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IX.—An Alabaster Table of the Annunciation with the Crucifix: a Study in English Iconography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 November 2011

W.L. Hildburgh
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Extract

The Kunstgewerbe Museum at Cologne contains a peculiarly interesting example of medieval English alabaster carving, enclosed in what seems to be its original painted wooden case. A few years ago Dr. Carl Schaefer, who was then in charge of the Wallraf-Richartz Museum, found it cast aside in a store-room of that institution, and, having recognized its nature and origin, exhibited it for a little time in one of the galleries; afterwards, he had it removed to the Kunstgewerbe Museum, of which he was director, where it more properly belonged. I saw it in June 1922, soon after it had first been exhibited, and, at my request, Dr. Schaefer courteously had made for me the two photographs (pi. XLV, figs. 1 and 2) herewith reproduced.

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Research Article
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Archaeologia , Volume 74 , 1925 , pp. 203 - 232
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1925

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References

page 203 note 1 I have to thank, for their valuable assistance in obtaining photographs reproduced and information embodied in this paper, Messrs. F. C. Eeles and F. E. Howard, and our Fellows Mr. P. B. Chatwin, Mr. F. H. Crossley, Dr. H. H. E. Craster, and Dr. Philip Nelson.

page 203 note 2 Cf. Nelson, P., ‘Earliest Type of English Alabaster Panel Carvings ’, in Archaeol. Journ., lxxvi, 84 seqq., and pis.Google Scholar I-IX. The present panel has been referred to briefly on 93 seqq.

page 203 note 3 This often has the Third Person, in the form of a Dove, added, so as to show the Trinity. On alabaster representations of this sort, with or without the Dove, cf. Ant. Journ., iii, 28.Google Scholar

page 204 note 1 This latter pattern is similar to the patterns of the backgrounds of a table of the Resurrection in the British Museum (Catalogue, London, 1913Google ScholarPubMed, of the Society's Alabaster Exhibition, fig. 5; Prior and Gardner, Medieval Figure-Sculpture in England, 1912, fig. 545; Nelson's ‘Earliest Type …’, pl. iii and p. 87) and a table of the Betrayal at Hawkley Church, Hants (Nelson, ibid., pl. vn and pp. 91 seq.).

page 204 note 2 Cf. Husenbeth, F. C., Emblems of Saints, 1882, 56Google Scholar.

page 204 note 3 Cf. Calendar of the Anglican Church, Oxford, 1851, 217Google Scholar.

page 204 note 4 If the paintings are—as they seem to be—contemporary with the panel, we may conceivably see in the picture of St. Ursula an indication that the panel and its case were made especially for a place in the Cologne district, since St. Ursula is one of the patron saints of Cologne. The situations, in certain small German towns, of several English alabaster panels of about the same comparatively early date as the present one, seem to indicate that at that period England was often exporting alabaster work to German districts; cf. Ant.Journ., iii. 30 seqq.; Nelson, ‘Earliest Type …’, 88seqq.

page 204 note 5 In ‘The Woodwork of English Alabaster Retables’, in Trans. Historic Soc, Lanes, and Ches., 1920, 57 seq.Google Scholar Cf. also his ‘Some Unpublished English Medieval Alabaster Carvings’, in Archaeol. Journ., Ixxvii, pl. 11, and ‘English Medieval Alabaster Carvings in Iceland and Denmark’, in ibid., pl. iv.

page 205 note 1 Cf. Historie of the arrivall of Edward IV in England … (1471), Camden Soc., 1838, 13 seq.; quoted by Nelson, ‘The Woodwork …’, 58 seq.; given in abridged form in Hazlitt's, W. C.Brand's Popular Antiquities of Great Britain, 1870, i, 73.Google Scholar

page 205 note 2 Wavy lines, representing clouds, often (e. g. in tables of the Assumption) run right across a panel, to separate the heavenly part of a scene from the earthly.

