This item is a relic from the eleventh century CE, when Scandinavian art was at a crossroads between traditional Pagan and imported Christian styles.¹  The Urnes style, the term for this artistic bridge, seems to be as entwined with Christianity as its common figures - usually gracile animals battling snakes or woven between slender plants - are with each other. In addition to evoking the Christian concept of a battle between good and evil (seen in the combat between mammals and serpents),² the Urnes style and its English and Irish variants appear on ecclesiastical goods including the Urnes church in Norway.³  What's more, the brooch and its like appear in different contexts than their early-Viking-Age predecessors, because the contemporary shift to burials without grave goods means that there is a shortage of female remains wearing brooches from this period. Even so, it is surmised that these pieces of jewelry were worn differently than the paired brooches for strap-dresses; rather, a single brooch may have been used to hold on an outer garment.⁴
Although the Scandinavian Urnes style was closely related to styles found at the same time in Great Britain, it nonetheless had a number of unique identifiers that were lacking - to detrimental effect, in some cases - in its counterparts. In not too much time, though, this would change: in the twelfth century, Western European craftsmanship was gradually homogenized under one style that echoed the power and influence of the Roman Catholic Church.⁵  Thus this item and ones like it should be respected as remnants of the twilight period of the Viking Age and the distinctive culture that defined it.

Comment on this page