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I.—Monumental Effigies made by Bristol Craftsmen (1240–1550)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2011

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Memorial figures to seven Saxon bishops carved in Doulting stone on coffin-lids are in Wells Cathedral. The five earlier of these were sculptured by masons who had been engaged on the newly completed quire built by Bishop Reginald, and the leaf-carving on the canopied niches for the heads and the folds for the draperies in parallel-curved ribs give the date of 1200 for two of these effigies and a few years later for the other three. The latest two bishop-effigies show, however, that these masons or their sons, who were training themselves to become statuaries, were using stiff-leaf foliage on the slab of Bishop Dudoc's effigy, and on both are found the ripple folds of drapery, a well known characteristic of the statues on Bishop Jocelyn's west front (1220–40), giving us the date of 1230 (pl. 1, fig. 1). We are thus enabled to study at Wells the gradual advance towards statue technique from the beginning of the thirteenth century until the death of Bishop Jocelyn in 1242, marking a stage in a local experiment of English sculpture. These thirteenth-century craftsmen of Wells show wonderful restraint as well as great simplicity, while at the same time in no way indifferent to the charm of light and flowing drapery.

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Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1925

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References

page 1 note 1 Proc. Sotn. Arch. Soc. lxi, ii, 1830Google Scholar; and Archaeologia, lxv, 95112.Google Scholar

page 2 note 1 See Prior and Gardner's Medieval Figure-Sculpture in England, 317, 318, fig. 355. This figure, which is possibly the representation of the ‘Jewish synagogue’, is 4 feet high, and was dug up in the Dean's garden.

page 4 note 1 Incised and Sepulchral Slabs of N.W. Somerset, 25, pl. xxvi.

page 5 note 1 There is a wooden straight-legged effigy to Sir Robert du Bois at Fersfield, Norfolk, and Mr. W. M. I'Anson, F.S.A., says there are three such stone effigies in Yorkshire, viz. two Colvill figures at Ingleby Arncliffe (c. 1330–5) and the effigy of Sir Hugh FitzHenry (ob. 1304), an early member of the Fitz-Hugh family at Romaldkirk. Another straight-legged knight is at Gresford, Denbigh, to Madoc ap Llewelyn ap Griffin, c. 1331; see Crossley's English Church Monuments, 213. Besides these instances there is the knight in Malvern priory church (1240) and the knight at Paulton, Somerset, but both these may have come under French influence.

page 5 note 2 Proc. Som. Arch. Soc. lxii, ii, 6972.Google Scholar

page 5 note 3 See Roll of Purchases for the Windsor tournament in 1278, where the ailettes are made of leather covered with a kind of cloth called Carda.

page 11 note 1 See paper‘On the Inventory of the Vestry in Westminster Abbey taken in 1388’, by Legg, J. Wickham, F.S.A. (Archaeologia, lii, 214)Google Scholar, where we read: ’ Fyrst the westerer shall lay lowest the chesebell above that the dalmatyke and the dalmatyk wt ye longest slevys uppermost and the other nethermost then hys stole & hys fanane and hys gyrdyll opon that his albe theropon hys gray Ames above that hys Rochett & uppermost hys kerchur wt a vestry gyrdyll to tukk up his cole.’

page 11 note 2 L'histoire des ordres monastiques (Paris, 1714, t. ii, 155)Google Scholar: ‘Ces chanoines sont habilles de serge blanche avec un rochet pardessus leur soutane et un manteau noir comme les ecclesiastiques quand ils sortent; au choeur pendant l'esté ils portent un surplis pardessus leur rochet avec une ammuce noire sur les épaules, et l'hyver une grande chappe noire avec un grand camail. Anciennement ils portoient la courone monchale, comme on peut voir dans la figure que nous avons fait graver d'un de ces anciens chanoines qui avoient pour habit ordinaire une aube descendant jusqu'à trois doigts du bord de la robe, et au choeur ils portoient sur la teste une ammuce de drap noir doublé de peaux de mesme couleur’

page 12 note 1 Dr. Cuthbert Atchley says that ‘there is no doubt that the Bristol canons were Victorines like those of Wormesly, Wigmore in Herefordshire, Keynsham, Worspring and Steverdale in Somerset, St. Thomas's, Dublin, and others. Leland says that Wigmore was a great and wealthy abbey of ivhite canons (which they were not in the usual sense— Premonstratensians). But Bristol he calls black canons; and yet they were derived from Wigmore.’

page 12 note 2 The Victorine statutes are printed in Martene, De ant. eccl. ret., Antwerp, 1736, t. iii, 738.Google Scholar

page 14 note 1 The tomb and effigy were re-painted in 1872 and the judge's forensic costume does not appear to have been coloured correctly. MS. illustrations of the four courts of Westminster in the time of Henry VI are existing, and the originals are reproduced in colour in Archaeologia, xxxix, 357–72Google Scholar. In the picture of the Court of Common Pleas the seven scarlet-robed judges are seated on a bench, while the protonotaries and other officers of the court, vested in parti-coloured robes of blue, green, and yellowish-buff rayed with diagonal stripes of blue, are seated below or stand near the table. The Serjeants in their coifs of linen or silk are also vested in parti-coloured gowns consisting of green, green rayed with white and red, blue, and blue rayed with pale green and white.

page 15 note 1 Mentioned by Margaret, countess of Richmond, mother of Henry VII, in her ‘Ordinance for the Reformation of apparell for great estates of women in the tyme of Mourning’ (Harleian MS. 6084). ‘The Queen, and all ladies down to the degree of a baroness, are therein licenced to wear the barbe above the chin. Baronesses, lords’ daughters, and knights'wives, are ordered to wear the barbe beneath it and all chamberers and other persons, below the throat goyle or gullet, that is, the lowest part of the breast.’—Planch'é, Cyclopaedia of Costume, sub Barbe.

page 16 note 1 Lady Newton, wife of Sir John Newton, Yatton (c. 1470); Lady Choke, wife of Sir Richard Choke, Long Ashton, Somerset (c. 1470); Lady Berkeley, wife of Sir Thomas Berkeley, of Uley, St. Mark's, Bristol (1465–70).

page 19 note 1 Heart interments were numerous in England and Wales during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and they were commemorated by life-size as well as diminutive effigies. Hearts are held in the hands of effigies at Ashill, Stogursey, Withycombe, and many other places, and heartshrines are at Leybourne (Kent), Burford, and in many other churches; a slab in Winchester Cathedral with an effigy to Bishop Ethelmar de Valence (1261) holding a heart is illustrated in Boutell's Christian Monuments in England and Wales, 118. Bishop Aquablanca's heart was conveyed to his birthplace in Savoy for interment (1268), Bishop Cantelupe's to Ashridge (1282), Margaret de Clifford's to Aconbury (1260), and that of Lady Clarice de la Warr to Ewyas Harold about 1300. See Proc. Som. Arch. Soc. lxiii, ii, 7, 8Google Scholar; Boutell's Christian Monuments in England and Wales, Section ii, 119–56.

page 21 note 1 English Church Monuments, 79.

page 22 note 1 Pipe Roll, 41 Edward III, m. 41.

page 23 note 1 I, 435.

page 25 note 1 Possibly Bristol, Gloucester, and Shrewsbury.

page 25 note 2 pp. 497, 499.

page 25 note 3 Prior and Gardner, Medieval Figure Sculpture in England, 506.

page 25 note 4 Ibid., 499.

page 25 note 5 Arch. Jour, lxxi, 164.Google Scholar