Note 205 — Chapter XI · TOLEDO.

I must mention in this place one very curious collection of relics of the age of the Gothic kings of Spain. This is the marvellous group of votive crowns discovered in 1858 in a place called La Fuente de Guarrazar, in the environs of Toledo, and which were immediately purchased by the Emperor of the French for the Museum of the Hôtel de Cluny. They consist of five or six crowns, with crosses suspended from them, and three smaller crowns without crosses. They are of gold, and made with thin plates of gold stamped with a pattern, and they have gold chains for hanging them up by, and are adorned with an infinity of stones. They have been illustrated in a volume published by M. F. de Lasteyrie, with explanatory text. I cannot do better than quote the conclusions at which he arrives: “(1) The crowns found at Guarrazar are eminently votive crowns. (2) They have never been worn. (3) Their construction belongs probably to the age of Reccesvinthus and the episcopate of S. Ildefonso, who excited so great a devotion to the Blessed Virgin in Spain. (4) One of the crowns was offered by Reccesvinthus (whose name, formed in letters suspended from its edge, occurs on it); possibly the next in size may have been given by the queen, and the rest by their officers. (5) The place from which they came was a chapel called N. Dame des Cormiers. (6) All of the crowns, though found in Spain, appear to belong to an art of the same northern origin as the conquering dynasty which then occupied the throne. They certainly give the idea of an extraordinary skill in the gold-smiths’ art at this early period (circa 650-672), and it is probable that they had been buried where they were found at the time that the Moors entered Toledo as conquerors in A.D. 711.”—See Description du Trésor de Guarrazar, &c., par Ferdinand de Lasteyrie, Paris, 1860. Since this discovery some other crowns have been found in the same neighbourhood, and these are, I believe, preserved at Madrid. They have been described in a short paper in the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries, to which I must refer my readers. The crowns preserved at the Hôtel Cluny certainly form one of the greatest attractions in that attractive collection. They are in a singularly perfect state of preservation. Their workmanship is rather rude, and they all appear to be of as nearly as possible the same age and manufacture. There can be no question that M. F. de Lasteyrie is right in saying that they were never worn as crowns; they were designed for suspension before an altar, and most of them have crosses hanging from them. The largest crown—that of Reccesvinthus, is formed of two plates of gold, the inner plate plain, the outer pierced, beaten up, and set with very large stones. The plates of gold in many cases are stamped with a pattern. At the top and bottom of the plate which forms the coronet is a narrow band of cloisonnée gold, the spaces in which seem to have been filled with glass or red-coloured enamel. The largest crown is eight-and-a-half inches in diameter, and has a splendid jewelled cross suspended from its centre, and the name of the king in large Roman letters hung by chains from its lower edge, and formed of cloisonnée gold. When I see such work done in the seventh century, and then look at modern jeweller’s work, I am tempted to think that the much vaunted progress of the world is not always in the right direction. Gold and silver ornaments were exported from Spain to so considerable an extent, that the tiara of the Pope, being richly wrought with precious metal, was called Spanoclista.—Masdeu, Hist. Critica.