Champlevé

The uncarved portions of the original surface remain visible as a frame for the enamel designs; typically they are gilded in medieval work.

Champlevé is distinguished from the technique of cloisonné enamel in which the troughs are created by soldering flat metal strips to the surface of the object.

The "Insular Celts" of the British Isles made especially common use of the technique, seen as highlights on the relief decoration of the Battersea Shield and other pieces.

[4] The earliest literary description of enamel is from the Greek sophist Philostratus III, who wrote in his Icones (Bk I, 28), describing polychrome horse-harness: "It is said that the barbarians in the Ocean pour these colours on heated bronze and that they adhere, become as hard as stone and preserve the designs that are made on them".

Around the end of the Roman Empire new forms arose: the terminals of the increasingly fancy penannular brooches of the British Isles become decorated with champlevé, as do other fasteners and fittings, and the mounts of hanging bowls.

These last have long puzzled art historians, as not only is their purpose unclear, but they are mostly found in Anglo-Saxon and Viking contexts, including three at Sutton Hoo, but their decoration uses predominantly Celtic motifs.

The immediate source of the style remains obscure; various exotic origins have been suggested, but the great expansion in the use of stained glass at the same period is probably connected.

The Stavelot Triptych in New York is an example of the finest Mosan work, and the Becket Casket in London a fine early piece from Limoges.