The Bartholomaeuskirche Finds

Today, I would like to discuss grave finds that I expect will interest Suvia, whose primary area of costuming research is the Merovingian period.

In 1992, an early medieval burial consisting of the remains of two young children, one cremated, one not, was found beneath Bartholomaeuskirche. Bartholomaeuskirche translates (so I understand) as "St. Bartholomew's Church", and it is the cathedral in Frankfurt, Germany (and is also referred to as Frankfurt Cathedral). The Bartholomaeuskirche find has recently come back into the news because an analysis of the finds has finally been published. The book, written in German, can be purchased for 34,95 Euros here, and its existence is making me think about resuming my efforts to learn German. For now, I will have to be content with the news article on the Archaeology News Network ("ANN") site, which may be read here.

According to the ANN article, the find consists of the remains of two children, each about four years old at the time of death.  The remains of both were found in a single coffin. One had been buried in gold and jewels in the Merovingian style, while the other, who had been cremated, had been wrapped in a bearskin and adorned with animal teeth, supposedly as was part of pagan traditions from Scandinavia at that time.  The archaeologists have dated the grave to between 700 and 730 CE-- the early 8th century. The burial place was originally a priest's residence near what was then a very tiny church.

The "mystery" referred to in the article's headline is the fact that we do not know who the children may have been, let alone why they were buried so closely together.  The article reports the surmise that they may have been a boy and a girl promised to each other in marriage for some reason.  Even more frustrating is the fact, reported in the article, that Frankfurt does not have many surviving textile or metal material culture remains from the 8th century, so life in the city itself at that time is its own mystery.

What frustrates me about the article--and makes me want to see the book published about the finds--is the fact that there were clearly surviving textiles associated with the Merovingian girl.  The ANN article states:

Fine clothing found on the girl's body, including a tunic and shawl, and jewellery made of gold, silver, bronze and precious stones – including ear and finger rings, armbands, a necklace and brooches – are clear indicators of her high status.

The article includes some wonderful photographs of the gold jewelry, including several rings and a necklace with multiple pendants.  But there are no photographs of the clothing, and not even any indication whether the clothing survives mostly intact, let alone what materials it was made from or any details of how it was made.

Anyway, if anyone purchases the book, or has other information about this find, please let Suvia know, and let me know what you've learned in the comments!

Arnegunde's Shoes

As usual, I came across interesting information while I was looking for something entirely different. The interesting information that I'd like to tell you about today is the blog of the Shoe Museum in Lausanne, France; it can be found here. (The blog has links that will let you read it in German or English, instead of the original French; the above link is to the English version.) 

On the Museum's blog, I found an article about a 2011 reconstruction of the shoes of a Merovingian-era French queen, Arnegunde (spellings of her name vary), who is believed to have died in the late 6th century C.E. Arnegunde was buried in a stone sarcophagus in the Basilica of Saint Denis, north of Paris. Arnegunde's remains were re-discovered about 50 years ago, and have recently gained some media attention as scholars re-analyze and update the standard reconstruction of her costume.  One of my favorite bloggers, Suvia, provides a little biography of Arnegunde here, along with a discussion of her own reconstruction of the clothes in which Arnegunde was buried. 

It is also known that Arnegunde's stockings were cross-gartered with leather straps, largely because the straps were ornamented with fancy silver strap ends that have survived. But little had been published, so far as I am aware, specifically about Arnegunde's shoes--until the Museum in Lausanne began intense research of the shoe remains.

The Shoe Museum (or the Musée de la Chaussure, to give it its correct French name) has written here about the research and analysis it has conducted of the remains of Arnegunde's shoes and their reconstruction. Suvia discusses the shoe reconstruction, and includes an image of the Shoe Museum's summary of the reconstruction, on her blog here.  For interested readers who have no knowledge of French, I have used my combined knowledge of French and of costume (and the Internet to look up French words I wasn't sure about) to translate the Shoe Museum's summary as follows:

The little silver buckles and back plates, with their strap ends, fasten calfskin straps at the knee. The lower extremities are gartered, and the garters are believed to pass over and under the shoes but are not fastened to the shoes. They are held in place with another set of small buckles and back plates, also in silver. Large silver strap ends decorated with zoomorphic motifs are suspended from the garters at the calves. This reconstruction confirms what Michel Fleury and Albert France-Lanord have suggested, that the difference being that the big silver strap ends with zoomorphic decoration do not correspond to the ends of straps that were part of the mantle, but were suspended from the upper part of the garter, and had a strictly decorative function.

In other words, Arnegunde's shoes did not have integral straps over the instep (like Mary Janes, or modern Chinese cloth shoes of the type I used for my reconstruction long ago).  Instead, the leg garters passed under the sole of the foot and over the instep, and were kept from sliding off of the foot by a separate small buckle fastened at the side of the foot. I can't quite figure out, either from the Shoe Museum's drawing or their written description, whether the separate small buckle were affixed to a separate small strap or whether they were part of the garter somehow, but I suspect there had to be a different strap in play, because there is a significant difference in size between the small buckle and the garter strap-ends.

This reconstruction will affect my planned rebuild of the leather garters for my Arnegunde outfit (which is many years old, was made with non-period materials, and should also be redone--but that's a topic for another day).  It makes a difference to how I proceed if the straps go under the bottom of the shoes and not simply around the calves, as I did with my original pair.  More on how I address the rebuild once I start seriously thinking about that project again.