Gospels for the cathedral there (now in the university library). Other important monastic scriptoria that flourished during the Ottonian age include those at Salzburg, Hildesheim, Corvey, Fulda, and Cologne, where the Hitda Codex was made.

Metalwork and enamels

Objects for decorating churches such as crosses, reliquaries, altar frontals and treasure bindings for books were all made of or covered by gold, embellished with gems, enamels, crystals, and cameos. This was a much older style, but the Ottonian version has distinctive features, with very busy decoration of surfaces, often gems raised up from the main surface on little gold towers, accompanied by "beehive" projections in gold wire, and figurative reliefs in repoussé gold decorating areas between the bars of enamel and gem decoration. Relics were assuming increasing importance, sometimes political, in this period, and so increasingly rich reliquaries were made to hold them. In such works the gems do not merely create an impression of richness, but served both to offer a foretaste of the bejewelled nature of the Celestial city, and particular types of gem were believed to have actual powerful properties in various "scientific", medical and magical respects, as set out in the popular lapidary books. The few surviving pieces of secular jewellery are in similar styles, including the crown worn by Otto III as a child, which he presented to the Golden Madonna of Essen after he outgrew it.

Examples of crux gemmata or processional crosses include an outstanding group in the Essen Cathedral Treasury; several abbesses of Essen Abbey were Ottonian princesses. The Cross of Otto and Mathilde, Cross of Mathilde and the Essen cross with large enamels were probably all given by Mathilde, Abbess of Essen (died 1011), and a fourth cross, the Theophanu Cross came some fifty years later. The Cross of Lothair (Aachen) and Imperial Cross (Vienna) were imperial possessions; Vienna also has the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire. The book cover of the Codex Aureus of Echternach (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg) is in a very comparable style. Other major objects include a reliquary of St Andrew surmounted by a foot in Trier, and gold altar frontals for the Palace Chapel, Aachen and Basel Cathedral (now in Paris). The Palace Chapel also has the pulpit or Ambon of Henry II. The late Carolingian upper cover of the Lindau Gospels (Morgan Library, New York) and the Arnulf Ciborium in Munich were important forerunners of the style, from a few decades before and probably from the same workshop.

Large objects in non-precious metals were also made, with the earliest surviving wheel chandeliers from the end of the period, a huge candelabra in Essen, and in particular a spectacular collection of ambitious large bronze works, and smaller silver ones, at Hildesheim Cathedral from the period of Bishop Bernward (died 1022), who was himself an artist, although his biographer was unusually honest in saying that he did not reach "the peaks of perfection". The most famous of these is the pair of church doors, the Bernward Doors, with biblical figure scenes in bronze relief, each cast in a single piece, where the powerfully simple compositions convey their meanings by emphatic gestures, in a way comparable to the Reichenau miniatures of the same period. There is also a bronze column, the Bernward Column, 3.79 metres (12.4 ft) high, originally the base for a crucifix, cast in a single hollow piece. This unusual form is decorated with twenty-four scenes from the ministry of Jesus in a continuous strip winding round the column in the manner of Trajan's Column and other Roman examples.

Around 980, Archbishop Egbert of Trier seems to have established the major Ottonian workshop producing cloisonné enamel in Germany, which is thought to have fulfilled orders for other centres, and after his death in 993 possibly moved to Essen. During this period the workshop followed Byzantine developments (of many decades earlier) by using the senkschmelz or "sunk enamel" technique in addition to the vollschmelz one already used. Small plaques with decorative motifs derived from plant forms continued to use vollschmelz, with enamel all over the plaque, while figures were now usually in senkschmelz, surrounded by a plain gold surface into which the outline of the figure had been recessed. The Essen cross with large enamels illustrated above shows both these techniques.

Ivory carving

Much very fine small-scale sculpture in ivory was made during the Ottonian period, with Milan probably a site if not the main centre, along with Trier and other German and French sites. There are many oblong panels with reliefs which once decorated book-covers, or still do, with the Crucifixion of Jesus as the most common subject. These and other subjects very largely continue Carolingian iconography, but in a very different style.

