14th c. Papal Bull found in Poland

A lead seal found in northwestern Poland has been identified as a rare papal bull from the reign of Pope Boniface IX (1350-1404). It was discovered in 2021 north of a former cemetery in the village of Budzistowo by metal detectorists with the PARSĘTA Exploration and Search Group. Dirt and corrosion made it difficult to identify at first. Specialists in Kraków cleaned and conserved it, revealing the inscription that marks it as the seal of Boniface IX.

Bullae were round seals, usually made of lead, that were hung on silk strings affixed to the parchments of official proclamations and documents. They were legally valid and highly recognizable signatures. Metallurgic analysis found that this one was made of pure lead derived from galenite deposits in Cyprus, Sardinia, Greece and Spain. This composition indicates the bull is original, not a later copy.

The reverse inscription reads: BONI/FATIUS/PP:VIIII. The obverse features the images of Saint Peter and Saint Paul identified by the inscription SPASPE above their heads.

In the 9th century, what is now Budzistowo was founded by Pomeranian tribes as the fortified settlement of Kołobrzeg. The settlement was on the Parsęta River 2.5 miles from its mouth on the Baltic Sea, and was rich in salt, fish, iron ore and arable land. The Polish Piast dynasty conquered the area in the 10th century, and Kołobrzeg grew into a regional center of the trade in salt and salt-cured fish.

It became a seat of a bishopric in 1000, but the area would only become thoroughly Christianized in the 12th century. St Mary’s church was built at that time. It was converted into an abbey in the 13th century when German settlers founded a new town of Kołobrzeg on the Baltic and the former Pomeranian stronghold was renamed Old Kołobrzeg. A monastery for Benedictine nuns was then built in Old Kołobrzeg.

Historians hypothesize that the bull was kept at the Benedictine monastery, based on a reference in the comprehensive history of Kołobrzeg written by the 18th century Pastor Johann Friedrich Wachsen. He recorded that in 1397, Boniface issued a letter of indulgence for the Benedictine nuns. It guaranteed a full indulgence to anyone who visited the local church.

With no relic relating to the monastery surviving to this day, [Dr Robert Dziemba, the head of the Kołobrzeg History Department,] says that if it is proved that this bull is the same one referenced by Wachsen it would be nothing short of “a historical revelation”. […]

Dziemba speculates that this particular papal bull may have been lost in the 16th century.

“After the 1534 congress in Trzebiatów introduced Lutheranism to Pomerania, the document simply lost its value,” he said. “Maybe the bull was thrown out when the duchy took control of the monastery as a result of this congress – but maybe it was lost centuries later. We will probably never know when and why it was discarded.”

The conserved bull has gone on display in the Museum of Arms in Kołobrzeg.

Coin of Charlemagne’s 3rd wife Fastrada found

A coin recently acquired by Centre Charlemagne in Aachen bears the name of Charlemagne and his third wife Fastrada. It is not only the first known example of her name on a coin, it is the first known example of any queen (or woman, for that matter, other than the Virgin Mary) named on a Carolingian coin.

Fastrada was born around 765, the daughter of powerful East Frankish Count Rudolph. Charlemagne married her in 783, only five months after the death of his second wife Himiltrude, to cement an alliance with her father in his war against the Saxons. They would go on to have two daughters over 11 years of marriage before Fastrada’s death in 794. No portraits of her have survived.

Minted between 793 and 794, likely in Aachen, the coin is inscribed on the obverse side with +CARoLVSREXFR[ancorum], (‘Charles, king of the Franks’), and on the reverse +FASTRADA REGIN[a], (‘Queen Fastrada’), around the royal monogram of Charlemagne (KAROLVS). It is a silver denier of a type known as the monogram denier after the KAROLVS monogram.

Carolingian queens were not written about very much by chroniclers, and what was written about Fastrada was less than flattering. Writers blamed her cruelty (no specifics as to its nature) for the rebellion of Charlemagne’s son Pippin the Hunchback in 792. In the Royal Frankish Annals of 792, however, Charlemagne’s reunion with Fastrada in Worms after his long absence fighting the Avars, is described as warm and happy. A letter from Charlemagne to her survives in which he addresses her as “our dear and very lovely wife the queen.”

These are unusually glowing terms for a Frankish royal marriage, and may explain why Charlemagne took the extraordinary step of putting their names together on a coin. The presence of Fastrada’s name is all the more notable because Charlemagne had made a point of eliminating all personal names but his from the coinage after his accession to the throne. It suggests a willingness to share power with his third wife in a very public, visible way.

Charlemagne must have been inspired by King Offa of Mercia who in 792 had had a penny minted bearing the name of his wife Queen Cynethryth. The two had extensive trade contacts and at one point were actively planning a marriage between Charles’ son and Offa’s daughter. It can’t be a coincidence that the silver denier duplicates the Cynethryth penny’s syntax with the Latinate title of ‘REGIN(a)’ for Fastrada.

