ABSTRACT

DESPITE the scarcity of examples, a clear division may be seen between goldsmiths’ work of the early Middle Ages, before about 1200, and later. This change was fuelled largely by the English appetite for heraldry. Once the concept of inheritable personal devices was accepted in the late twelfth century, both noblemen and the king adopted arms rapidly and used them lavishly in every aspect of their surroundings – on textiles, in wallpaintings and on their plate and jewels, although tomb-decoration is now almost the sole surviving visual evidence. Seals, the first manifestation of this new personal emblem, were in general use by the early thirteenth century and supplied a whole new range of raw material for decorative art. The English royal arms, three lions passant, first found on a seal of Richard I in 1198, remained unchanged until the 1340s and Edward III’s French claims.1