A group of four Ottonian ivory situlae appear to represent a new departure for ivory carving in their form, and the type is hardly found after this period. Situlae were liturgical vessels used to hold holy water, and previously were usually of wood or bronze, straight-sided and with a handle. An aspergillum was dipped in the situla to collect water with which to sprinkle the congregation or other objects. However the four Ottonian examples from the 10th century are made from a whole section of elephant tusk, and are slightly larger in girth at their tops. All are richly carved with scenes and figures on different levels: the Basilewsky Situla of 920 in the Victoria & Albert Museum, decorated with scenes from the Life of Christ on two levels, the "Situla of Gotofredo" of c. 980 in Milan Cathedral, one in the Aachen Cathedral Treasury, and one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. All came from the milieu of the Ottonian court: an inscription says that Archbishop Gotfredus presented the Milan example in anticipation of a visit by the Emperor, also referred to in the London example which was possibly from the same workshop. The latest and most lavish is the Aachen example, which is studded with jewels and shows an enthroned Emperor, surrounded by a pope and archbishops. This was probably made in Trier about 1000.

Among various stylistic groups and putative workshops that can be detected, that responsible for pieces including the panel from the cover of the Codex Aureus of Echternach and two diptych wings now in Berlin produced particularly fine and distinctive work, perhaps in Trier, with "an astonishing perception of the human form... facility in handling the material".

A very important group of plaques, now dispersed in several collections, were probably commissioned (perhaps by Otto I) for Magdeburg Cathedral and are called the Magdeburg Ivories, "Magdeburg plaques", the "plaques from the Magdeburg Antependium" or similar names. They were probably made in Milan in about 970, to decorate a large flat surface, though whether this was a door, an antependium or altar frontal, the cover of an exceptionally large book, a pulpit, or something else, has been much discussed. Each nearly square plaque measures about 13x12 cm, with a relief scene from the Life of Christ inside a plain flat frame; one plaque in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York has a "dedication" scene, where a crowned monarch presents Christ with a model church, usually taken to be Otto I with Magdeburg Cathedral. Altogether seventeen survive, probably fewer than half of the original set. The plaques include background areas fully cut through the ivory, which would presumably originally have been backed with gold. Apart from the spaces left beside buildings, these openwork elements include some that leave chequerboard or foliage patterns. The style of the figures is described by Peter Lasko as "very heavy, stiff, and massive... with extremely clear and flat treatment of drapery... in simple but powerful compositions".

Wall painting

Although it is clear from documentary records that many churches were decorated with extensive cycles of wall-painting, survivals are extremely rare, and more often than not fragmentary and in poor condition. Generally they lack evidence to help with dating such as donor portraits, and their date is often uncertain; many have been restored in the past, further complicating the matter. Most survivals are clustered in south Germany and around Fulda in Hesse; though there are also important examples from north Italy. There is a record of bishop Gebhard of Constance hiring lay artists for a now vanished cycle at his newly foundation (983) of Petershausen Abbey, and laymen may have dominated the art of wall-painting, though perhaps sometimes working to designs by monastic illuminators. The artists seem to have been rather mobile: "at about the time of the Oberzell pictures there was an Italian wall-painter working in Germany, and a German one in England".

The church of St George at Oberzell on Reichenau Island has the best-known surviving scheme, though much of the original work has been lost and the remaining paintings to the sides of the nave have suffered from time and restoration. The largest scenes show the miracles of Christ in a style that both shows specific Byzantine input in some elements, and a closeness to Reichenau manuscripts such as the Munich Gospels of Otto III; they are therefore usually dated around 980–1000. Indeed, the paintings are one of the foundations of the case for Reichenau Abbey as a major centre of manuscript painting.

Larger sculpture

Very little wood carving has survived from the period, but the monumental painted figure of Christ on the Gero Cross (around 965–970, Cologne Cathedral) is one of the outstanding masterpieces of the period. Its traditional dating by the church, long thought to be implausibly early, was finally confirmed by dendrochronology. The Golden Madonna of Essen (about 1000, Essen Cathedral, which was formerly the abbey) is a virtually unique survival of a type of object once found in many major churches. It is a smaller sculpture of the Virgin and Child, which is in wood which was covered with gesso and then thin gold sheet. Monumental sculpture remained rare in the north, though there are more examples in Italy, such as the stucco reliefs on the ciborium of Sant' Ambrogio, Milan, and also on that in the Abbey of San Pietro al Monte, Civate, which relate to ivory carving of the same period, the large silver cross of the Abbess Raingarda in the Basilica of San Michele Maggiore in Pavia and some stone sculpture.

