Minories, Stepney, Stratford; at East Ham, Plumstead in Kent (this last
is now in Maidstone Museum)--at Southfleet and at Colchester and
Norwich. They are decorated by rods of “bead and reel” differently
arranged on the lids in zig-zags or lozenges, with scallop shells and
plain rings placed in the spaces. The rods and shells were evidently
separately impressed into the flat field of the sand mould and that with
the artful carelessness which shows that the designer and the workmen
were one and the same person, an artist. With these simple elements
compositions are made of quite classic distinction and grace. Mr.
Alma-Tadema apparently drew the fine leaden oleander tub in his picture
from these coffins, and it makes a perfect flower-pot.
A coffin found at Pettham in Kent was decorated by a simple cord which
passed around once transversely in the middle and then each of the
spaces thus formed on lid, sides, and ends had diagonals of cord. A
fragment of one in the museum at Cirencester is more finished and
refined, it has a saltire of the twisted bars with terminations at their
ends, and in one of the spaces is a small female head.
The coffins are made like a modern paper box with a lid lapping over the
sides. Some sketches are given from those in the British Museum. That
shown in Fig. 19 was of full length (6 ft.) but only a part of the lid
remains. The other two (Figs. 18 and 20) are less than 4 ft., one of
which is ornamented with rings and ropes and curious forms like the
letter B. Those at Colchester are like the former. These coffins are all
very white with oxide.
[Illustration: FIGS. 18 and 19.--Roman Coffins, British Museum.]
The French examples have been found at Boulogne, Beauvais, Amiens,
Angers, Rouen, and Valogne near Cherbourg, but none are like the English
in having rods of beads with scallop shells. One has only groups of
rings which, simple as it is, makes a design. Another at Rouen has a
human head in a circle at the centre with six lions’ heads in octagons.
That at Valogne has a trunk-shaped lid with flying genii and birds; and
one at Nismes has lions and griffins, and between each pair persons
planting a vine.
[Illustration: FIG. 20.--Roman Coffin, British Museum.]
There is just enough evidence to show that the use of leaden coffins was
continued by the English after they had superseded the Romans. St.
Guthlac, Abbot of Croyland, was, Leland says, buried in a sarcophagus of
lead. And St. Dunstan was buried at Canterbury in a lead coffin.
[Illustration: FIG. 21.--Thirteenth Century Coffin, Temple Church.]
Directly after the Conquest we find them in use. At Lewes there are
two coffins of De Warren (1088), and his wife the daughter of the
Conqueror (1085); they are covered with the reticulated meshes of a net,
both sides and lid as if cast from actual netted cord. At the heads are
the names WILLELM, GVNDRADA.
[Illustration: FIGS. 22 and 23.--Thirteenth Century Coffins, Temple
Church.]
St. Dunstan was re-interred in the new work, at Canterbury in 1180 in a
coffin of lead which was “not plain, but of beautiful plaited work.”
Some most remarkable coffins thus decorated were discovered in 1841 in
relaying the floor of the Temple Church in London; the style of their
design would show that they were made about the year 1200. They
contained the bodies represented above them by the cross-legged stone
effigies of knights. These coffins were drawn and published by Mr.
Edward Richardson in 1845, from whose careful drawings are made the
accompanying illustrations.
[Illustration: FIG. 24.]
The extreme delicacy of the ornament is most remarkable. Here again the
pattern design is made up of portions several times repeated in similar
or different combinations; the panels were either cast to the required
number and then arranged on a board from which the final mould was made;
or the parts were impressed separately in a smooth and level surface of
moulding sand, and this with all the rapid ease of self-sufficient art.
They are about 6 feet 6 inches long, and some are formed like the stone
coffins of the time with a circular end for the head. The sides as well
as the covering are decorated in the richest example by two of the same
small square patterns alternating, and in others by vertical cords at
intervals.
At Winchester there has recently been exposed a fifteenth century coffin
bearing on the lid a cross and the arms of the Bishop Courtenay. (Fig.
24.)
Later the form was made to conform more closely to the body, being
rather a wrapping than a box. That of Henry IV. (1413) at Canterbury was
of this form, as also was that found at Westminster under the tomb of
Henry VII., the latter had a small cross at the breast only.
[Illustration: FIG. 25.--At Moissac.]
The heart-box of Richard Cœur de Lion is mentioned in another place.
There is a heart casket in the British Museum, circular and much like a
flower-pot; on the lid is the device of a spear-head within a garter,
and engraved outside is this inscription:--“Here lith the Harte of Sir
Henrye Sydney. Anno Domini 1586.”
