This, the fullest known inventory of an English royal treasure to survive from the Middle Ages, has been edited and analysed in an exemplary manner by Jenny Stratford. Since it was wrongly catalogued in the Public Record Office, attention was drawn to it only after an article was published in 1994, and the content and context of the inventory and other relevant documents have now been fully published. The inventory consists of 1,206 entries on a roll of more than forty membranes. It was compiled between early January 1398 and March 1399. This last possible date is only five months before the return of Richard from his unwise and ill-fated expedition to Ireland, which was to lead to his own deposition and death, and so to the dispersal of the treasure.
The long and extensive research that Jenny Stratford has carried out has borne fruit not only in the publication of the text of the inventory but also in seven initial chapters detailing the nature of the treasure, its materials and techniques, and the way the treasure was accumulated through inheritance, gift and forfeiture. It is ironic that the forfeitures that made up the richness of the inventory led to the successful invasion by Bolingbroke. Marriage gifts, particularly those from the French marriage of Richard with Isabelle of France in 1396, provided another source. A final chapter refers to the dispersal by the Lancastrian kings.
The publication draws on the excellent work by Michael Siddons on Heraldic Badges in England and Wales, published by this Society (Siddons Reference Siddons2009). The commentary, like the author’s previous publication of The Bedford Inventories (also by this Society: Stratford Reference Stratford1993), is a source of fascinating information on almost every entry. It enables us to learn how the terms describing goldsmiths’ works are used in the inventory. The quotation of the sources in the commentary that illustrate the earlier and later entries on an object is most useful. The whole work is excellently indexed and easy to use.
The analysis of goldsmiths’ work from France, particularly from Paris (the leading centre of European goldsmithing), is clear and well argued. The Dunstable swan jewel (now in the British Museum) and the crown of Blanche, which may have belonged to Anne of Bohemia (now in the Munich Residenz), may both have been Parisian pieces. The inventory and associated documents are used to analyse these two objects. It is particularly satisfying that Jenny Stratford has discovered the documentation for the repair of Isabelle’s crown in London before it was sent to Bavaria. This tells us that the repair, ‘amendement’, was carried out by Thomas Langport (or Lamport) between March and April 1402. Pinning this work down to a London goldsmith enables her to demonstrate the lesser quality of the workmanship compared with the probably Parisian work of the original. This is also excellently illustrated.
One of the many aspects of goldsmiths’ work that the book illustrates is that of collars. There are collars themselves, such as the collars of broom (as worn by Richard himself in the Wilton Diptych), and also collars used as decoration, such as the collars of SS (John of Gaunt’s livery) on pairs of basins. The publication sheds much new light on the presence of rare materials such as elephant ivory, mother-of-pearl, jasper and jet, amber and ostrich eggs in the royal collection, and study of it will provide much enlightenment about such sumptuous medieval display and decoration.
