As time went on, crucifixes, statuettes, triptychs, diptychs, and other portable helps to private devotion were made in ivory in great quantity; a consequence probably of the repeated travels of men to the east during the crusades. The term triptych for religious tablets composed of a centre piece and of one wing on each side, sufficient in width when folded to cover the centre, is commonly used in the description of various collections of ivories, because, whether or not exactly right, it is perfectly well understood and fully explains itself. Indeed, although triptych or pentaptych or polyptych may, in strictness and in its first signification, mean only (as it might happen) three or five or many leaves fastened together on one side by hinges or threads like the leaves of a book, yet the name triptych may be fairly applied to tablets, two of which hinge on the outside edges of the opposite sides of the third, and are intended to fold across and cover it. Where these wings are made, in order to surround the centre, of more than two pieces (and in such cases they generally inclose and protect also some larger carving or a statuette) the name shrine seems to be more appropriate and better to describe the object.

Triptychs are spoken of more than once by Anastasius, the author of the Liber Pontificalis. For example, in his life of pope Hadrian, a.d. 772, he mentions one which had in the centre the face of our Saviour, and on each wing images of angels. It is greatly to be regretted that Anastasius is so miserably concise in his description of the marvellous works of art which he enumerates. We look in vain for any details or for the name of a single artist.

The use of ivory in the middle ages, from the eighth to the beginning of the sixteenth century, was not confined to church and pious purposes. It was adopted for numberless things of common life. Not for common people perhaps, because its value and rarity were too great; but for the daily use of wealthy persons. Caskets and coffers, horns, hilts of weapons, mirror cases, toilet combs, writing-tablets, book-covers, chessmen and draughtsmen, were either made entirely of ivory, walrus and elephant, or were largely inlaid and ornamented with it. Examples of works of each of these kinds are to be found in the South Kensington museum; and with regard to some of them it is necessary to make a few remarks.

First, to take caskets. The most beautiful of these is no. 146, a work of the fourteenth century. This is richly decorated on the top and the four sides with subjects taken from romances, then well known and commonly read. Other caskets may be noticed, nos. 216 and 2440, which are of earlier date; and nos. 301 and 10, of Spanish work in a remarkable style, half Saracenic, carrying down to the eleventh or twelfth century the peculiar treatment and ornamentation shown in the small admirably executed round box of the caliph Mostanser Billah, no. 217. There are many plaques in the same collection which probably once formed portions of coffers or caskets; some of them reaching as far back as the ninth century; but it is not possible to say with certainty whether they were made originally for that purpose or not.

The most curious and perhaps the most valuable old English casket existing is in the British museum, which it will be well to notice in this place before we pass to other examples in the South Kensington collection. Engravings (kindly lent by Mr. Franks) of two portions of it are also given. This casket is of the eighth century, nine inches long, seven and a half in width, and a trifle more than five inches in height. The material is not ivory, not even of the walrus, but of the bone of a whale. Unfortunately it is imperfect and in parts damaged; of the fourth side only a small piece remains. The cover and the sides are richly carved in sharp and clear relief with mythical and scripture subjects; and each panel has a runic inscription within a broad border, except the top on which one word only is carved, “Ægili.”

The cover has, in a single compartment, men in armour attacking a house which is defended by a man with a bow and arrow; this panel has been supposed to refer to some local circumstance, and the name Ægili is to be read with the two words upon the fourth side, meaning “suffers deceit” or “treachery.” One side has the myth of Romulus and Remus: the two infants with the wolf in the middle; on either side shepherds kneeling, and a legend explaining the subject: “Romulus and Remulus [Remus] twain brothers outlay [were exposed] close together; a she wolf fed them in Rome city.” The front of the casket has two compartments; in one, the giving up the head of St. John the Baptist whose body lies stretched upon the ground; the other has the offering of the wise men, with the word “magi” in runes above them. On the back is carved, above, the storming of Jerusalem and the flight of the Jews, as explained by the inscription engraved partly in runes, partly in Latin, “Here fight Titus and the Jews. Here fly from Jerusalem its inhabitants.” Below are two other subjects; the meaning of them very obscure: to one is attached the word “doom,” to the other “hostage;” both in runes. Round the whole casket an inscription is carved, commemorating the taking of the whale which supplied the bone. This has been translated,

The name Fergen occurs in a charter of the eleventh century, and has been identified with the present Ferry-hill, in the county of Durham.

The history of the casket is very short, and cannot be better stated than in the words of Mr. Stephens from whose book on Runic monuments, a work of much interest, the above description is abridged. He says that it “is one of the costliest treasures of English art now in existence. As a specimen of Northumbrian work and of Northumbrian folk-speech, it is doubly precious. But we know nothing of its history. Probably, as the gift of some English priest or layman, it may have lain for centuries in the treasury of one of the French churches, whence it came into the hands of a well-known dealer in antiquities in Paris. There it was happily seen and purchased, some years ago, by our distinguished archÆologist, Aug. W. Franks, Esq. The price given for it was very great.” The casket has been most liberally presented by Mr. Franks to the British museum, and the nation (once more to quote Mr. Stephens) “is now in possession of one of the greatest rarities in Europe.”

