medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

 

 

 

As far as I know, glass, silver-backed mirrors did not come in until the Renaissance. But the metal sort must have been in circulation among the poorer classes for long after the rich had glass ones - glass breaks. Metal doesn't.

 

Brenda M.C.

 

I believe that Herbert Grabes (in The Mutable Glass) suggested that the increasing use of the mirror as an image in medieval literature was partly due to the relearning in twelfth-century Europe of the technique of making glass mirrors.  It is many years since I read Grabes, and I can’t remember from whom the technique was relearnt. (or why he said it was relearnt – suggesting knowledge that had been lost)

To add to the bibliography: St. Anselm, ‘De Custodia Interioris Hominis’ in Memorials of St. Anselm, ed. by R. W. Southern and F. S. Schmitt, Auctores Britannica Medii Aevi, 1 (London: Oxford University Press, for the British Academy, 1969) 354-360. 

Cate

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