A fine coffin (Fig. 25) is represented in the lead group of the
entombment at Moissac in France. This is 15th century work.
§ VIII. OF FONTS.
England is extremely rich in the possession of early fonts in lead;
these are for the most part alike in being of the twelfth or early
thirteenth century. Nearly all of them agree in being circular and have
other similarities which with many repetitions in their design would
seem to relate them to one family. As in Sussex there are in the
neighbouring villages of Edburton and Piecombe two fonts substantially
alike, and in Gloucestershire another pair, with others that have close
resemblances; they have been claimed for local manufacture, yet a strong
case could be made out for most of them coming from one common centre.
As, further, there are several specimens in Normandy entirely parallel,
the question arises whether the type arose here or there, for there can
be no doubt as to one set being indebted to the other. As England was so
especially a lead producing and exporting country, and as such a number
of these fonts remain with us broadly scattered over the country, while
there are but comparatively few in France, and those mostly in
Normandy, this, with the local coincidences pointed out, would seem to
give us the best claim.
[Illustration: FIG. 26.--Vessel, Lewes Museum.]
There is in the Lewes Museum a lead cistern-like object of Saxon work,
which is represented in Fig. 26. It is about 14 inches long and 8 inches
high, the sides are decorated with triangles of interlacing patterns
cast with the lead. It has two handles of iron; but as it would be much
too heavy for a movable vessel, and as the small foreign lead font in
Kensington Museum has handles also, it is probably a font. The cross in
the decoration would go to confirm this.
Some of the fonts of Norman date it cannot be doubted were made in
England. But unless we would claim the two figured by Viollet-le-Duc
and that at St. Evrault-le-Montford which is similar to ours at
Brookland described below, we can hardly claim to have made all our own.
Possibly examples were brought here, as was the case with several black
stone fonts in England.
Some of these lead fonts (that at Wareham for instance) appear to have
been cast in one piece. But for the most part they are small low
cylinders cast flat in sheet with the ornaments repeated usually more
than once in the sand mould; the casting was then bent round and
soldered. In one case, where it is not joined so as to form a cylinder,
but with the sides spreading to the top, the band of ornamentation which
was straight on the sheet runs up as it approaches the joint in a most
amusing way. The patterns consist of delicate scroll-work, arcades and
boldly modelled figures 10 or 12 inches high; a moulding strengthens the
upper and lower edges. They stand on stone pedestals.
There are altogether some twenty-eight or thirty of these fonts in
England.
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--Font, Brookland, Kent.]
The font at Brookland at Kent is very small, only 11 inches high, an
arcade surrounds it of two stages in twelve bays. In the upper tier are
the signs of the Zodiac with their Latin names, and below the subjects
of the labours appropriate to the months with their names in Norman
French. This scheme of imagery is well known abroad but while often
occurring in English MSS. this is one of very few examples of its
treatment in sculpture. Although the scale of the figures is small and
they are but slightly modelled, there is a great deal of character,
appropriateness, and grace, in their gesture.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--Font, Brookland.]
A comparative table of the usual scenes which accompany the signs has
been given in _Archæologia_, and another, probably more accessible, in
the _Stones of Venice_. With the examples there given the scenes on the
font very closely agree. They are inscribed in capitals:--
AQUARIUS.--JANVIER. A Janus-headed figure feasting.
PISCES.--FEVRIER. Warming feet at fire.
ARIES.--MARS. Man hooded and pruning a vine.
TAURUS.--AVRIL. Young girl with lilies in her hand.
GEMINI.--MAI. Man on horse, hawk on wrist.
CANCER.--JUIN. Mowing with a scythe.
LEO.--JULIUS. Man with wide brim hat raking hay.
VIRGO.--AOUT. Cutting corn.
LIBRA.--SEPTEMBRE. Threshing corn.
SCORPIO.--OCTOBRE. Treading out wine.
SAGITTARIUS.--NOVEMBRE. Woman lighting with candles the next
scene, or feeding the pigs.
CAPRICORNUS.--DECEMBRE. Man, killing swine with axe.
The signs are thus represented:--Aquarius, man pouring water from a jug.
Pisces, two fish as usual reversed. The ram and the bull are much alike.
The twins and the crab are not remarkable, except the latter for
unlikeness. Leo is a good heraldic beast. The Virgin, much obscured.
Libra, a man with scales. Scorpio, is certainly a frog. Sagittarius, a
centaur. Capricorn is indeed a capricious creature like a cockatrice
with horns. The forequarters of a goat with fish-tail is the traditional
form for this sign handed on from the Roman Zodiac.