Survival and historiography

Surviving Ottonian works are very largely those in the care of the church which were kept and valued for their connections with either royal or church figures of the period. Very often the jewels in metalwork were pilfered or sold over the centuries, and many pieces now completely lack them, or have modern glass paste replacements. As from other periods, there are many more surviving ivory panels (whose material is usually hard to re-use) for book-covers than complete metalwork covers, and some thicker ivory panels were later re-carved from the back with a new relief. Many objects mentioned in written sources have completely disappeared, and we probably now only have a tiny fraction of the original production of reliquaries and the like. A number of pieces have major additions or changes made later in the Middle Ages or in later periods. Manuscripts that avoided major library fires have had the best chance of survival; the dangers facing wall-paintings are mentioned above. Most major objects remain in German collections, often still church libraries and treasuries.

The term "Ottonian art" was not coined until 1890, and the following decade saw the first serious studies of the period; for the next several decades the subject was dominated by German art historians mainly dealing with manuscripts, apart from Adolph Goldschmidt's studies of ivories and sculpture in general. A number of exhibitions held in Germany in the years following World War II helped introduce the subject to a wider public and promote the understanding of art media other than manuscript illustrations. The 1950 Munich exhibition Ars Sacra ("sacred art" in Latin) devised this term for religious metalwork and the associated ivories and enamels, which was re-used by Peter Lasko in his book for the Pelican History of Art, the first survey of the subject written in English, as the usual art-historical term, the "minor arts", seemed unsuitable for this period, where they were, with manuscript miniatures, the most significant art forms. In 2003 a reviewer noted that Ottonian manuscript illustration was a field "that is still significantly under-represented in English-language art-historical research".

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Ottonian metalwork and jewelry

The Ottonian style characterizes a cross between German and Byzantine, superior in both technicality and delicacy. Objects for decorating churches such as crosses, reliquaries, altar frontals and treasure bindings for books were all made of or covered by gold, embellished with gems, enamels, crystals, and cameos. This was a much older style, but the Ottonian version has distinctive features, with very busy decoration of surfaces, often gems raised up from the main surface on little gold towers, accompanied by "beehive" projections in gold wire, and figurative reliefs in repoussé gold decorating areas between the bars of enamel and gem decoration. Relics were assuming increasing importance, sometimes political, in this period, and so increasingly rich reliquaries were made to hold them. In such works the gems do not merely create an impression of richness, but served both to offer a foretaste of the bejewelled nature of the Celestial city, and particular types of gem were believed to have actual powerful properties in various "scientific", medical and magical respects, as set out in the popular lapidary books. The few surviving pieces of secular jewellery are in similar styles, including the crown worn by Otto III as a child, which he presented to the Golden Madonna of Essen after he outgrew it.

Examples of crux gemmata or processional crosses include an outstanding group in the Essen Cathedral Treasury; several abbesses of Essen Abbey were Ottonian princesses. The Cross of Otto and Mathilde, Cross of Mathilde and the Essen cross with large enamels were probably all given by Mathilde, Abbess of Essen (died 1011), and a fourth cross, the Theophanu Cross came some fifty years later. The Cross of Lothair (Aachen) and Imperial Cross (Vienna) were imperial possessions; Vienna also has the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire. The book cover of the Codex Aureus of Echternach (Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg) is in a very comparable style. Other major objects include a reliquary of St Andrew surmounted by a foot in Trier, and gold altar frontals for the Palace Chapel, Aachen and Basel Cathedral (now in Paris). The Palace Chapel also has the pulpit or Ambon of Henry II. The late Carolingian upper cover of the Lindau Gospels (Morgan Library, New York) and the Arnulf Ciborium in Munich were important forerunners of the style, from a few decades before and probably from the same workshop.

Large objects in non-precious metals were also made, with the earliest surviving wheel chandeliers from the end of the period, a huge candelabra in Essen, and in particular a spectacular collection of ambitious large bronze works, and smaller silver ones, at Hildesheim Cathedral from the period of Bishop Bernward (died 1022), who was himself an artist, although his biographer was unusually honest in saying that he did not reach "the peaks of perfection". The most famous of these is the pair of church doors, the Bernward Doors, with biblical figure scenes in bronze relief, each cast in a single piece, where the powerfully simple compositions convey their meanings by emphatic gestures, in a way comparable to the Reichenau miniatures of the same period. There is also a bronze column, the Bernward Column, 3.79 metres (12.4 ft) high, originally the base for a crucifix, cast in a single hollow piece. This unusual form is decorated with twenty-four scenes from the ministry of Jesus in a continuous strip winding round the column in the manner of Trajan's Column and other Roman examples.