page 205 note 3 Cf. Nelson, ‘English Medieval Alabaster Carvings in Iceland and Denmark’, pl. 11 and p. 195. Double scenes occur so rarely on English alabaster tables that the first scenic panel of this triptych, showing the Betrayal in its lower part and the Agony in the Garden in its upper, also seems worth noting here.

page 205 note 4 Reproduced from Clemen's, P.Die Kunstdenkmäler der Rheinprovinz, vol. ii, ‘Kreis Rees’, 46 (with fig. 19).Google Scholar

page 205 note 5 For various quotations illustrating the belief in ancient times that these two events occurred on that date, see Cabrol's, Did. d'archéologie chrétienne, i, 2247 seq.Google Scholar (s. v. ‘Annonciation [Fête de l'])’. Cf. also Caxton's Englishing (about 1483) of the Golden Legend, under ‘Feast of the Annunciation”. For much relative to the celebration on that date of the two events see Frazer, J. G., The Golden Bough, 3rd edit., Adonis, Attis, Osiris, 1914, i, 305 seqq.Google Scholar

page 206 note 1 Cf. Proceedings, xxxi, 58 and fig. 2 (from which the present fig. is reproduced).

page 206 note 2 Compare Didron, A. N., Christian Iconography, i, London, 1851, 443Google Scholar: ‘Jesus Christ, after having accomplished his mission upon earth and terminated his mournful pilgrimage, re-ascended to Heaven, to give account to his Father of everything he had done; in the monuments representing that beautiful scene, the Holy Ghost is generally shown accompanying the Father Almighty in his reception of his Son.’ Cf. further, ibid., 293 seq., 300, 304 seq.

page 206 note 3 It is perhaps worth noting in this connexion that a ‘tradition, followed by Lactantius and perhaps by the practice of the Church in Gaul, placed the death of Christ on the twenty-third and his resurrection on the twenty-fifth of March’. Frazer, op. cit., 309; cf. ibid., 307.

page 206 note 4 This method of representing the Incarnation seems to illustrate the heresy of Eutyches, who, in 337, taught that the flesh of Christ came from heaven; cf. de Montault, X. Barbier, Iconographie chretienne, ii, Paris, 1890, 115, 216.Google Scholar

page 206 note 5 Cf. Cat. cit., pl. v and p. 37; Prior and Gardner, op. cit., fig. 555.

page 206 note 6 Reproduced from Cat. cit., no. 57. The panel, now the property of Sir Wilmot Herringham, is on loan at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

page 206 note 7 Cf. Biver, P., Archaeol. Journ., lxvii, 84 seq. and pl. xviiiGoogle Scholar, or Cat. cit., pl. vii.

page 207 note 1 Cf. Nelson, , ‘The Virgin Triptych at Danzig’, in Archaeol. Journ., lxxvi, 140 and pl. 11.Google Scholar

page 207 note 2 Didron, , op. cit., ii, London, 1886, 71 seq.Google Scholar

page 207 note 3 Cf. MacHarg, J. B., Visual Representations of the Trinity, Cooperstown, 1917, 109Google Scholar; Hirn, Yrjö, The Sacred Shrine, London, 1912, 314 seq., 527Google Scholar; Mrs.Jameson, , Legends of the Madonna, 3rd edit., London, 1864, 171Google Scholar, &c.

page 207 note 4 e.g. in the window of a church in Norfolk; see Winter, C. I. W., A Selection of Norfolk Antiquities, Norwich, 1885–1886, 13th plate.Google Scholar In this example the Father is not shown, but His situation is indicated by a broad ray along which flies the Dove, followed by the Child holding a cross.

page 207 note 5 Cf. Barbier de Montault, loc. cit., referring to Benedict XIV, in the middle of the eighteenth century.

page 207 note 6 Not infrequently the Third Person is not shown in representations which seem to be intended for the Trinity; cf. Didron, op. cit., i, 503seq., 507 seq., and Ant. Journ., iii, 28.

