Treasures of the Black Death, Wallace Collection, London

The title of the Wallace’s new show – with “Black Death” picked out in gothic lettering on its posters – is belied by the tender exhibits. There are no grim reapers or cadavers, no frenzied dances of death; instead there are wedding rings and love-charms, lovers’ cups and costume jewellery.

It is all the more poignant for that. These personal treasures, drawn from hoards discovered at Colmar, France, in 1863 and Erfurt, Germany, in 1998, attest to personal tragedies within a broader catastrophe

The Black Death devastated Europe in the mid-14th century, killing a third of its population and striking so quickly that communities struggled to bury their dead. We know now that the plague was caused by bacteria carried by the fleas of the black rat; medieval Europeans could only attribute it to divine retribution for sin, to some inauspicious celestial alignment or – a tribute to the human capacity to take a bad thing and make it worse – to the Jews, who, it was said, were poisoning the water supply. This scapegoating, feeding into popular anti-Semitism, culminated in massacres across Europe: in Erfurt, for example, the entire Jewish community, some 1,000 people, perished on one day in March 1349.

The Erfurt and Colmar treasures – and other hoards that date from this period – were found in the old Jewish quarters of their respective towns, and the surmise has to be that, as tensions rose, they were hidden by Jews who could not return or did not survive. Erfurt’s historians believe that they have identified the depositor of their collection, although they are coyly keeping the name to themselves until the autumn, when the treasures will go on permanent display in a new museum in the town’s 11th-century synagogue. (That building is thought to have survived because for many centuries its original purpose was forgotten; in the Nazi era it served as a dance hall.)

14th-century wedding ring found in Erfurt

Most of the surviving gold and silver treasures from this time are ecclesiastical, since secular gold and silverwork tended to be remade later into more fashionable jewellery or melted down for coinage. But here we can see what fashionable men and women about town were wearing 650 years ago: lumpily gaudy brooches with tiny heraldic lions roaring among boulders of sapphire and garnet; belt fittings with robed figures and serpentine beasts in gothic niches; silver-gilt clasps in the form of fleurs-de-lis, dragons and flowers. There is also a handy cosmetic set that would have hung from a belt, comprising a little silver flask that may have contained scent, a tiny scoop for ear-cleaning, and attachments for other beauty tools. Some of the symbols could do sentimental service on charm bracelets today: clasping hands, a padlock, a bow poised to shoot love’s arrow.

Many of the objects relate to marriage. The star exhibit, from Erfurt, is a gold Jewish wedding ring (pictured above), shaped like a hexagonal building – symbolising both the marital home and the Temple of Jerusalem – with gothic arches, gables and a pyramidal roof on which is inscribed mazel tov (good wishes). The same slogan adorns two similar rings, from Colmar and from a hoard found in Weissenfels, Germany. These large and precious pieces were worn only on the day of the wedding ceremony.

Perhaps the happy couple united by the Erfurt ring toasted one another with the silver double cup found with it – two hemispheres, one a base, the other a lid, both for drinking out of. Or perhaps there’s no relation between these items: such treasures could have been deposited as security for loans. Still, the cup – a homeware staple for the medieval well-to-do – is fascinating. Though it has been rather squished by centuries underground, one can still make out details of the Aesop fable depicted on the tarnished enamel plaques that decorate it. The tale is that of the fox and the eagle; what we can see is the fox, busily pumping a pair of bellows to feed the fire consuming the nest and young of his treacherous one-time friend. “The tyrant is never safe from those whom he oppresses” is the moral, which may have been reassuring for a persecuted minority but is also worth bearing in mind at home.

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