Medieval Information

Medieval people adored jewelry. Not only did they travel hundreds of miles to bring it from far away land, but also they were obsessed by it.

Some jewelry had religious meaning and precious stones were looked religiously by some people.

Silver was mainly produced in medieval Europe. Its production continued steadily throughout the Middle Ages and silver was even used to make coins until gold was introduced in the XIII century in France, England and Italy.

Some gold was recycled from older coins and jewels, but the vast majority of the gold used by the goldsmiths came from trade or mining. Both Hungary and Bohemia did provide medieval Europe with a lot of gold which came from mining. Additionally, panning did also happen (looking for gold in a river by filtering other materials) which was mostly done in the Rhine area.

With the discovery of America, much more gold was brought to Europe. Nevertheless, this happened after the Dark Ages. However, in the early Middle Ages, most jewelry was imported from many countries.

Diamonds were imported from India and Central Africa which had a vast production of this metal. Nevertheless, diamonds were not given as much value as they are given today because they were somewhat ignored. What people were after the most was gold because finding it meant almost invariantly a lot of wealth (as coins were made of gold).

Egypt was also a major provider of jewelry and precious materials. Some old jewelry was also imported from Egypt which dated as back as the time of the pharaos. Infortunately, we will never know because most of this gold was melted by goldsmiths.

The Middle East also played a very important role in the exportation of jewelry. When medieval Europe was at piece with the Middle East, many trades were sure to take place. Additionally, during the Crusades, a lot of jewelry was stolen from Jerusalem and other towns. This was also brought to Europe.

Kings wore many jewels made of precious materials. For this reason, jewelry was looked up to the higher social classes and this tradition still remains today when having a diamond or gold makes one look wealthier and overal better.

Gold continued to be the major trade resource in the Middle Ages.

Goldsmithing was very important. So important that in Paris alone there were over 115 goldsmiths in the XII century according to a tax report dating from that same year.

The Black Death itself had a massive impact in the trade of gold. This was caused because of economical instability and the death itself of many goldsmithers and even more clients and traders. This however, changed by the Fifteenth century when gold was as powerful as it had been before the Black Death.

The church frequently hired artisans to make crosses or other religious figures out of gold or other precious materials. It was very common for an abbey or a church to have many of these adornment which turned out to be bad because of robbery. Nevertheless, the pope and the church itself was sure that having previous materials inside a church or even a house meant respect to God. The church did a great job at convincing people of this and thus; gold was even more wanted.

Some weapons were made of precious materials. These weapons were rare, but nevertheless; what was common was to have weapons with adornments showing to which family one belonged to.