page 207 note 7 Cf. Hirn, op. cit., London, 1912, 296 seq.

page 208 note 1 Other examples of the Holy Ghost with a book have been figured by Didron, op. cit., i, 301, 435.

page 208 note 2 Cf. The Coventry Mysteries, edit, by Halliwell, J. O., Shakespeare Soc, 1841, 104 seqq.Google Scholar; Ludus Coventriae, edit, by Block, K. S., Early English Text Soc., 1922, 97 seqqGoogle Scholar.

page 208 note 3 Cf. Didron, , op. cit., ii, 59, 61.Google Scholar

page 208 note 4 Cf. The Coventry Mysteries, 113.Google Scholar

page 208 note 5 Cf. ibid., 114 seq.

page 208 note 6 Cf. Ant. Journ., iii, 35 seq.Google Scholar

page 208 note 7 Cf. ibid., iii, 25 seq.

page 208 note 8 Cf. ibid., iv, 376.

page 208 note 9 This should not be confused with the emblem, formed of a crucifix entwined with lilies, held by St. Nicholas of Tolentino.

page 208 note 10 I have examined a considerable number of medieval English manuscripts, depicting the Annunciation, at the British Museum, but have failed to find any showing Christ upon the lily. I have as yet found no example of the representation in the needlework for which medieval England was noted.

page 209 note 1 Reproduced by courtesy of Mr. F. E. Howard, from a print found by him in a book formerly belonging to the late J. T. Micklethwaite, F.S.A.

page 209 note 2 Cf. Bond, F., Wood Carvings in English Churches: Misericords, Oxford, 1910, 217, 226.Google Scholar

page 209 note 3 By courtesy of Dr. Philip Nelson.

page 209 note 4 Cf. Nelson, ‘Earliest Type…’, 94 seq.

page 209 note 5 No. W. 50, 1921.

page 209 note 6 Reproduced from Smith's, H. Clifford‘An English Fifteenth-century Panel’, in Ant. Journ., i, 300 seqq.Google Scholar

page 209 note 7 Cf. Nelson, , Ancient Painted Glass in England, London, 1913, 253.Google Scholar

page 209 note 8 Reproduced from a drawing in Calendar of the Anglican Church, Oxford, 1851, 60Google Scholar.

page 209 note 9 Nelson, , Ancient Painted Glass …, 170.Google Scholar

page 210 note 1 Of this representation E. S. Bouchier says (in Stained Glass of the Oxford District, Oxford, 1918, 46) that ‘a small crucifix with Christ clothed in white is stretched on the stem’.

page 210 note 2 Cf. Clifford Smith, loc. cit.; Nelson, ‘Earliest Type …’, 94. Reproduced by courtesy of Mr. F. H. Crossley, F.S.A.

page 210 note 3 The tomb is ascribed to about 1530; cf. Prior and Gardner, op. cit., 59. A drawing of it has been reproduced by Crossley, , English Church Monuments, London, 1921, 126Google Scholar.

page 210 note 4 Reproduced by courtesy of Mr. Crossley.

page 211 note 1 He is said to have begun the Canterbury Tales when he was about 60; i. e. about 1388.

page 211 note 2 Cf. Smith, L. T., York Plays, Oxford, 1885, 96Google Scholar.

page 212 note 1 Cf., however, infra, pp. 288 seqq.

page 212 note 2 I am indebted for my information concerning this carving, as well as for the photograph (made at my request) herewith produced, to our Fellow Mr. P. B. Chatwin.

page 212 note 3 Cf. Nichols, John, History and Antiquities of the County of Leicester, iv, London, 1807, 206Google Scholar and pl. xxix.

page 212 note 4 The panels are now set up in the vestry of the church.

page 213 note 1 Compare p. 216 infra, on the tripartite portions, perhaps associable with vegetation, of English metal crosses; and p. 222 seq. infra, on the symbolical use of three lilies.

