Part 1 - Origins of the Word
If the Pearl is your birthstone and you enjoy wearing your birthstone, it doesn't hurt to have a little information about it's history and it's value through the ages.
Pearls are an organic gemstone and today they can be dressed up or down.
At one time anything but a round pearl was frowned upon but today, irregular shaped pearls have grown in popularity because well, they are interesting and they all look a little different from each other.
You can find many pieces in jewelry which are modern and hipster as opposed to some people's image of their conservatively fashioned grandma wearing a simple string of white pearls.
If gemstones or pearls are your thing or your interested in gemstone history, the pearl is one of the gemstones that has a long history. Some would speculate that it may have been one of the earliest gemstones that was used for adornments and decoration and was valued by early man but we're not going to go back that far in this series of articles not that we can anyway.
Certainly the pearl was known long before Marco Polo however, the pearl particularly was revered in the Orient (or the Far East which is always a term associated with Polo).
Marco Polo
Inventories of some of the oriental collections of later times seem to be extravagant fiction rather than veritable history. In that interesting book dictated in a Genoese prison to Rusticiano da Pisa, accounts are given by Marco Polo of great treasures seen by the first Europeans to penetrate into China. He describes the king of Malabar as wearing suspended about his neck a string of 104 large pearls and rubies of great value, which he used as a rosary.
A 575 carat pearl (or 2301 grains) once owned by Marco Polo was put up for auction in 2007 in United Arab Emirates. The Arco Valley pearl is 3.1 inches long and is described as a white pearl with pink and brown overtones. The owner of the pearl at the time said it once belonged to Kublai Khan (grandson of Genghis Khan) who gave it to Marco Polo and he had a certificate to prove it.
After Polo's death in 1324, it is unclear what happened to the pearl but it is believed to have been in possession of European royalty. The pearl got it's name from the Arco-Valley family, an aristocratic family in Austria and Bavaria who had possession of the pearl in the 20th century.
Polo described the great ruby and pearl rosary the King of Malabar wore but the King's pearl adornment did not stop there. Likewise on his legs were anklets and on his toes were rings, all thickly set with costly pearls, the whole "worth more than a city's ransom. And 'tis no wonder he hath great shore of such gear; for they are found in his kingdom. No one is permitted to remove there from a pearl weighing more than half a snggio. The king desires to reserve all such to himself, and so the quantity he has is almost incredible."
Crusaders
Other travelers give wonderful descriptions of this excessive passion for pearls. Literature is full of this appreciation, and of the part which these gems played in the affairs of the Orientals. Who has not dwelt with delight upon those imperishable legends such as are embodied in the Arabian Nights, of the pearl voyages by Sindbad the Sailor, of the wonderful treasure chests, and of the superb necklaces adorning the beautiful black-eyed women! The returning Crusaders in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and the development of the knightly orders, had much to do with spreading through Europe a fondness for pearls in personal decoration. Those who, like Chaucer's knight, had been with Peter, King of Cyprus, at the capture and plunder when "Alexandria was won," returned to their homes with riches of pearls and gold and precious stones.
The Origination of the Word Pearl
And learning much relative to decorative art from Moorish craftsmen, the jewelers of western Europe set these in designs not always crude and effective. Although they were well known and valued, pearls do not seem to have been much used in England before the twelfth century. as the Anglo-Saxons were not an especially art~loving people. The word itself is of foreign derivation and occurs in a similar form in all modern languages, both Romance and Teutonic; perle- French and German, Italian, Portuguese, Provencal, Spanish, and Swedish; pearl- Danish and Dutch.
Its origin is doubtful. Some philologists consider it Teutonic and the diminutive of been‘, a berry; Claude de Saumaise derives it from pirufa, the diminutive of pirum, a sphere; while Diez and many others refer it to pim or to the medieval Latin pirula, in allusion to the pear shape frequently assumed by the pearl.’
The word pearl seems to have come into general use in the English language about the fourteenth century. In Wyclif’s translation of the Scriptures (about 1360), he commonly used the word margarite or margaritis, whereas Tyndale's translation (1526) in similar places used the word perle. Tyndale translated Matt. xiii. 46: "When he had founde one precious pearle"; Wyclif used "oo preciouse margarite." Also in Matt. vii. 6, Tyndale wrote, "Nether caste ye youre pearles before swyne" ; yet Wyclif used "margaritis," although twenty years later he expressed it "putten precious perlis to hoggis." Langland's Piers Plowman (1362), XI, 9, wrote this: "N0li mittere Margeri perles Among hogges." The oldest English version of Mandeville's Travels, written about 1400, contained the expression: "The fyn Perl congeles and wexes gret of the dew of hevene"; but in 14.47,Bokenham’s "Seyntys" stated: "A margerye perle aftyr the phylosophyr Growyth on a shelle of lytyl pryhs" ; and Knight de la Tour (about 1450) stated: "The sowle is the precious marguarite unto God."
The word is given "perle" in the earliest manuscripts of those old epic poems of the fourteenth century, "Pearl" and "Cleanness," which have caused so much learned theological discussion and which testify to the great love and esteem in which the gem was held. The first stanza of "Pearl" we quote from Gollancz’s rendition:
Pearl! fair enow for princes’ pleasance,
Pearls in Europe In the Dark Ages
In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries throughout Europe pearls were very fashionable as personal ornaments, and were worn in enormous quantities; the dresses of men as well as of women were decorated and embroidered with them, and they were noted in nearly every account of a festive occasion, whether it were a marriage, a brilliant tourney, the consecration of a bishop, or the celebration of a victory in battle.
The faceting of crystal gems was not known at that time, and those dependent on artifice for their beauty were not much sought after. Although the diamond had been known from the eighth century. it was not generally treasured as an ornament, and not until long after the invention of cutting in regular facets—abont 1450-did it attain its great popularity.
In the Dark Ages, it was customary for princes and great nobles to carry their valuables about with them even on the battlefields; first, in order to have them always in possession, and second, on account of the mysterious power they attributed to precious stones. Since jewels constituted a large portion of their portable wealth, nobles and knights went into battle superbly arrayed. In this manner the treasures were easily lost and destroyed; consequently, relatively few of the personal ornaments of that period are preserved to the present time.
Among the greatest lovers of pearls in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were the members of the ducal house of Burgundy. and especially Philip the Bold ( 1342-1404). Philip the Good (1396-1467), and Charles the Bold (1433—77), and some of the gems which they owned are even now treasured in Austria, Spain, and Italy. When Duke Charles the Bold, in the year 1473, attended the Diet of Treves, accompanied by his five thousand splendidly equipped horsemen, he was attired in cloth with gold garnished with pearls, which were valuedat 200,000 golden florins.‘ We are told that "almost a sea of pearls" was on view at the marriage of George the Rich with Eletlwig, the daughter of Casimir III of Poland. at Landshut, in 1475. Among the many ornaments was a pearl chaplet valued at 50,000 florins which Duke George wore on his hat, and also a clasp worth 6000 florins.‘
Part 2 of this article will continue with the history of the Pearl in the Middle Ages
