Glashandwerker im Frühmittelalter

Abstract

The survey starts with the quite well documented artisanry of glassmakers in the classical Roman Empire. At that time one can find different activities in glass working performed by free artisans, slaves, free male and female entrepreneurs and public enterprises. The archaeology shows that the division of work functioned all over the empire: while the raw glass was produced in Syria/ Palestine and in Egypt, glass blowing and glass working occurred at different locations. This caused a flourishing trade in the Mediterranean. The Levantine raw glass factories as well as the raw glass trade to Western Europe continued up to the eighth century.
The European employers of the early medieval glassmakers (bishops, abbots and kings are documented) had to provide the raw glass, optionally to produce raw glass on their own account, and after the 8th century they had to find specialists experimenting with new glass recipes.
Many of the early medieval glassmakers were migrant workers, but this mobility shows no indication of any free status of them. Those who were deployed with simple operations as the casting of windowpanes or the production of simple hollow glasses were probably slaves or tied to a piece of land. Their workshops were installed not only in monasteries as supposed up to now. The artisanry of glassmakers survived the Early Middle Ages in general within the manorial system, ecclesiastical or secular.
Free artisans, working at defined places, where they could be engaged for glazing distant building sites, are hardly conceivable in Europe at that time in comparison to the Roman Empire. There were neither a local customer base nor established trade channels, both conditions to produce in a profitable way. Free and highly qualified glass specialists originated in the Byzantine Empire and in the Islamic countries, perhaps in Italy (Mediterranean) as well, so it is possible that these regions were the origins of some specialists glazing the representative building sites in Europe as well as developing new glass recipes.