page 213 note 2 Bouchier, op. cit., 43.

page 213 note 3 Cf. Cabrol, , op. cit., s. v. ‘Arbres’, 2706Google Scholar. The date is, however, disputable and has been put as early as the sixth century and as late as the ninth; cf. Roller, T., Les catacombes de Rome, ii, Paris, 1881, 341Google Scholar.

page 213 note 4 Cf. Les catacombes, ii, pl. lxxxix and p. 305. Reproduced also by Cabrol, loc. cit., fig. 899.

page 213 note 5 Cf. ibid, ii, 304 and pl. lxxxix; also Cabrol, loc. cit., 2707 and fig. 901.

page 214 note 1 Didron, , op. cit., i, 412Google Scholar; authorities cited in a foot-note.

page 214 note 2 Rupin, E., L'œuvre de Limoges, Paris, 1890, 272Google Scholar.

page 214 note 3 Didron, , op. cit., i, 412Google Scholar, cites, however, a number of French examples in sculpture, glass, and miniatures.

page 214 note 4 From Muther, , Deutsche Bücher-illustration der Gothik und Frührenaissance (1460–1530), ii, 6.Google Scholar

page 214 note 5 E. g. in a Rhenish crucifix of the first half of the fifteenth century, in the Schnutgen Collection, at Cologne; cf. Witte, F., Die Skulpturen der Satnmlung Schnutgen in Coin, Berlin, 1912, 60 and pl. xiv.Google Scholar

page 214 note 6 Cf. Witte, , loc. cit. For texts referring to this, see Gen. ii. 9Google Scholar; Rev. ii. 7, xxii. 2, 14. For numerous references to trees ‘of Life ’ see Barlow, H. C., Essays on Symbolism, London, 1866Google Scholar, ‘The Tree of Life’; note especially pp. 73, 78 seq.

page 214 note 7 Rupin, , op. cit., 271Google Scholar, ascribes the introduction of the representations with lopped branches to people who, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, thought‘sans motifs seriéux’ that the Cross was made of a tree-trunk whose branches only had been lopped away, instead of one which had been squared. For some German examples of twelfth-century crosses of this kind see C. de Linas, ‘Les crucifix champleves polychromes ’, in Rev. de l' Art chrétien, 1885, 470. A cross of the same sort, in Limousin enamel, is shown by Rupin, op. cit., fig. 330.

page 215 note 1 Catalogue, Text i, 120; figured also by E. Molinier, L'orfèvrerie religieuse et civile (in Hist, générale des Arts appliqués à l'industrie), 189.

page 215 note 2 Cf. Didron, , op. cit., i, 412.Google Scholar

page 215 note 3 Copies of these paintings are in the Victoria and Albert Museum, nos. E. 491 and E. 493.

page 215 note 4 Reproduced by courtesy of our Fellow Mr.Stone, P. G., from his Architectural Antiquities of the Isle of Wight, London, 1891, i, 90Google Scholar.

page 215 note 5 A drawing of this painting was exhibited, shortly after its discovery, before the Society in 1844; its description, given in Archaeologia, xxxi, 483, says, ‘It represents Christ crucified on a tree … Scrolls with mottoes were painted on each side of the tree; only one of which—“Ora pro nobis Domine ”—can now with difficulty be read.’ The Rev. W. L. Giradot, curate of Godshill, writing about the same time (cf. Archaeol. Journ., i, 67), said, ‘The Saviour on the Cross, … [he] imagines, is placed against a shrub or tree, as bright green colours surround it; the lower parts being entirely defaced, the stem cannot be traced out. The crown of thorns, and the bloody arms extended, are tolerably clear, as well as some scrolls painted in red colour, one of which is legible.’

page 215 note 6 Cf. Oxford Dict., s. v. ‘Tree, 4 a’. We should observe, however, that wood (cf. ibid., 2), a gallows (ibid., 4 b), and various objects made of wood (ibid., 5) are (or have been) also known as ‘tree’.

