It Depends: The Use of Harness Pendants in Medieval Europe (original) (raw)

A United Europe of Things, 2023

Abstract

This chapter proposes that decorative pendants from medieval horses’ harnesses represent a novel vehicle through which to approach the question of whether there was a common material culture across Europe in the Middle Ages. On the one hand, pendants helped decorate harnesses from England and France in the west, to Poland, Czechia and Hungary in the east. On the other, authors have recently drawn out certain particularities in the use of different forms in different parts of the continent. This chapter seeks to build on previous findings in terms of chronology and spatial analysis. A diachronic approach is taken to assess a change from a commonality of pendant forms at the start of the high medieval period, to an increasing diversification and separation over the thirteenth-fourteenth centuries; here I also use the untapped evidence of pendant suspension mounts. In closing, we will consider whether the distributions of harness pendants support German scholar Stefan Krabath’s notion of numerous material divisions within medieval Europe, or, rather, imply a more universal phenomenon.

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