Around 980, Archbishop Egbert of Trier seems to have established the major Ottonian workshop producing cloisonné enamel in Germany, which is thought to have fulfilled orders for other centres, and after his death in 993 possibly moved to Essen. During this period the workshop followed Byzantine developments (of many decades earlier) by using the senkschmelz or "sunk enamel" technique in addition to the vollschmelz one already used. Small plaques with decorative motifs derived from plant forms continued to use vollschmelz, with enamel all over the plaque, while figures were now usually in senkschmelz, surrounded by a plain gold surface into which the outline of the figure had been recessed. The Essen cross with large enamels illustrated above shows both these techniques.

Goldsmithing

Ottonian goldwork is divided into two broad categories: secular works and sacred works. On the one hand, there are insignia of imperial power (regalia), notably crowns. To these symbols of power can be added certain ornaments such as bridal jewelry. On the other hand, there is a large quantity of liturgical objects (ornamenta): codex covers, antependiums, various statuettes and crucifixes.

The goldsmithing follows Carolingian models, although enamels are more prominent. Two workshops are notable: the one in Trier, sponsored by Bishop Egbert, and the one in Essen, founded by Matilda, the granddaughter of Otto I, who was abbess there from 973 to 1001. Among the pieces preserved from this period are:

The Golden Altar of Basel, now in the Cluny Museum (Paris), dating from the early 11th century, a gift from Emperor Henry II; made of oak with gold.

The Cross of Abbess Matilda in Essen Cathedral

Lothair Cross, in Aachen Cathedral.

The mantle of Henry II, in Bamberg, embroidered in gold and silk on a blue background, with the Zodiac and religious themes.

Gold cover of the Codex Aureus of Echternach (German National Museum, Nuremberg)

The Great Imperial Crown, one of the most important objects associated with Otto I, is kept in the Imperial Treasury chamber in the Hofburg Imperial Palace in Vienna. It is made up of eight large sheets, some with set stones and others with cloisonné enamels, depicting figures such as King Solomon. Only in Italy could there have been artisans trained in the Byzantine tradition who mastered the technique to make such a work. It was most likely made for the coronation of Otto I in Rome (962), and underwent two later additions: a small cross mounted on the front, which was probably made for Otto II after his succession in 973; and an arch that passes over the crown, on which there is an inscription with the name of the Emperor Conrad II, crowned in 1027, which is why it is sometimes also called the "crown of Conrad II".

Regalia

As for the regalia, we can notably mention the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, an octagonal crown probably made in northern Italy and composed of eight plates, perhaps for the coronation of Otto I, to which an arch and a cross were added at the time of Henry II. The crown of the Virgin of Essen is a fleur-de-lis crown, perhaps designed around 980 for the coronation of Otto III (at the age of three), and used for the Golden Virgin of Essen from the time of Abbess Matilda, niece of Otto I.

Liturgical objects

Many Ottonian liturgical objects have been preserved. Among the luxurious codex covers, we note that of the Book of Pericopes of Henry II, that of the Gospel of Otto III, that of the Codex Aureus of Echternach, but also two remarkable Lombard covers: the Peace of Aribert, whose embossed gold crucifixion in the round is surrounded by a network of enamels, and the Peace of Chiavenna, presenting an aniconic cross surrounded by embossed gold blades presenting the symbols of the four evangelists, and various figurative or decorative enamel plaques.

Among the larger pieces, one of the best known is the golden antependium of Basel Cathedral, and to these we can add the monumental elements designed for St. Michael of Hildesheim by Bernward: the doors cast from a single block and presenting eight scenes from each testament, and the column depicting the life of Christ. We must also mention the reliquary known as the foot of St. Andrew, produced in Trier for relics collected by Egbert. Finally, from Lombardy comes the crucifix of Aribert, in gilded copper.

There are more works of smaller dimensions, notably statuettes: the Golden Virgin of Essen in particular, or the Virgin and Child of Hildesheim, in gilded wood. Crucifixes are especially numerous: the cross of the Holy Roman Empire (around 1030), a strictly aniconic crux gemmata; the cross of Lothair, aniconic but incorporating an antique cameo of Augustus and, lower down, a seal representing Lothair II, constitute the most beautiful examples. We can also cite the crucifix of Matilda, made in Cologne, the base of which is decorated with an enamel representing Matilda and her brother Otto ; the cross of Gisela of Hungary, made in Regensburg at the initiative of Gisela, sister of Henry II, in memory of their mother Gisela of Burgundy. We must also mention the silver crucifix of Bernward, whose finesse (which we also notice on the candelabra of Bernward) prefigures Romanesque realism.

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