Limoges Enamels

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Limoges Enamels throws new light on when, how and why these robust yet fragile works of art were brought to England from France, and on their subsequent fates.

Enamelling was a cultural phenomenon in medieval Europe, and Limoges in Aquitaine was the most famous and successful centre of the craft from about 1150 onwards. Its craftsmen created enamels on copper, distinctive for their vivid blues and multi -coloured rosettes. This book investigates the presence of Limoges enamels in medieval England, which became an early market for them, following the marriage of King Henry II in 1152 to Eleanor of Aquitaine, a marriage which brought him Aquitaine, and with it Limoges.

This pioneering survey of Limoges enamels in England focuses on what has been found - when and where. Some objects have been excavated by archaeologists, others found by chance or by metal detectorists. A Gazetteer is arranged by county of find-spot, and details the appearance, condition and provenance of surviving pieces.

A new and quite separate story emerges from examining the particular damage sustained by numbers of enamels. Many pieces associated with the rituals of the Catholic church show deliberate muti lati on. Corpus Christi figures, once attached to crosses, show the most severe damage, missing hands and feet, or heads and limbs. Where find-spots are concerned, some pieces were found buried deep under church chancel floors or embedded inside church walls. Who might have placed them there and when?

This strange pattern of concealment coupled with the troublingly consistent damage seems to provide evidence that these enamels were attacked by Protestant zealots in the 16th century Reformation, following the Tudor royal edicts of the 1530s, which classed many liturgical objects as ‘monuments of superstition and idolatry’.