page 215 note 7 Cf. Styan, K. E., History of Sepulchral Cross-Slabs, London, 1902Google Scholar, pis. liv, iii, xlix, xxii, xxvi, xxiii. Cf. also pl. XLVIII for one having two ‘branches’ and attributed to the late twelfth century.

page 215 note 8 Cf. ibid., pls. liv, xxiv.

page 216 note 1 Cf. Styan, K. E., History of Sepulchral Cross-Slabs, London, 1902, pls. xiv, xlvi, xlvii.Google Scholar

page 216 note 2 Proceedings, xxii, 42.Google Scholar

page 216 note 3 Cf. Proceedings, xxxii, 129 seq.Google Scholar; one, with its staff, is shown facing p. 130.

page 216 note 4 Worthy of note, in this connexion, is a part of the decoration of the Cross, consisting of ‘silvered four-leaved flowers with golden stems on a ground of black enamel’.

page 216 note 5 E. g. one in the Victoria and Albert Museum, no. 136–1879.

page 217 note 1 E.g. one figured in Proceedings, xxvi, facing p. 3; and a base (no. M. 98–1914) in the Victoria and Albert Museum.

page 217 note 2 The property of the Society.

page 217 note 3 See B.F.A. Club, Exhibition of Illuminated MSS., pl. 36; Exhibition of British Primitive Paintings, 1923, pl. xlii.

page 217 note 4 The arrangement of the floral ornament with respect to the blue cross reminds one strongly of the crosses, of metal engraved with conventionalized foliage or of wood painted with it, of medieval Continental and English art.

page 217 note 5 Reproduced by courtesy of the Museum.

page 217 note 6 Cf. Maclagan, E., ‘An English Alabaster Altar-piece in the Victoria and Albert Museum’, in Burlington Mag., xxxvi, 53 seqq.Google Scholar

page 217 note 7 The same thing is shown by another ‘Trinity’ panel (no. 901–1905) in the same Museum; and doubtless it could be seen upon others, had they not lost their colouring.

page 217 note 8 Carmichael, A., Carmina Godelica, Edinburgh, 1900, ii, 244Google Scholar.

page 218 note 1 Encycl. Brit., 11th edit., s.v.‘Passion-flower’. Brewer, Diet, of Phrase and Fable, s. v. ‘Passionflower’, gives a considerably longer list of assumed analogies, but similarly omits any mention of a ‘cross on the flower’.

page 219 note 2 Seymour, W. W., The Cross in Tradition, History, and Art, New York and London, 1898, 367Google Scholar.

page 219 note 3 Ibid., be. cit.

page 219 note 4 Cf. Langdon, A. G., Old Cornish Crosses, Truro, 1896, 361Google Scholar seq. and pl. opp. p. 361.

page 219 note 1 It is probably not later than the twelfth century; cf. ibid., 17 seqq.

page 219 note 2 E. g. one at St. Dennis (cf. ibid., 294 seq.), one at Growan (ibid., 329 seq.), and one at Scorrier (ibid., 333).

page 219 note 3 Loc. cit. and pl. On the double-chevron pattern on Cornish crosses cf. ibid., 326 seqq.

page 219 note 4 As ‘Pauper’ tells us (cf. Dives and Pauper, London, 1534, fols. 16 v seq.), ‘the image of our lady is paynted with … a lyly or els with a rose in her right hond, in token that she is mayden withoute ende, and floure of all women ’.

page 219 note 5 Cf. Encycl. Brit., 11th edit., s.v. ‘Lily’.

page 219 note 6 Cf. de Gubernatis, A., Mythologie des Plantes, ii, Paris, 1882Google Scholar, 199 seq.

page 219 note 7 Cf. Daremberg and Saglio, Diet, des antiquités, s. v. ‘Hortus ’, p. 293.

