the finding of the alfred jewel chanced upon a remarkable time in the intellectual life of the english nation. it was the time of dryden, defoe, swift, christopher wren, bentley, lord somers, sir isaac newton, addison. in literature the coming man was alexander pope.
the cardinal event of that period was the institution of the royal society in 1660, the year of the restoration. the most conspicuous bent of the intellectual world was in the direction of physical science, and ‘the great work of interpreting nature was performed by the english of that age as it had never before been performed in any age by any nation[7].’ this was the23 period in which a national observatory was established at greenwich (1676). to this period belong the chemical discoveries of boyle, the botanical researches of sloane, and the classifications of ray. in every department of knowledge enquiry was roused, and with it the genius of theory, whose movements were sometimes hasty and erratic. but this tendency was gradually counteracted by the deepening conviction that sound knowledge must be based on careful observation, and the need of museums began to be recognized. the ashmolean museum was built by the university of oxford, in 1683, to receive elias ashmole’s collection of curiosities, the formation of which had originated with the tradescants. the architect was sir christopher wren. altogether it was a time of new ideas and new institutions.
when the jewel was found, in 1693, it fell into the hands of persons who belonged both socially and intellectually to the foremost ranks. the first recorded owner was colonel nathaniel palmer, of fairfield house, in the region of the quantocks. of this house and this family some particulars will be related in the ninth chapter.
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the first notice of the jewel was published by dr. hans sloane, a fellow of the royal society, eminent as physician, natural philosopher, and antiquarian. he was elected secretary of that society in 1693, the year in which the jewel was found. whether by reason of the new cloud of political and religious trouble which brooded over the land in the latter years of james ii, or from whatever cause, so it was that the philosophical transactions had been suspended for the past six years, and they were resuscitated by the new secretary, who was himself an active contributor. this remarkable man lived to a great age, and when he died, in 1752, in his ninety-second year, his museum was bought by the government, and this purchase was the origin of the british museum; for until the middle of the eighteenth century the idea of a national library and museum had never been entertained in england.
the same act of parliament (26 geo. ii) which directed the purchase of the sloane museum also directed the purchase of the harleian collection of manuscripts which had been made by robert harley, first earl of oxford, whose25 name is also memorable in the study of the alfred jewel; for it was from an engraving furnished by robert harley, and made from a drawing of his own, that the first of the three figures in hickes’s dissertatio epistolaris was printed.
the first published notice of the jewel appeared in the philosophical transactions (no. 247 in 1698), and it was contributed by dr. william musgrave, fellow of new college, physician in london, and an active member of the royal society, and author (1709) of antiquitates britanno-belgic?. he also contributed to hickes’s thesaurus the second and third figures of the jewel which are there engraved[8].
these were the eminent persons who prepared the material for the elaborate account which hickes (1705) gave of the alfred jewel in the first volume of his thesaurus. for the minuti? of the description he was particularly indebted to harley and musgrave, who appear to have been occasional visitors at fairfield house.
the first impression which prevailed as to its design and use was that it might be an amulet. this was dr. musgrave’s first opinion. but26 afterwards he followed hickes in supposing it was a pendant to a chain or collar of state, and hickes even says (but here he must be simply repeating the expressions of his informants) that the cross-pin in the socket seems adapted to such a use.
the boar’s snout is developed into a tubular ending which furnishes a socket with a cross-pin, manifestly asking a peg or (as artisans speak) a stert; and when this observation was maturely appreciated, it generated two inferences: (1) that there was no provision for attachment answering to the above theory; and (2) that in the position imagined, the picture would hang upside down.
these criticisms opened the way for new observations and new conjectures. the antiquary hearne interpreted the jewel as if it were designed to be fixed at the extremity of a roller on which a manuscript was rolled, as a suitable ornament for some ceremonious presentation. but this hypothesis neglected the fact that the jewel is made with an obverse and a reverse, a front and a back, which renders it quite unfit for such a position as hearne had assigned to it.
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by francis wise and samuel pegge, chief antiquarians of the eighteenth century, it was imagined that our jewel might have adorned the top of a stilus or ancient pen for writing upon a waxen tablet. in refutation of this theory it sufficed to observe how awkward and unwieldy an ornament it would prove to the penman.
nevertheless, this idea had a career, winning a momentary plausibility from the assumption that alfred’s ‘?stel’ was a stylus. in arch?ologia ii there is a letter signed ‘s. pegge,’ from which i extract the following:—
‘it is not certainly known to what use this valuable curiosity ... might be put: but among other conjectures mr. wise imagines, and very probably, it might have been the handle of a stylus. and if one should say it was one of those styli which the king sent along with his translation of gregory’s pastoral, it would be no great absurdity.... it may here be alleged that the king sent his present to the cathedral churches: but, with submission, this does not imply that he might not also send the like to the two monasteries of his own foundation, this of athelney and the other at shaftesbury; it is28 most probable he would send a book and a stylus to both those places, and if he did, this jewel in my opinion bids fair to be the handle or upper part of the stylus which was presented by him to the house of athelney where it was found.’
collinson, the historian of somersetshire (1791), in a passage to be quoted below (chapter ix), designates it an amulet, and this was probably the way in which it was usually regarded in the eighteenth century. to this pegge (in the article cited above) objected as follows: ‘dr. musgrave once thought it might be an amulet, but alfred never ran (that we know of) into such vanities.’
passing now to the nineteenth century, mr. philip duncan, in his catalogue of the ashmolean museum, advanced the theory that it might have been mounted on the top of a staff (after the manner of a roman eagle), and that it was carried into battle as a standard to animate the courage of warriors. this exquisite bijou, of materials so brittle as enamel and crystal, cased in a delicate web of golden filigree, looks strangely inappropriate for the29 fury of battle and the interchange of hard knocks.
and indeed this theory was never suggested to its author by the reason or probability of the thing, but by certain texts which at that time were in better esteem than they are now, especially the hagiography of st. neot, wherein it was said of this saint that he went before the king in war, carrying a palm and guiding him to victory, to all which the palm-bearing figure in the enamel seemed to correspond. and this also explains why that figure was supposed to represent st. neot.
in like manner, hickes was carried away by a passage in pseudo-ingulph to abandon his first and best interpretation of the enamelled figure, and to adopt the idea that it may have been intended to represent st. cuthbert[9].
all these speculations on the design and use of the jewel are unsatisfactory and, considering the eminence and ability of the propounders, strangely poor in the craft of interpretation. if this surprizes us in an age when the minds of men were so much awakened, we should30 remember that the new movement was chiefly in the direction of physical science, and that little progress had as yet been made in the analysis of human history and the science of historical criticism.
from these abortive attempts at interpretation, we gather that this singularly elaborate phenomenon of a jewel had the effect of setting curiosity and imagination awork in the minds of those who contemplated it, and that some theory, however precipitate, became a sort of necessity. to this category must be added a more recent conjecture, which, as it proceeded from a highly honoured source, as it was persistently and circumstantially argued out, and as it has been widely accepted, demands a chapter by itself.
[7] macaulay, history, c. iii.
[8] appendix a.
[9] appendix b.
