Anglo-Saxon jewellery is the body of decorative metalwork produced in England between the fifth century and the Norman conquest of 1066. The tradition draws together late-Roman survivals, continental Germanic technique, and a distinctive insular sensibility that reaches its highest expression in the seventh-century goldwork of the Sutton Hoo burial and the comparable workshops of the Mercian and Northumbrian kingdoms. The period produced some of the finest small-scale goldwork of the early medieval European tradition, and the corpus surviving in archaeological and museum collections — particularly the Staffordshire Hoard discovered in 2009 — has transformed scholarly understanding of the technical and artistic capacity of the Anglo-Saxon goldsmith.

Periodisation

The Anglo-Saxon period in England is conventionally divided into three phases. The Migration period, fifth to sixth centuries, brought continental Germanic styles into post-Roman Britain through the settlement of Angles, Saxons, Jutes, and Frisians. The Conversion period, seventh century, saw the conversion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to Christianity, the establishment of monastic centres, and the production of the great early Christian manuscripts and metalwork. The Late Anglo-Saxon period, eighth to eleventh centuries, was marked by Viking incursion, the unification of England under Wessex, and continued production of fine ecclesiastical and secular metalwork until the Norman conquest.

Materials and techniques

The principal materials of Anglo-Saxon high-status jewellery were gold, silver, garnet, and millefiori glass, with niello, enamel, and ivory in supporting roles. Garnet cloisonné — the technique of setting flat slices of garnet into gold cell-work backed with a patterned gold foil to enhance the colour — reached its highest development in seventh-century England and contemporary Frankish and Lombard work. The garnets were imported from sources including India and Sri Lanka, with recent isotopic and trace-element studies pointing toward Indian and central European origins for different periods of production.

Filigree, the technique of working fine gold wire into ornamental patterns laid over a gold sheet substrate, is another defining technique of the period. Granulation, the application of small spheres of gold to a substrate, was practised but with less consistency than in contemporary continental Mediterranean work. Niello — a black sulphide composition inlaid into engraved silver — was used for contrast on belt fittings and disc brooches.

Sutton Hoo

The Sutton Hoo ship burial, excavated in Suffolk in 1939, is the single most important archaeological discovery of Anglo-Saxon material culture. The burial, dated to the early seventh century and conventionally attributed to King Rædwald of East Anglia or a comparable figure, contained a remarkable quantity of gold and garnet jewellery: shoulder clasps, a great gold buckle, a sword belt, and a purse lid, all decorated with the highest level of garnet cloisonné and filigree work known from the period. The objects, now in the British Museum, established the technical sophistication of the seventh-century English goldsmith beyond any prior expectation.

The Staffordshire Hoard

The Staffordshire Hoard, found by a metal detectorist in 2009 in a field in Staffordshire, comprises more than 4,000 fragments of gold and silver military fittings of the seventh and early eighth centuries, with a total gold weight of more than 5 kilograms — the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever discovered. The hoard transformed understanding of the period's metalwork, expanding the corpus of garnet-cloisonné and filigree work many times over and providing material for ongoing technical studies. The hoard is held jointly by Birmingham Museum and the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent.

Disc brooches and personal ornament

Below the level of the great royal treasures, the Anglo-Saxon period produced an enormous corpus of disc brooches, saucer brooches, button brooches, and pendant ornaments worn by both men and women across social classes. Burial archaeology from the fifth through seventh centuries recovers brooches of varying material — gilt copper alloy, silver, gold — depending on the social standing of the wearer. The cruciform brooch, square-headed brooch, and saucer brooch are the major continental-influenced types of the early period; the disc brooch and the great square-headed brooch reach distinctive English forms in the sixth and seventh centuries.

Christian metalwork

The conversion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to Christianity in the seventh century brought new ecclesiastical objects: pectoral crosses, reliquary mounts, processional crosses, and book covers. The pectoral cross of Saint Cuthbert, recovered from his tomb at Durham, exemplifies the Christianised continuation of the garnet-cloisonné tradition into devotional ornament.

In the trade

For collectors and museum curators, original Anglo-Saxon jewellery surfaces principally through legitimate excavation, declared finds under England's Treasure Act, and the open auction of historically traded pieces. Modern reproductions of garnet-cloisonné style are produced by some studio jewellers, including respected workshops in England and Germany, but the historical pieces themselves are properly the province of museums and the institutional collecting bodies.

Further reading

• British Museum — Sutton Hoo collection
• Staffordshire Hoard — official site