Despite the parallels between these Mercian and Carolingian coinages, three significant differences are also evident from the discussion above. The first is the scale: as was noted earlier, there are more than fifty recorded examples of Cynethryth’s coinage, from numerous different dies, but this is the first and to date only specimen of a coin of Fastrada. The second is the design: Cynethryth’s was in the main a portrait type, Fastrada’s a regular monogram issue. The third is the timing of their appearance: the minting of Cynethryth’s coinage stopped at almost exactly the same time as Fastrada’s began. What, if any, is the significance of these dissimilarities?

With regard to the scale, this might well reflect nothing more than the duration of minting. Pennies in the name of Cynethryth are believed to have been minted from the introduction of Offa’s Light coinage in the mid-780s until his reform of 792/3. As we have seen, Fastrada died only a matter of months after the introduction of Charlemagne’s new heavier denier, and it is quite possible that minting ceased at that point. As a result, only a small number of coins would have been minted, of which this one specimen has survived. The reason it bore no portrait, unlike the majority of the coins of Cynethryth, is that Charlemagne did not introduce a portrait type until 813, whereas Offa was minting pennies bearing a bust of himself at the very time these coins of his queen were struck, in the 780s. It has indeed been observed that on some of the coins of Cynethryth the portrait is virtually identical to that of Offa himself, though others are more distinctively feminine. In other words, both issues followed the design of their husband’s coinage at the time.

Restored medieval stained glass returns to Malvern Piory

Great Malvern Priory has the largest and most complete collection of 15th century stained glass of any parish church in England. This period was the apex of English stained glass craftsmanship, and the Malvern medieval windows are some of very few of these masterpieces to survive the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the Puritan iconoclasm of the Commonwealth period.

What religious conflict could not destroy centuries of water almost has. In 2015, experts at York Glaziers surveyed the medieval windows and determined they were in dire need of urgent intervention. The glass suffered extensive damage from moisture, both from the elements outside the priory and from condensation within which nourished algae growth as well. Because medieval glass had a high proportion of water-soluble potash, it is heavily susceptible to pitting that corrodes the painted surface. The corrosion products then stream down the glass and mix with dirt to form an ugly grey crust that then further erodes the painted glass.

The three windows in St. Anne’s Chapel have suffered the heaviest damage because it is the dampest part of the church. Installed between 1470 and 1490, they were originally part of the six high clerestory windows on the south side of the priory’s nave. The windows narrate events from Genesis and Exodus, starting with the Creation. The central window depicts the stories of Noah and Abraham. The third window features scenes from the stories of Isaac, Joseph and Moses.

During a restoration program of the 1860s, 33 surviving panels of the original 72 were moved from the nave to St. Anne’s Chapel. They were re-leaded but not cleaned in 1910. Today circular pits dot the back side of the windows and show as a mottled grey texture on the painted figures of the interior surface. Thick corrosion crusts obscure the brilliant colors and painted features. Their relocation to the chapel put the windows much closer to eye level, which makes the fine details and vivid colors far more accessible to the viewer, but it also makes the damage unmistakable to the naked eye.

In 2021, the Friends of Malvern Priory, a charitable organization dedicated to the support of the great church, were able to raise the funds to embark on a restoration of the first St. Anne’s Chapel window, the Creation Window. This window depicts key scenes from the first three chapters of Genesis, from the Creation narrative through the expulsion from Eden.

The first panel shows God as the great architect, holding a compass as he creates the universe. The next scene is the creation of the moon and stars, followed by the creation of birds and fish. Then comes the creation of animals. The creation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden follows. In the next panel, God finds Adam and Eve covering their nakedness while the serpent uncoils from a tree trunk. The last scene shows an angel with a sword guarding the Eden as Adam and Eve are banished.

In order to fix the damage and prevent further deterioration in the long-term, the original windows were painstakingly removed from the stonework casing and transported to York for cleaning and repair. While conservators at York Glaziers worked on the fragile panes, cleaning, stabilizing and correcting damaged areas, new clear glass windows leaded with the same outlines of the medieval ones were installed on the exterior of the church.

This environmental protective glazing system is the solution to the degradation of the potash in the medieval glass. Once conserved, the medieval windows were reinstalled on a bronze frame 30-40 mm inside the window casing from the exterior protective glass. This small gap allows air to circulate between the two windows and protects the medieval glass from condensation inside the church and the rain, wind and sun outside of it.

Work began in November of 2022, and now the Creation Window is back in place, its color and detail restored as close to its original glory as possible.

