Crowns and other valuables

Empress Helena of Byzantium (?) 1437-39.

Lesnovo, Macedonia  

(This entry is taken from an article by Raymond-Joseph Loenertz, the professor of my professor, to which you will find a link at the end.)

Being a Palaiologos emperor in the last 100 years of the Eastern Empire meant being in a perpetual state of humiliation. Several times before 1400, the Emperors had to pawn icons, jewels, and relics in order to obtain money and ships, mostly because of the shameful civil war among members of the ruling families.   In 1390, Manuel II was driven out of Constantinople by his nephew John VII.  He took refuge with the Knights of Rhodes with whom he pawned a remarkable assortment of religious items and crowns to get money and ships. (I have not been able to find any study of the precious items from these various episodes of pawning, and I hope readers will be able to direct me.)

Manuel was finally able to pay off this loan, and on 21 November 1398 he signed off on an inventory to Friar Renaud de Giresme who returned his deposit. This, as best as I can translate, is what Manuel had pawned for his ships:

• silver box containing a piece of the true cross, with gold fastenings
  
• enkolpion* (engol phium) with precious stones, figure of Christ, with gold "pearls"
  
• another similar image
  
• gold enkolpion, form of a cross, with two pearls
  
• image of St. George with 18 precious stones, and with pearls around his head and shield
  
• image of the Saints Causoni (? sancti causoni ?) overlaid with gilded silver image of St. Theodore overlaid with gilded silver
  
• image of Jesus Christ being taken from the cross overlaid with gold
  
• enkolpion with image of the Hodegetria (odigitora) with gold cover
  
• small image of the Hodegetria with gold cover
  

(Now we get to the crowns. For this first one, look at three of the four pictures here, and speculate.)

• crown with 11 peaks with 11 large green stones and 18 small green stones, and 11 large red stones (rubeos) and 24 small red stones, and two small green stones, and 88 pearls.
  
• 2 pearl fillets, one with 24 pearls, and the other with 10
  
  
  
   
  
• silver thurible ** with its cover.
  
• large gilded silver cup with a cover.
  
• 2 silver ewers with covers.
  
• pearl crown with 126 pearls.
  
  
• book of the holy evangelists, completely ornamented, with a key.

Elena of Serbia.

* Enkolpion = sacred image or relic worn on the chest.

** Thurible = censer.

  R.-J. Loenertz, "John V Paléologue à Venise (1370-1371)," Revue des études byzantines 16 (1958): 217-232.

The Negroponte Hoard, Part Two

Some of the "Negroponte hoard," now in the British Museum.

Go here for more on this treasure.

* * * * *

I recently presented a couple of items from the "Negroponte hoard" -- it is neither a hoard nor all from Negroponte -- and thought it might be a pleasure to look at more of the individual items.    The British Museum lists 389 items, mostly multiples of buttons, in this collection which was a bequest to the museum in 1897 by Sir Augustus Wollaston Franks, Director of the museum.  His total bequest consisted of more than 6000 items, and such a private collection in the possession of a museum director would now be considered highly questionable.  I do not know about the financing of the BM in 1897 -- perhaps a reader does -- and this may have been its primary means of acquisition.  But it leaves a bad taste.  The Dalton catalog of the holdings says that the items were acquired "in the first half of the nineteenth century" but provides no more information about the acquisition.


(These pictures should all enlarge when clicked on.)

First, BELT ORNAMENTS.  You can see similar belts in 15th C Byzantine and Italian portraits.  These are all Italian, and I would prefer Venice for the first two.

Note that the item to the lower left has a Malatesta shield,
with initials L and B: the third Malatesta shield  in this collection.

BUTTONS.  Byzantines had massive assemblages of buttons on their formal garments -- forty or so at times -- and every single button gets its own catalog listing.  These are the ones I like best.  Most of them are not as charming.

EARRINGS.

RINGS.

The number 1821 is the ring's original catalog number.
The number now is AF-1860.  It is an extremely large ring,
a thumb ring, or for a man.

 

The "hoard" included an elegant silver bowl:

And an ancient Greek cup.

Go here to look up items from this collection at the British Museum under the term "Halkida" or "Halkida gold".