page 219 note 8 Cf. Smith's Dict. Greek and Roman Biography, s.v. ‘Juno’. As the queen of heaven, Juno ‘bore the surname of Regina, under which she was worshipped at Rome from early times’. Cf. also Daremberg and Saglio, op. cit., s. v. ‘Juno’, p. 688.

page 219 note 9 Cf. ibid., s. v. ‘Hera ’.

page 220 note 1 Cf. Jewish Encyclopaedia, s. v. ‘Lily ’.

page 220 note 2 Cf. Smith's Diet, of the Bible, s. v. ‘Susanna’.

page 220 note 3 Cf. de Gubernatis, op. cit., ii, 200, quoting Albertus Magnus, De Secretis Mulierum. The latter is also reported to have attributed a similar effect to the mallow, if stooped over by a girl; cf. Huysmans, J. K., The Cathedral, Bell's, C. trans., London, 1898, 190Google Scholar.

page 220 note 4 Cf. de Gubernatis, 199, 201. Saintyves, P., Les Vierges Meres, Paris, 1908, says (p. 109Google Scholar) that Mary sometimes holds a lotus instead of a lily.

page 220 note 5 Quoted by de Gubernatis, op. cit., ii, 200.

page 221 note 1 Cf. infra, pp. 223 seq.

page 221 note 2 Cf. Protevangelium, xi; Pseudo-Matthew, ix.

page 221 note 3 See, for some examples, the photographic reproductions given by Venturi, A. in La Madonna (Milan, 1900CrossRefGoogle Scholar; English trans., The Madonna, London, 1902)Google ScholarPubMed, in the chapter on the Annunciation.

page 221 note 4 Cf. Mrs.Jameson, , Sacred and Legendary Art, i, London, 1866Google Scholar, 122 seq.

page 221 note 5 Male, E., Religious Art in France of the Thirteenth Century, 1913, 244 seq.Google Scholar

page 221 note 6 Him, op. cit., 281.

page 221 note 7 Legenda Aurea, chap, li, ‘De annunciatione dominica’; Th. Graesse's edit., Dresden, 1846, 217. The passage is not in Caxton's version.

page 221 note 8 Male, op. cit., 245, foot-note.

page 221 note 9 E. g. the one of Mâle's fig. 122.

page 222 note 1 La Sainte Vierge, i, Paris, 1878, pls. vii-xiv.Google Scholar

page 222 note 2 Num. xvii, 5, 8.

page 222 note 3 Cf. Rohault de Fleury, op. cit., i, 145.

page 222 note 4 In a copy in the British Museum (cf. Berjeau, J. Ph., Biblia Pauperuni, London, 1859)Google Scholar, pl. B; in one from Wolfenbuttel and now in the Bibliotheque Nationale (cf. Heitz, P. and Schreiber, W. L., Biblia Pauperum, Strasbourg, 1903)Google Scholar, pl. E.

page 222 note 5 The two just cited; I have not gone further into the matter.

page 222 note 6 The mosaic, of about 1290, in Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome (cf. Venturi, La Madonna, fig. on 156), shows a small pot of lilies. For some other early examples see ibid., figs, on 157 seqq-Some later Italian examples are given as well in the same chapter.

page 222 note 7 Cf. Rock, D., The Church of our Fathers, iii, London, 1852, 246 seqq., 252Google Scholar; the legend of St. Aegidius and the lilies, given on 247 seq. in Latin, from the Magni Speculi Exemplorum, is given in English by Him, op. cit., 282 seq. When only one flower is shown, with two unopened buds, only the first of the three virginities is symbolized; cf. Barbier de Montault, op. cit., ii, 216, 221.

page 222 note 8 Sometimes we find, as the equivalent of this, three separate lilies, each on its own stem-an arrangement said (cf. Haig, E., Floral Symbolism of the Great Masters, London, 1913, 175Google Scholar) to have been suggested by the legend of St. Aegidius just mentioned. Sometimes three is further symbolized by making each flower conspicuously tripartite.