Large medieval gaming piece found

A large medieval “tableman,” aka gaming piece, has been unearthed from the site of a medieval timber-framed building in Bedfordshire. Its size and decorative style suggest it dates to between the 11th and 13th centuries.

Crafted from a cattle mandible, the Bedfordshire piece is 6 cm (2.36 inches) in diameter. It was cut in a circular shape (a central dimple suggests a lathe was used to form it) and then decorated with concentric circles and the ring-and-dot design commonly found on Roman dice and game pieces as well as medieval ones.

Tablemen are so called because they were likely used to play various tables games (with ‘tables’ derived from the Latin tabula, meaning board or plank). In these games, two players would typically roll dice and move their pieces across rows of markings; an example still played today would be backgammon.

Tables games have developed over time and in the Roman period duodecim scripta was likely one of the first to be introduced in Britain. This game uses three rows of twelve markings, although little information has survived regarding gameplay. It is likely that the game ‘tabula’ was refined from duodecim scripta and continued to be played into the medieval period. Tabula is much more similar to backgammon and uses two rows of twenty-four points.

The Museum of Gloucester has a spectacular tabula set from the 11th or early 12th century that is the earliest surviving board and complete set of game pieces known to survive. It was discovered in Gloucester at the site of a Norman castle in 1983, and consists of 24 obelisk-shaped points (the strips pieces moved around on like in backgammon) and 30 pieces carved out of red deer antler and bone. The points were originally inlaid into a wood board, the eponymous tabula, that did not survive.

The Gloucester pieces are intricately carved with different depictions on each one, among them a horseback rider, a hanging man, an archer, an elephant, a manticore, a fiddler and a centaur with a bow and arrow. They are smaller than the Bedfordshire piece, averaging a diameter of 1.75 inches. None of them have ring-and-dot decoration, not even in the borders, but several of the points from the board do.

Viking hacksilver, coins found in Jutland cornfield

Two hoards of Viking hacksilver and coins dating to the late 10th century have been unearthed under a cornfield near Bramslev in northern Jutland. The two treasures were discovered less than 165 feet apart and are very similar in content. They were originally even closer, but later agricultural activity disturbed the deposits, intermingling the coins and other silver objects.

The first pieces were discovered last fall by Jane Foged-Mønster, a member of a local metal detecting association, Nordjysk Detektorforening, during a rally on a farmed field. She spotted a piece of silver which turned out to be a clipped Arabic dirham coin, then another fragment, this time a decorated silver ball from a ring buckle. The group, which works closely with museum archaeologists, recognized this was a treasure find and alerted experts from the North Jutland Museum.

Archaeologists followed up quickly with a rescue excavation of the site. Because it was actively in use for agriculture, anything else that might have been part of the hoard remaining in the plow layer was at imminent risk of being scattered or even destroyed. Jane Foged-Mønster and two of her co-discoverers from the metal detecting group aided in the excavation.

The archaeological team and volunteers spent a week digging at the site. They unearthed 300 finds, from small clippings of silver to jewelry and coins. The decorated ball terminal on a silver rod that Jane Foged-Mønster found has a pair. They both weigh about 70 grams (2.5 oz) and originally were part of the same piece of jewelry, likely a very large ring brooch. This type of jewel was worn by high-status men of Viking Ireland. Something this large and heavy and ornately decorated would have belonged to someone at the highest echelons of society like a bishop or even a king. It was likely looted by Danes in a raid and cut up for its silver weight.

Among the 300 finds are 50 coins, most of them Danish, but also German and Arabic. Some of the Danish coins are extremely rare cross coins struck in the reign of Harald “Bluetooth” Blåtand in the 970s and 980s. The crosses on the coins are believed to be connected to his King Harald’s conversion to Christianity and his aim of Christianizing the Danes. The ring fort of Fyrkat, built by King Harald Bluetooth around the same time the coins were struck, is just five miles away from the hoard site.

Fyrkat, together with Harald Blåtand’s other ring castles, were only in use for a very short time around the year 980. It is unknown why the ring castles were closed down, but at Trelleborg on Zealand, traces of battles have been found.

“Perhaps the castles were not given up entirely voluntarily, and perhaps it happened in connection with the final showdown between Harald Blåtand and his son Svend Tveskæg. The Bramslev treasures were apparently buried around the same time or shortly after the castles were abandoned, and if there have been disturbances at Fyrkat, it makes good sense that the local magnate here at Bramslev has chosen to hide his valuables out of the way, ” says [North Jutland Museums archaeologist] Torben Trier Christiansen.

The site is still harboring archaeological treasure. The excavation found signs of habitation beneath the plow layer. North Jutland Museums has received a grant to return to the site and investigate those structures this fall. The hoard will be exhibited to the public in North Jutland this summer and then transferred to the National Museum in Copenhagen.