In the months, the Mower, the man raking, and especially the Reaper, are
well designed; the man pruning is also good, and the girl with the long
stalked lilies in her hand is charming. The four last are shown in the
sketches given. The pillars are varied, every third standing on the loop
as shown.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--Font, Edburton, Sussex.]
The font at Edburton in Sussex is 21 inches in diameter and 14 inches
high; it has a wide band of foliage and at the top a row of trefoil
panels. At Piecombe, the adjoining parish, the upper row of small
trefoil arches and the narrow band of ornament are the same, but instead
of the lower panels there is a row of round-headed arches.
At Lancourt, or Llancault, and Tedenham in Gloucestershire there are
fonts in duplicate. These are much larger, 2 feet 8 inches in diameter
by 1 foot 7 inches high. An arcade of twelve arches surrounds the bowl;
each compartment has a throned figure or a panel of foliage alternately.
There are two varieties of figure and foliage, each is thrice repeated
and the little columns are twisted and decorated. These two fonts are
evidently of the twelfth century.[11] At Frampton-on-Severn is a font
with similar seated figures and foliage.
[11] For engravings see _Archæologia_, vol. xxix.
At Wareham in Dorsetshire the font is hexagonal with two standing
figures under arches in each face, twelve altogether. The sides instead
of being vertical slope outwards. The style seems central Norman not
transitional, like several of the examples.
At Dorchester, Oxfordshire, the bowl is 2 feet 1 inch diameter 14 inches
deep, it has an arcade wholly of seated figures of bishops. It is a very
beautiful work, the figures are extremely well modelled, and the whole
in good condition, the lead of great substance.
Walton-on-the-hill, Surrey, has a similar font 14 inches high,
surrounded by an arcade, and in each compartment a sitting figure. A
sketch of one arch given is necessarily rough, as the modelling, even at
first soft and sketchy, has suffered some injury in the use of 700
years.
At Wansford, Northamptonshire, is another of these with arcades and
figures.[12]
[12] _See_ Parker’s _Glossary_, vol. iii.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--Font, Walton, Surrey.]
At Childrey, in Berkshire, there is also a font with twelve mitred
bishops with pastoral staffs and books.
Another at Long-Wittenham, in the same county, has the arcade at bottom
of very tiny pointed arches of some thirty bays with figures, above are
panels with discs and rosettes.[13] One at Warborough, in Oxfordshire,
is similar in style, made in the same workshop apparently. The bottom
half has a small arcade interrupted after every four arches by three
higher ones: in the twelve small niches are figures of bishops with
mitre and staff and lifted hand in benediction, the three high arches
and the space above the little ones have discs of ornament, the bishops
are repeated from one pattern; the size is 1-3 in height by 2-2
diameter.[14]
[13] See _Archæological Journal_, vol. ii.
[14] _See_ Paley’s _Fonts_.
Woolhampton, in Berkshire, has a font in which the lead is placed over
stone and pierced, leaving an arcade and figures showing against the
stone background.
The font at Parham is of later Gothic. Mr. André gives an account of it
in Vol. 32, _Sussex Archæological Society_; it is only 18 inches in
diameter, and a portion of the bottom is hidden by being sunk into the
stone block on which it stands. The decoration is made by repeats of a
label bearing + IHC NAZAR placed alternately upright and horizontally
with small shields in the interspaces which are said to bear the arms of
Andrew Peverell, knight of the shire in 1351. The style of the lettering
would seem earlier than this. IHC NAZAR was frequently engraved on the
front of knights’ helmets. This is an extremely good example of how a
fine design may be made of simplest elements.
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--Parham, Sussex.]
A Norman font of lead at Great Plumstead was destroyed with the church
in the fire of December, 1891. It is figured by Cotman.[15]
[15] _Arch. Remains_, vol. i., series 2.
The font at Avebury, Wiltshire, has often erroneously been stated to be
of lead; there is a resemblance in the design, but it is of stone
painted.
At Ashover, Derbyshire, the stone font has leaden statues of the
Apostles.
There is a seventeenth century lead font at Clunbridge, Gloucestershire.
A complete list as far as possible follows:--
Berkshire Childrey and Long-Wittenham,
Clewer, Woolhampton, and
Woolstone (Norman)
Derbyshire Ashover (Norman)
Dorsetshire Wareham (Norman)
Gloucestershire Frampton-on-Severn and Llancourt
(similar, Norman)
Siston and Tidenham (Norman)
Gloucester Museum (Norman)
Clunbridge (1640)
Kent Brookland (Norman), Chilham, and
Eythorne (the latter dated 1628,
a copy of a Norman original)
Lincolnshire Barnetby-le-Wolde (Norman)
Norfolk Brundal, Hastingham (Norman)
Northamptonshire Wansford
Oxfordshire Clifton, Dorchester, Warborough,
(Norman)
Somerset Pitcombe
Surrey Walton-on-the-hill (Norman)
Sussex Edburton and Piecombe (early
English)
Parham (Decorated)
Wiltshire Chirton
Two of the French fonts are figured by Viollet-le-Duc,[16] that at
Berneuil is of the twelfth century and very similar to that at Tidenham
in Gloucestershire, with alternate arches occupied by figures and
foliage.