page 223 note 1 Cf. Cat. cit., pls. v, vii (figs. 15, 16); Biver, op. at., pl. xix; Nelson, , ‘English Alabasters of the Embattled Type’, in Archaeol. Journ., lxxv, pl. in (figs. 1,2)Google Scholar; etc.

page 223 note 2 E. g. on a bench-end at Warkworth (cf. Prior and Gardner, op. at., fig. 625).

page 223 note 3 E. g. in a panel in the Leicester Museum; in Great Malvern Priory Church; at East Harling, Norfolk (cf. Westlake, N. H. J., Hist, of Design in Painted Glass, iii, London, 1886, pl. lxiv), etc.Google Scholar

page 223 note 4 E.g. in Queen Mary's Psalter [early fourteenth century] (cf. Queen Mary's Psalter, Brit. Mus., 1912, pl. 147 [f. 84 υ ]); Harleian MS. 2887, f. 55 υ;, etc.

page 223 note 5 Here, and on the painted panel, three separate stems are shown.

page 223 note 6 I have not had the opportunity of looking into the examples at York Minster.

page 224 note 1 On a fresco of the Betrothal, at Padua, painted by Giotto at the beginning of the fourteenth century, the tip of Joseph's rod has flowered as a lily (perhaps in allusion to the coming Saviour, perhaps to his own purity of life, perhaps to Mary), upon which is a dove (cf. Venturi, op. cit., 127,136).

page 224 note 2 Hirn, op. cit., 281.

page 224 note 3 Venturi also reproduces, but photographically, a number of early examples in the chapter on the Annunciation in his Madonna.

page 224 note 4 Barbier de Montault, op. cit., ii, 216, says that this represents heaven.

page 225 note 1 Cf. Male, op. cit., 165.

page 225 note 2 Figured by Rohault de Fleury, op. cit., i, pl. 11; cf. ibid., p. 18.

page 225 note 3 Hirn, op. cit., 547.

page 225 note 4 Cf. Huysmans, op. cit., 197.

page 225 note 5 For an example of the medieval confusing of the fleur-de-lis with the lily, as associated with the Virgin Mary, see the tale of the fleur-de-lis bearing the words ‘Ave Maria’ which grew from a grave, given in Caxton's version of The Golden Legend, under ‘Feast of the Annunciation ’. On this confusion in art cf. Haig, op. cit., 168 seq.

page 225 note 6 Venturi thinks (cf. The Madonna, 159) that the lily held by Gabriel in the fourteenth century ‘was probably derived from the lilied sceptre which Gabriel, as messenger of God, bore for a token of imperial authority. As though to record some such origin, Orcagna gave to the lily-stem a shape like that of the regal sceptre. It is a sceptre with opening buds upon it.’

page 225 note 7 There is an Italian painting, of the first half of the fourteenth century, in which Gabriel's wand is part stick, part lily-stem; in this painting the lily-pot is present, as well as the lily-wand; cf. Haig, op. cit., 178 seq., quoting Venturi, Storia dell'Arte Italiana.

page 226 note 1 Reproduced by Didron, op. cit., i, 432, fig. 110.

page 226 note 2 Bibl. Roy. Psalterium cum Figuris, Greek, no. 139.

page 226 note 3 Didron, op. cit., i, 128; the illustration copied from MS. no. 460 in the Bibliotheque de Sainte Genevieve.

page 226 note 4 Jewish Encyclopaedia, s. v. ‘Lily’.

page 226 note 5 Cf. Rock, op. cit, iii, 251 seq., quoting De Tempi. Salamonis.

page 226 note 6 Cf. Auber, Abbé C. A., Hist, et thèorie du Symbolisme religieux, iii, Paris, 1871, 542Google Scholar. It should be observed, however, in this connexion, that ‘we are told by old treatises on symbolical theology that all plants embody the allegory of the Resurrection’; cf. Huysmans, op. cit., 193.

page 226 note 7 Cf. Venturi, The Madonna, 158.

