French Brooch

This ornate french brooch consists of several expensive and elaborate jewels, and as such only members of very elite echelons of Medieval society likely owned objects like this. Notably, this brooch contains gold, pearl, emerald, and silver. In this time period, while there was gold circulating in Europe, it was largely in the reserves of the wealthy Byzantine emporers in the East (Jaritz 2014). As a result, objects like this from the late medieval period likely involved gold that came from the East. Furthermore, regarding the jewels that are on this object, while it is unknown where they came from, it is all but certain that they originate from outside Europe. According to a summary by the Central European University, these precious materials were “acquired almost exclusively from long-distance trade” (Jaritz 2014), meaning that they were largely acquired from faraways lands in the East, particularly including India as well as Persia. However, while these jewels had significance for their Eastern origins, they also took on important roles in European cultures. For example, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where this brooch is located, describes in the description of the brooch that it was an important element of marriage, meaning that these jeweled objects were central to a critical aspect of Western culture.