Why Are Some Historic Luxury Brooches Known As Fibulae?
There are few luxury pieces of jewellery as historic, luxurious and as versatile as brooches, and for thousands of years, brooch designers have worked to create some truly beautiful pieces either as part of wider collections or as glamorous one-offs.
One of the earliest pieces of functional jewellery, brooches have not only existed but also thrived for thousands of years, and have changed in style, shape and purpose so often that they have become a fundamental part of dating particular historical sites.
However, one question when it comes to historic brooches comes in their naming; whilst some historians use the word brooch, others prefer the term fibula, whilst others still will use both words either interchangeably or to mean slightly different fasteners.
As brooches are such an important piece of luxury jewellery for determining class, social status and historical period, it is important to know the difference to see how it affects more modern designs.
Whilst brooch is the only term used for modern clothes fasteners of this type, the fibula is typically associated with early “violin bow” brooch designs, which are longer, flatter and tend to resemble a modern safety pin in function and form
They originated at some point between 3300 BC and 1300 BC, becoming particularly popular in Ancient Greece and later Ancient Rome, where the design spread throughout Europe as the Roman Empire grew.
Soon after this, the plate fibula was developed and became particularly commonly found in Roman Britain, which formed the basis of the brooch as many people know it today.
Because brooches used relatively little material and were functionally very simple and similar in design, there was so much scope for decoration and design that once the basic principles were established, dozens of different traditions quickly emerged, and their influence can be felt to this very day in modern brooch construction.