Jump To
Found in a cemetery in Jouy-le-Comte, France, these important fibulae tell a story of the fragility of historical knowledge.
Merovingian Looped Fibulae, 6th century, silver, gold, glass, stone, and garnet? (National Archaeological Museum, Saint-Germain-en-Laye). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker
0:00:06.7 Dr. Steven Zucker: We are on the hunt for two Merovingian fibulae.
0:00:10.6 Dr. Beth Harris: Why, you might ask? These fibulae form part of the core curriculum for AP Art History.
0:00:17.0 Dr. Steven Zucker: And so, as art historians, we want to look for scholarly interpretation. And although it may seem like an enormous amount of knowledge is on the internet, in fact, only a tiny fraction of what exists in archives and libraries has been digitized.
0:00:35.3 Dr. Beth Harris: These fibulae are listed as being in the collection of the National Museum of Archaeology, located in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.
0:00:43.3 Dr. Steven Zucker: A marvelous castle north of Paris.
0:00:46.7 Dr. Beth Harris: To which we made a pilgrimage. The research that we did in advance of our visit showed that there was one article by a scholar specifically about the cemetery where these fibulae were found. These were found in a location called Jouy-le-Comte, which is just north of Paris.
0:01:03.7 Dr. Steven Zucker: They were found in the 19th century, even though the fibulae themselves date to the 6th century. This scholar, Françoise Vallet, is perhaps the only scholar that has studied in depth this particular find spot, this particular set of graves, and the grave goods that were unearthed. The problem is we couldn’t find it in any library in the United States, or even online, from the Bibliothèque Nationale in France.
0:01:28.8 Dr. Beth Harris: But this article was published in a journal which originates at the National Museum of Archaeology. And so we wrote to the librarian there. He said, “Oh, yes, we’d be happy to scan it for you, and we’d be happy to meet you when you come to our museum.”
0:01:44.9 Dr. Steven Zucker: And so finally, we had the opportunity to visit the museum.
0:01:47.8 Dr. Beth Harris: We became very hopeful when the librarian there said, “I think this fibula is out in the collections, but this gallery may be closed, but perhaps we can get you in to see the fibula.”
0:01:58.0 Dr. Steven Zucker: He connected us with the curator, but then she realized that actually, it wasn’t on the premises at all. It was, in fact, at the Louvre in Paris.
0:02:06.7 Dr. Beth Harris: So, our hopes were dashed for the moment.
0:02:09.2 Dr. Steven Zucker: We make our way back to Paris, we get through the line at the Louvre, and we’re thwarted once again. There was a special exhibition that has displaced the fibulae. They’re in storage, and they won’t be back on display for weeks.
0:02:22.5 Dr. Beth Harris: All this time, we had thought that one day when we visited the National Museum of Archaeology, we could see these fibulae. Lo and behold, they’re in Paris.
0:02:32.9 Dr. Steven Zucker: I think, for me, one of the most important takeaways from this treasure hunt is that we take knowledge for granted. But in fact, historical knowledge is actually quite fragile.
0:02:42.8 Dr. Beth Harris: So, back to the fibulae.
0:02:44.3 Dr. Steven Zucker: I think we better step back and define two things. What is a fibula? And who are the Merovingians?
0:02:50.0 Dr. Beth Harris: Well, fibulae are pins that help to fasten parts of garments together. They go back even before the ancient Romans, and we see different cultures using fibulae through the Middle Ages.
0:03:02.8 Dr. Steven Zucker: They were ways of expressing one’s rank, one’s status, one’s wealth.
0:03:08.4 Dr. Beth Harris: And they’re often found in tombs.
0:03:10.4 Dr. Steven Zucker: Now, who were the Merovingians?
0:03:12.2 Dr. Beth Harris: We’re talking about the Migration Era, when different peoples were moving into the Roman Empire.
0:03:17.6 Dr. Steven Zucker: What’s important about the Merovingians is that not only had they consolidated much of France under their rule, but they also converted to Christianity. When the centralized authority of ancient Rome begins to collapse, the Merovingians are there to take over. There is a raised border around the main body of the pin. And you can see that there are little triangles in this. This is silverwork filled in with something called niello, which is sulfur, and another metal, sometimes copper, sometimes lead. And what it does is it creates that distinction between the darker areas, which is the niello, and the lighter triangular areas, which are silver, and that surrounds the principal shape of the pin itself.
0:03:57.8 Dr. Beth Harris: And then, in the center, we see a flat gold sheet. But first, let’s turn to the outer edge, where we see seven bird heads.
0:04:06.2 Dr. Steven Zucker: If you look carefully, you can see a kind of dome-like glass, that functions as the eye in the head. And then the part that projects out and turns is the beak.
0:04:15.8 Dr. Beth Harris: And this is all gilded.
0:04:16.7 Dr. Steven Zucker: In the decorative background, you can see a number of different geometric forms. You can see a cross. You can see heart shapes. You can see triangles. A larger rectangular stone. And then, most strikingly, there’s the representation of a fish. The fish is a common symbol that has been found in some of the earliest Christian imagery, including in the catacombs in Rome.
0:04:37.0 Dr. Beth Harris: We know that Clovis, who is often referred to as the first Merovingian king, had converted to Christianity. We know that the fish have a Christian meaning in related archaeological finds, but we can’t say for certain that it has a Christian meaning in these particular fibulae.
0:04:54.9 Dr. Steven Zucker: Let’s turn to the birds. Scholars recognize this as an eagle. Ancient Rome used the eagle as a symbol of empire, as a symbol of its strength. And we know that the eagle was adopted by the peoples that Rome had once ruled, who continued to use the eagle as a symbol of status and power, in a sense suggesting that they, in this case, the Merovingians, had taken on the mantle of the Romans.
0:05:20.4 Dr. Beth Harris: We might assume that the red that we’re seeing here is garnet, a stone that was frequently used in jewelry and other portable objects from this period. But, in fact, this is enamel work.
0:05:32.1 Dr. Steven Zucker: And by that, we mean ground glass was heated until it fused together. What’s interesting is that if you look very closely, you can see right through the eye of one of the large eagles, and you can see that behind the glass, there’s a kind of crisscrossing that has been etched into the surface of the silver, which creates a kind of visual texture.
0:05:52.6 Dr. Beth Harris: And we see this combination of gold and red in a lot of Merovingian art, in a lot of art from this period, clearly symbolizing an elite status.
0:06:02.3 Dr. Steven Zucker: And so we know quite a bit about these fibulae, and hopefully, one day we’ll actually get to see them.
[music]
The fibulae at the Musée du Louvre
Alexandre Bertrand, “Les Bijoux de Jouy-le-Comte (Seine-et-Oise) et les Cimetières Mérovingiens de la Gaule,” Revue Archéologique, volume 38 (1879), pp. 193–210.
Cristina Boschetti, Bernard Gratuze, and Nadine Schibille, “Garnet Trade in Early Medieval Europe: The Italian Network,” European Journal of Archaeology, volume 26, number 1 (2023), pp. 101–19.
Katharine Reynolds Brown, Dafydd Kidd, and Charles T Little, From Attila to Charlemagne: Arts of the Early Medieval Period in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000).
Katharine Reynolds Brown, Migration Art, A.D. 300–800 (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995).
Bonnie Effros and Isabel Moreira, editors, The Oxford Handbook of the Merovingian World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020).
Françoise Vallet, “Le mobilier de Jouy-le-Comte (Val d’Oise),” Antiquités Nationales, number 9 (1977), pp. 77–91.
Ian Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450-751 ( London; New York: Routledge, 2014).
