Jewelry

Jewelry was a diverse art during the medieval ages of making items that ornamented their wearer. Items could be purely decorative, or practical items to which decoration was added to create a pleasant effect, and impression of wealth.

Jewelry included items modernly thought of as jewelry:

• rings, including seal rings
• broaches including annulars, penanulars, disk broaches
• necklaces
• pendants including decorative seals, reliqueries, and much more
• decorative pins, and also veil pins
• bracelets
• earrings

and also other items:

• horse harness pendants
• fancy jewlled belts
• jewelled trim on clothing
• fillets (head bands), torcs, circlets, crowns, coronets
• pilgrims badges

Jewelry could be made from a variety of materials:

• metal wire (gold, silver, copper, lead, alloys....)
• cast metal such as pewter
• beads from gemstones, glass, ivory, shell and coral, rock (eg fossils), wood or [metal]]
• enamelling
• carved wood or ivory (sometimes covered in other objects eg painted, gilded or inset with gems)
• coins or other keepsakes eg a diskbroach or earring from a coin (although in some cases deliberate copies were manufactured).

see also

• gemstones
• beads
• gold

references:

• http://www.addgr.com/jewel/elka/index.html
• [in Stefan's floregium]