[16] _Art. Fons._
At Lombez (Gers) is a very beautiful example, small and delicate, with
two girdles of decoration, the upper row continuous foliage and figures,
but made up of one scene, a man discharging an arrow at a lion and a
basilisk, five times repeated; the lower row has sixteen quatre-foils
with figures of four varieties repeated, these are the religious orders.
It is remarked that the decorations were evidently “stock patterns”
because the upper row is much older than the lower, which is of the late
thirteenth century.
At Visine (Somme) is one of the fifteenth century with separate cast
figures in sixteen niches.
At Bourg-Achard, in Normandy, is another lead font,[17] and one is also
in the Museum of Antiquities in Rouen, this last has a long inscription
and date, 1415. There is a cast of one of these fonts in the Trocadero
collection in Paris.
[17] Dawson Turner’s _Tour_.
At St. Evrouet-de-Monford (Orne) is another very similar to our
Brookland font with Zodiac and Seasons.
In Germany, at Mayence, there is a very fine example of the fourteenth
century. And in the South Kensington Museum is a copy of a small
circular lead font in the Berlin Museum; this is cast in one piece, it
stands on three lions’ feet and has two handles, around it is an
inscription in Lombardic letters. It was presented to Treves by Bishop
Baldani in the thirteenth century.
§ IX. OF INSCRIPTIONS, ETC.
A sheet of lead is a most inviting surface for inscriptions, as may be
seen by making a trip to the leads of some cathedral or castle and
inspecting the series of names, dates, hand-marks and foot-prints left
by generations of plumbers and visitors. So lead has been one of the
chief materials used for written documents, not merely ephemeral, and
even now it would be difficult to find anything more ready to receive
the legend, more enduring to transmit it, and so easily decorated with
the charm of art which makes an object worthy to live. Our first
illustration shows the foundation record of an Egyptian King inscribed
on lead.
It was the custom also in ancient Babylonia to insert inscriptions below
the foundation stones of the great temples and palaces. In 1854 Place
found at Khorsabad the memorial inscriptions of the great palace of the
later Sargon, father of Sennacherib, a building founded in the eighth
century before our era. There were five of these inscribed plates all of
different metals, gold, silver, antimony, copper, and lead; the four
former are in the Louvre, but the lead, which must thus have been of
some size, “was too heavy to be carried off at once”; it was dispatched
by raft, and was lost with most of the collection. The inscription,
translated by Oppert, ends with the imprecation on disturbers which it
has been the wont of great builders in all times to conjure.
“May the great Lord Assur destroy from the face of this country the name
and race of him who shall injure the works of my hands or who shall
carry off my treasure.”
At Dodona many tablets of lead have been found inscribed in Greek; these
are questions to the oracle of that shrine.
In the British Museum there are several tablets inscribed in Greek about
the area of this book and covered with text, they are for the most part
imprecations on the heads of injurious persons, and were hid as a magic
rite in Temple enclosures. They are quite little stories.
“Imprecation of Antigone against her accuser.”
“Imprecation of Prosodion against those who misled her husband Nakron.”
“Imprecations of a woman against some one who stole her bracelet.”
Pausanias mentions having seen a text of Hesiod which was inscribed on
lead leaves; and Pliny also tells us of lead books. A lead inscribed
tablet was found in the Roman remains at Lydney slightly scratched with
a stylus.
[Illustration: FIG. 32.--Heart Box of King Richard.]
Of the Carlovingian age there are examples of lead documents in the
British Museum; one being an edict of Charlemagne himself, in which he
assumes the style of Emperor of the West; and it bears his well-known
cypher and the date, 18th Sept., 801. Another is signed Ludovic (Louis
the Younger), 822. In the Londesborough collection there is a leaden
book-cover of Saxon work with an inscription from Ælfric’s Homilies.
For sepulchral use lead is especially fitted; it was customary in the
twelfth century to inscribe a tablet or cross and to place it in the
coffin on the breast of the dead.
