Things have their fates. Before entering the showcase of the museum, they passed considerable paths both in time and in space. Many of them could tell fascinating stories. The products of obscure artisans, brightly and reliably telling about their era, about its psychology, are indispensable for historical research. What ideas and feelings did medieval masters put into their creations? How did they set and solve artistic problems? What were the ways of their creative search? If you answer these questions, the alien and distant is clothed in flesh and blood, begins to attract us. This book tells about some aspects of the spiritual culture of the Middle Ages. The material for her was the works of art craft of Western Europe and Byzantium, which came to Russia in the X I I - X IV centuries. as a result of trade and political ties.