Leadwork Part 4

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)

Suss.e.x 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 doc.u.ments, 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 a.s.sur 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 32.--Heart Box of King Richard.]

Of the Carlovingian age there are examples of lead doc.u.ments in the British Museum; one being an edict of Charlemagne himself, in which he a.s.sumes 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 aelfric'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] _Archaeologia_, xxv.

[19] _Ibid._ xlv.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 _Archaeologia_ (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 c.u.m 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 Glas...o...b..ry 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 bra.s.ses of the same time, and it suggests simple decorative possibilities, such as filling cavities with mastics of several colours, parcel gilding, damascening in bra.s.s 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.