In the Museum at Bruges there is a tablet with a long inscription to
Gunilda the sister of Harold.[18] Two were found at Canterbury of the
thirteenth century with lines of beautifully drawn Lombard capitals in
incised outline with lines ruled between each row.[19]
[18] _Archæologia_, xxv.
[19] _Ibid._ xlv.
[Illustration: FIG. 33.--Inscribed Cross.]
In 1838 was discovered in Rouen Cathedral choir the heart casket of
Lion-hearted Richard, there were two boxes, one within the other, the
inner one, covered inside with thin silver leaf, was inscribed with the
simple words given in Fig. 32 from _Archæologia_ (xxix).
A cruciform tablet is given in Camden[20] with an inscription purporting
to record King Arthur; the form shows that it was made in the twelfth
century. In the fifteenth century Chronicle of Capgrave, under the year
1170, he writes--“In these days was Arthures body founde in the cherch
yerd at Glaskinbury in a hol hok, a crosse of led leyd to a ston and the
letteris hid betwyx the ston and the led.” He gives Giraldus, “whech red
it,” as his authority. Giraldus Cambrensis gives the inscription as “Hic
jacet sepultus inclytus Rex Arthurus cum Wennevereia uxore sua secunda
in Insula Avalonia.”[21]
[20] Folio, plate v. vol. i.
[21] Capgrave, in Rolls Series.
Now William of Malmesbury, who died about 1145, says distinctly that the
tomb of Arthur had never been found, so this dates the fabrication of
this cross by the monks of Glastonbury always so especially greedy of
relics, as within a year or two of this time when Giraldus saw it (“quam
nos quoque vidimus”). The inscription on the lead cross engraved by
Camden agrees word for word with the exception of “with Guenevere his
second wife.” Must we not suppose that Giraldus here improved even upon
the monks, and added this poetic touch himself?
Few of these absolution crosses have been found abroad; one discovered
in Perigord was inscribed on the arms LVX . PAX . REX . LEX.
Wall tablets in churches are represented by one at Burford in
Shropshire, the monument of Lady Corbett, 1516. Her effigy is incised
under a canopy much like the brasses of the same time, and it suggests
simple decorative possibilities, such as filling cavities with mastics
of several colours, parcel gilding, damascening in brass wire, or inlay
of metal on metal.
In Saltash Church, Cornwall, a lead tablet records that “This Chapple
was repaired in the Mairty of Matthew Veale, Gent. Anno 1689.”
Inscriptions may be either cast with raised letters, engraved like the
early ones, or punched. Ornamental borders might also be made up of
punched lines, loops and dots.
[Illustration: FIG. 34.--Arms from Bourges.]
Of Coat Arms there was an instance at Jacques Cœur’s house in Bourges,
which is quite a lead mine. The Angel shield bearer alone remains, with
signs of the erasure of the arms. In London, about Copthall Buildings,
in the City, are several tablets with the arms of the “Armorers
Brasiers,” as also a large number of shields of cast lead with dates and
initials or names of the City wards. The insurance companies also used
shields of stamped lead.
In Vere Street, Clare Market, over the angle of what is at present a
baker’s shop, there is a panel with two negroes’ heads in relief, and
the legend “S. W. M. 1715.”
We began with a foundation inscription, we will conclude with one
twenty-six centuries later. This is a large cast plate of lead 3.6 by
2.4 and an inch thick, now preserved in the Guildhall Museum, which was
laid in the foundation of old Blackfriars, then Pitt Bridge:--
“On the last day of October in the year 1760 and in the beginning of the
most auspicious reign of George III., Sir Thomas Chitty, Knight, Lord
Mayor, laid the first stone of this bridge undertaken by the Common
Council of London (in the height of an extensive war) for the public
accommodation and ornament of the city (Robert Milne being the
architect) and that there may remain to posterity a monument of this
city’s affection to the man who by the strength of his genius, the
steadiness of his mind, and a kind of happy contagion of his probity and
spirit, under the divine favour and fortunate auspices of George II.,
recovered, augmented and secured the British Empire in Asia, Africa, and
America, and restored the ancient reputation and influence of his
country amongst the nations of Europe.
“The Citizens of London have unanimously voted this bridge to be
inscribed with the name of William Pitt.”
§ X. OF THE DECORATION OF LEAD.
One of the most usual methods of decorating lead was to gild it; whole
domes were gilt in this way. The dome of St. Sophia at Constantinople
seems to have been so treated, and the great arc of gold dominating such
an Eastern city must have been a most impressive sight. Many of the late
domes are partly gilt, as at the Invalides in Paris. The roof of the
ancient basilica at Tours is said to have been like “a mountain of
gold.”
Old recipe books of the last century give instructions for gilding lead.
The following are examples:--