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II.—On a triptych of the Twelfth Century from the Abbey of Stavelot in Belgium, containing portions of the True Cross

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2011

Charles Hercules Read
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Extract

From time to time the Society has the privilege of examining and publishing important examples of mediaeval art brought to its notice by the Fellows. Of these a fair number are fortunately in the safe keeping of museums or corporate bodies in this country, and such are mainly the most important. I have in my mind treasures like the relics of the Black Prince at Canterbury [would that they were better cared for!], the crozier of William of Wykeham at New College, and “King John's Cup” at Lynn. Such legacies as these are not likely to leave our shores, short of some national catastrophe. For the rest, still very numerous, that remain in private hands, there can be no doubt that the tendency at the present time is rather in favour of their finding homes in foreign than in English collections. Our riches in such directions, however, help to make London a market or exchange for works of art, and the wealthy buyer is forced to come here to increase his collections. In this way we have before us this evening a monument of mediaeval art workmanship of a kind and importance that is but seldom found in the open market.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , 1910 , pp. 21 - 30
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1910

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References

page 22 note 1 A comparison with other similar works of the time, and particularly the triptychs in the Église de la Sainte Croix at Liége and in the Dutuit Collection in the Petit Palais in Paris, makes it almost certain that the middle panel in this triptych originally had supporting figures for the relics. It is not conceivable that a twelfth-century artist would have left the field immediately around the central subject so entirely devoid of ornament.

page 23 note 1 These features are the discovery of three crosses instead of one (mentioned by SS. Ambrose and Chrysostom); the identification of our Lord's cross by a miracle performed by it (Paulinus, Theodoret, Sulpicius, Rufinus, Socrates, Sozomen). Several of these authors state that the nails were found with the cross; and Paulinus relates the further miracle that the portion of the cross kept at Jerusalem gave off fragments without diminishing (Newman, Essays on Miracles, 299, 300). The apocryphal Story of Judas was condemned by Pope Gelasius in A.D. 494, but nevertheless obtained currency and was accepted through the Middle Ages (Acta Sanctorum, May, vol. iii. 367Google Scholar).

page 23 note 2 I am indebted to my colleague, Mr. O. M. Dalton, for kindly describing these Byzantine enamels. He has recently made a special study of this class of work, and it therefore seemed to me that the Society would gain by his collaboration.

page 23 note 3 Byzantine enamels are very rarely executed by any other process, though the backgrounds are often also covered with enamel. The best-known example in which the champlevè process is employed is the large plaque representing St. Theodore, formerly in the Basilewsky Collection, and now in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg (Darcel and Basilewsky, La Collection Basilewsky, plate xiv; Labarte, Histoire des arts industriels, Album, ii. plate 105); even here the champlevé work is only partial. The metal used by the enamellers was almost always gold, or perhaps a fine alloy: copper is occasionally found, as in the Basilewsky plaque above mentioned, and in a medallion in the British Museum described before the Society in May, 1906 (Proceedings, 2nd S. xxi. 194). This medallion has enamels on both sides, a rare but not unprecedented feature. Of the method of firing employed by Byzantine enamellers we know little. It may be assumed that their apparatus, if less elaborate than that necessary in modern times when furnaces are heated with coal or gas, was rather more complete than those described by Theophilus about A.D. 1100 (Diversarum Artiutn Schedula, iii. 54Google Scholar).

page 25 note 1 Weerth, E. Aus 'm, Das Siegeskreuz der Byzant. Kaiser Constantinus VII. und Romanus II, 1861, plate IGoogle Scholar; Labarte, , Histoire des arts industriels, ii. 83 ff.Google Scholar; N. Kondakoff, Die byzantinischen Zellenschmelze der Sammlung Dr. Alexis von Swenigorodskoi, 209.

page 25 note 2 Bock, F., Kleinodien des heiligen Römischen Reichs, plate 38Google Scholar; Molinier, E., L'orfévrerie, 52Google Scholar; Pulszky, , Radisiès, , and Molinier, , Chefs-d' œuvre d' orfèvrerie à l' Exposition de Budapest; Kondakoff, as above 2 and 3 ff.Google Scholar

page 25 note 3 Kondakoff, as above, pp. 135 ff. and figs.; Schlumberger, G., L'Épopée byzantine, i. 137, 188Google Scholar.

page 25 note 4 Barbier de Montault, Le trésor de Sainte-Croix de Poitiers, plate i; E. Molinier, L'orfèvrerie, 38–40.

page 25 note 5 Stephens, G., Queen Dagmar's Cross, 1863Google Scholar; Kondakoff, as above, 178, figs. 51 and 52; Archaeological Journal ii. 166Google Scholar; Molinier, E., L'orfèvrerie, 57.Google Scholar

page 25 note 6 Lauer, Ph., Monuments et Mémoires, Fondation Eugène Piot, xv, 1906, 36 ffGoogle Scholar. and plate vi; Edinburgh Review, no. 420, 1907, p. 471Google Scholar; Civiltà Cattolica, 1906, part ii.

page 25 note 7 Cloisonné enamelling may have been practised at Constantinople as early as Constantine, and is certainly as old as Justinian, though the region from which it was introduced into the capital is not known with certainty. The majority of existing Byzantine enamels belong to the period between the close of the iconoclastic disturbance and the thirteenth century.

page 26 note 1 See also Kondakoff, 220; Bock, F., Byzantinische Zellenschmelze, 181–4.Google Scholar

page 26 note 2 See Riaut, Comte, Des dépouilles religieuses enlevées à Constantinople an XIIIe siècle par les Latins, etc.; in Mémoires de la Société nationale des Antiquaires de France, vol. xxxviGoogle Scholar. (Separate copy in the Library of the British Museum.)

page 26 note 3 Ibid. 57, 189. The original information is derived from Ralph of Coggeshall, ed. Duncin, 1852, p. cxxv, and Roger of Wendover, Chronicon (ed. of the English Historical Society, 1841–5), iv. 90. This relic was abstracted from Baldwin's treasure by an English chaplain, who brought it to his own country and disposed of it there.

page 26 note 4 Mémoire statistique du département de I'Ourthe, 1879, p. 250.Google Scholar

page 27 note 1 Byzantinische Zellenschmelze.

page 28 note 1 Délices du Pays de Liége, 1743.Google Scholar

page 28 note 2 Deutsche Schmelzarbeiten, plate xxiv.

page 28 note 3 See Janssen, J., Wibald von Stablo und Corvey, Münster, 1854Google Scholar.

page 29 note 1 Jaffé, , Biblioth. Rer. Germ i. 194Google Scholar.

page 29 note 2 Laurent Mélart, L'histoire de la ville et chasteau de Huy. M.Viersèt Godin cites a little book printed in 1685, entitled Incunabula Ecclesia Hoyensis, giving an inventory of the treasures of the collegiate church at Huy, drawn up in 1274 by Joannes de Appià, the warden. This inventory states that these shrines were made at the costs of the Chapter by Godefroi de Claire, otherwise called the Noble, and that the bodies were solemnly placed in them in the year 1172 or 1173. Gilles d'Orval, a contemporary chronicler, gives the actual date as June 15, 1173 ([Bulletin des Commissions royales d'art et d'archéologie, Ire Année, 1862, p. 397)Google Scholar.

page 29 note 3 Bulletin de l'Inst. archéol. liégeois, xiii. (1877) 221.Google Scholar

page 30 note 1 Ed. Bormans, iv. 457.