Glass-making in Lorraine

JSGT 1931 V15 T107-T119

The origin of glass-making in the Duchy of Lorraine is obscure, but it is generally conceded that the craft was introduced there some years before the close of the fourteenth century, the first glassmakers being natives of Bohemia and of Saxony. The date and circumstances of their migration are not known, but there is reason to believe that one of the successors of Ferry IV, Duke of Lorraine, namely, Raoul (1328–1346) or John (1346–1391), induced these foreign glass-makers to settle in the Duchy. Throughout this period friendly relations existed between France, Lorraine, and Bohemia, and the conditions of affairs were not unfavourable to the development of trade and industry. Thus, Raoul continued the policy of his immediate predecessors, founded on a close alliance with France at a, time when John of Luxembourg, the blind King of Bohemia, was living at the French Court. Both these rulers fell fighting as allies of France at the Battle of Crecy.

E. Graham Clark