page 227 note 1 Him, op. cit., 338; cf. further, ibid., 336–42.

page 227 note 2 We may observe in passing, as perhaps bearing on this matter, that in England of the early fifteenth century there was a custom that on Easter Day the fireplace in the hall of a house should be ‘arayde wyth grene rusches, and swete flowres strawed all about’ (Mirk's, Festial [Bodl. MS. Gough Eccl. Top. 4], edited by Erbe, T., E.E.T.Soc., London, 1905, p. 129Google Scholar, ‘De Festo Pasche’).

page 227 note 3 Cf. Hulme, F. E., Symbolism in Christian Art, London, 1891, 201Google Scholar. Christ generally appears on a ‘Jesse’ either in majesty or as an infant held by the Virgin Mary. An example interesting in the present connexion is in the rood-loft screen of East Harling Church, one of whose compartments has a quatrefoil containing Jesse, from whom springs a vine amongst whose branches is the crucified Christ. Information, dated 1852, from Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 23055, f. 200.

page 228 note 1 Cf. Dict. Nat. Biog., s. v. ‘Mirk, John’.

page 228 note 2 Liber qui Festialis appellatur; cf. if. cxix v, cxx. There are other printed versions to the same effect, including one of 1496 of the same printer.

page 229 note 1 In the course of the argument:—‘Then said the Christian man to the Jew: “We believe right as the stalk of the lily groweth, and conceiveth colour of green, and after bringeth forth a white flower without craft of man or any damage of the stalk, right so our Lady conceived of the Holy Ghost, and after brought forth her son without stain of her body, that is flower and chief fruit of all women ” ’ (modernized from Erbe's edition; cf. supra, p. 227, note).

page 229 note 2 Cf. Erbe's Mirk's Festial, 108 seq. I give herewith a modern rendering in the place of the original's medieval spelling.

page 229 note 3 The reading is ‘syght’ in the original, and the only one I have thus far found in that form. Dr. H. H. E. Craster, F.S.A., who kindly examined on my behalf the Bodleian's manuscripts, has informed me that in two others (both of the late fifteenth century) which contain the passage, the reading is ‘faith’ (in MS. Hatton 96, f. 204υ, ‘feyth’; and in MS. University College 102, f. 159, ‘fayth ’); two others lack the passage. Two manuscripts (i. e. Lansdowne MS. 392, f. 50 υ, with ‘feyth ’, and Claudius A. ii, f. 49 υ, with ‘fayth ’), both considerably later than the manuscript edited by Erbe, in the British Museum, give ‘faith’; a third (Harleian 2371) seems to lack this part of the Annunciation sermon (which is given on ff. 152 seqq.). And all the early printed versions (including Caxton's of 1483) I have examined give ‘faith ’, in one spelling or another. Some minor variations in the early printed versions are perhaps worth noting here: Caxton's edition of 1483 tells us that our Lady ‘conceyued the feyth ’; Wynkyn de Worde's of 1499 ‘by fayth’; and Morin's of 1499 ’ by the feythe’.

page 230 note 1 Stories in which conception is accounted for by the sight of something seem to be far from usual anywhere. An ancient Roman one (cf. Hartland, E. S., Primitive Paternity, London, 1909, i, 27Google Scholar) may, however, be cited.

page 230 note 2 For much on this see Him, op. cit., 295 seqq., 313 seq.

page 230 note 3 Cf. Barbier de Montault, op. cit., ii, 216. On this, and a number of other ways in which her impregnation was pictorially represented, see Hirn, op. cit., 312 seqq., and Hartland, op. cit, 19 seqq.

page 231 note 1 Cf. Him, op. cit., 299 seq.

page 231 note 2 Cf. ibid., 300.

page 231 note 3 We should observe, however, that in the early copy now in question, the word ‘fayth’ occurs in the very next sentence to the one containing ‘syght’; and that this suggests the probability that the copyist was not at fault in the present case.