MEDIEVAL MOUNT

1350

Part of a silvered copper alloy medieval mount. Less than half of the mount survives. It is flat and has many sides which are all concave. It was probably 7 or 8 lobes originally. It measures 26.14mm long, 16.19mm wide and 1.04mm thick. It weighs 1.46g. The reverse is rough and there are no rivets, so the mount may have been soldered to a larger object. The front is incised with a pictorial scene of St Michael weighing a soul. Only the left hand pan of the scales, the soul in it, a figure on the left and St Michael’s right knee (on the left side of the picture) are visible. According to http://www.paintedchurch.org/bishbwei.htm the image of St Michael weighing souls is a fairly popular one in the later medieval period. It also says: “The symbolic arrangement shown here, with the scalepan at Michael’s right weighing heavier to signify the soul’s salvation seems to be the natural one, given the traditional associations of dexter and sinister in medieval art. Many Weighings of Souls conform to it. […] But the arrangement is not invariable - the painting at Pickworth, for example, reverses the positioning.” This mount seems to conform to the normal arrangement with the soul in the scale pan on St Michael’s right clearly visible. The figure to the side is probably the Virgin Mary lending her weight to the soul. However, the cross bar points down on the other side, so in this case, the sins are presumably outweighing the good acts. Often, the devil or a demon is depicted hanging on to the sin side to drag it downwards, but this part of the mount is missing. St Michael is depicted in armour which refers to his role as God’s warrior. This suggests a late fourteenth to early 15th century date as later depictions tend to portray St Michael in feathered leggings to symbolise his angelic status. There are many church paintings of this scene mainly dating from 1350 – 1450. A similar date is likely for this example.