Copper

Copper played a major role in the Middle Ages, both as part of the economy and as a marker of cultural exchange.  Copper of course had been mined and used for centuries.  Although not nearly as hard as iron and thus not as good for weapons (though copper can become hard and sharp if mixed with tin to become bronze), it is a very useful metal and relatively easy both to mine and to shape into tools.  It has been used for at least 10,000 years.

In the Middle Ages, copper was used for coins (coppers--modern pennies are an alloy today but used to be copper).  Silver was officially the main form of currency, but in practice most monetary exchange was in copper.  It was also used for all sorts of bowls, lamps, pots, pipes, jewelry, and the like, as well as for roofs and for decoration.  (Health tip:  a copper bracelet will not cure arthritis.)  It transmits heat very well (as well as electricity), meaning it's good for cook pots, and barnacles won't grow on it, meaning it is prized for cladding ships.

Sicily became a major medieval center of copper usage under Norman rule (eleventh-twelfth centuries).  Sicily itself did not have much in the way of copper mines--the main Mediterranean source of copper was Cyprus, which gave its name to copper (the Romans called the metal aes cyprium, the metal of Cyprus).  But the Sicilians both worked the metal extensively and imported all sorts of small useful objects from the Middle East, much of which they resold.

Arabic scientists had worked out a lot of the details on how copper could be worked and made into alloys.  The Sicilians both read these treatises and figured out on their own how to work and shape the metal.  They also absorbed a lot of Arabic ideas on alchemy.

Although we now think of "alchemy" as involving lead and gold, and being a bunch of nonsense, it was a major intellectual thread in Arabic and Christian thought in the Middle Ages.  It was a way of thinking about the nature of the physical world, how it's put together, how different kinds of material substances relate to each other.  (The word alchemy, like algebra, is from the Arabic, as are many other words that start al-.)

One of the ways that the Sicilians used copper was to make major decorated church doors, some of which still survive.  The Temple in Jerusalem was supposed to have had copper doors, and the idea had a great deal of appeal.  The Sicilian church doors were incised with alchemical symbols and ideas.

Copper, which starts as almost golden in color and becomes green as it is exposed to oxygen (verdigris), was seen as a symbol of one important theological discussion:  the relationship of God to His creation.  It was argued by many that God had created the earth, set it in motion, then stood back to see how it would do.  Copper symbolized this, starting as bright and golden, like God's initial creation, then becoming green, like the earth covered with growing plants.  Medieval thinkers loved metaphors and analogies.

Note:  Many of the ideas in this post were inspired by the work of Robin Reich of Columbia University.

© C. Dale Brittain 2017