Chapter 9.3: Barbarian Art and Gothic Style

Grave goods like fibulae provide the most concrete cultural information about barbarians due to the sparse amount of written documentation about them. The diverse ethnic groups were constantly borrowing from one another while putting their own spin on things.

Early styles derive from classical decorative and vegetal motifs, such as palmettos and scrolls, but these incorporate animal figures and human heads into their curvilinear structure. Depending on the region, these styles evolved in different ways, with the representational elements often becoming more cryptic and abstract and the continuous geometric designs more fluid, often underpinned by complex, compass-based patterns. The artists still worked primarily in metal, favoring gold, copper alloys, and iron, sometimes adding inlays of coral, amber, or enamel. Personal jewelry for both men and women, arms, armor, and horse trappings were elaborately decorated, as were everyday articles such as mirrors and vessel fittings.

This pair (see image at right) of Frankish fibulae is a great example of cloisonné, a technique that was popular in barbarian art. This technique is characterized by inlaid semi-precious stones. In fact, the word cloisonné literally means “partitioned” in French. The artisan would solder wires onto a metal base and fill the areas those wires created with stones (to be distinguished with cloisonné enamel, which has colored enamel baked within these partitions). This example also shows a popular motif in barbarian art of the Middle Ages: eagles! The eagle, originally a pagan symbol of the sun, was used by Imperial Rome and would later become an emblem of St. John. The ends of these fibulae are in the shape of Eagle heads, and little fish are shown on the main body of the brooches. Garnets were used to decorate the eyes of the eagles, and a wide range of gems were used to decorate the rest of the fibulae. These stunning pieces demonstrate the proficiency of barbarian metal workers during the Middle Ages.

Gothic Architecture

“Then arose new architects who, after the manner of their barbarous nations, erected buildings in that style which we call Gothic (dei Gotthi).” Florentine historiographer Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) was the first to label the architecture of preceding centuries “Gothic,” in reference to the Nordic tribes that overran the Roman Empire in the sixth century. The label is now used to characterize an art form based on the pointed arch, which emerged around Paris in the middle of the twelfth century, was practiced throughout Europe, and lingered in some regions well into the sixteenth century.

Gothic architecture is the result of an engineering challenge: how to span in stone ever-wider surfaces from ever-greater heights? From 1100 onward, architects experimented with innovations that, once properly combined, allowed the dissolution of the wall and a fluid arrangement of space. For example, they adopted the pointed arch, which has a lesser lateral thrust than the round arch and is easily adaptable to openings of various widths and heights. They also developed a system of stone ribs to distribute the weight of the vault onto columns and piers all the way to the ground; the vault could now be made of lighter, thinner stone, and the walls opened to accommodate ever-larger windows. Equally important, flying buttresses began to appear in the 1170s, whose vertical members (uprights) are connected to the exterior wall of the building with bridge-like arches (flyers). These external structures absorb the outward thrust of the vault at set intervals just under the roof, making it possible to reduce the building’s exterior masonry shell to a mere skeletal framework.