There are several other coffers or caskets in the South Kensington collection especially worthy of remark. Among them the Veroli casket, no. 216, so called from having been long preserved in the treasury of the cathedral of Veroli, near Rome, from whence it was obtained in 1861. This is the most perfect example known of a peculiar style of art which prevailed in some parts of Italy from the latter part of the eleventh to the end of the twelfth century. At first sight works of this kind might almost be attributed to a time as early as the third or fourth century, the imitation of the classic mode of treatment, as well as the nature often of the subjects themselves, favouring such a supposition. There seems to be little doubt, however, that they must all be placed at a much later date.

No one is more entitled to be listened to on any disputed question about the date of ivory carvings than Mr. Nesbitt. He tells us, in a very able memoir of St. Peter’s chair at Rome, printed for the Society of antiquaries (speaking on this very point), that he agrees with padre Garrucci in the opinion that works like the Veroli casket date from about the eleventh century. “They are all characterised by certain peculiarities and mannerisms. Among these are an exaggerated slenderness of limb, a marked prominence of the knee-joints, and a way of rendering the hair by a mass of small knobs. The subjects are generally taken from some mythological story, and some work of classical art has, in many cases, evidently been copied by the ivory carver; but the story is often misunderstood and misrepresented, and the movement of the figures copied with so much exaggeration, as often to become ridiculous. Animals are generally represented with great truth and spirit, and in very natural attitudes. The execution is usually remarkably neat and sharp, and the state of preservation of the ivory very good.” Caskets of this style and date almost always have the panels surrounded by the same kind of border filled with rosettes.

The ivories inserted in the so-called Chair of St. Peter, just referred to, are of great importance upon this question. The woodcut shows, in a general way, its present condition and the arrangement of the carvings, which represent the labours of Hercules: and the student should read Mr. Nesbitt’s paper, already quoted from.

There is a very curious plaque in the British museum which is also of value with regard to the date of such works as the Veroli casket. It has been perhaps a book-cover, perhaps a panel of a reliquary. The chief subject is Christ in glory, carved in the stiff Byzantine manner of the tenth or eleventh century; and in the lower left-hand corner is a group of boys, having the peculiarities of style just mentioned. Mr. Nesbitt notices another example which may be found engraved in the Thesaurus of Gori: “a tablet in the museum at Berlin, on which Christ, attended by angels, is represented in the usual Byzantine style, while below are the forty saints in very natural attitudes, and with much truth and skill.”

The woodcut shows the lid of a small casket of, perhaps, the eleventh century: Spanish work, during the period of the occupation by the Moors; and there are frequent references to ivory coffers, caskets, and boxes, in inventories and other documents of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. In 1502 the following entry is among the privy purse expenses of Elizabeth of York: “Item, the same day [the 28th day of May] to maistres Alianor Johns for money by hir geven in reward to a servaunt of the lady Lovell for bringing a chest of iverey with the passion of our Lord thereon: iij s iiij d.” This lady Lovell was probably the wife of Sir Thomas Lovell, treasurer of the household, and one of the executors of the will of Henry the seventh.

Six or seven caskets are named among the treasures of Lincoln cathedral in the year 1536: two “with images round about.” In 1518 there belonged to the church of St. Mary Outwich, London, “a box of eivery, garnyshede with silver” according to “the enventorye of all the howrnaments” of that parish: and, “item, a box of yvory with xj relyks therein.” In 1534, “a litill box of ivery bound with gymes [gimmals] of silver” was among the goods of the guild of the blessed Virgin, at Boston in Lincolnshire. Nearly a hundred years before there was “a lytill yvory cofyr with relekys” among the goods belonging to the church of St. Mary Hill, London.

Going back to earlier times—and not to quote from French or German documents which have been referred to by foreign writers—we find in the inventory of the treasures belonging to St. Paul’s cathedral in 1295, “Pixis eburnea fracta in fundo, continens unam parvam pixidem eburneam vacuam.” “Item, duÆ coffrÆ eburneÆ modo vacuÆ.” Other caskets are mentioned; one, small and beautiful, with lock and key and silver clamps; and several pyxes, containing relics.

So, again, there were in the treasury at Durham, in 1383, “an ivory casket, containing a vestment of St. John the Baptist;” “a small coffer of ivory, containing a robe of St. Cuthbert;” and other “ivory caskets with divers relics.”

Caskets and coffers of this period were not uncommonly decorated with small painted medallions of coats of arms, or of figures, as in the woodcut on the next page. Two examples are in the South Kensington museum, nos. 1618 and 369.

There are in many collections ivory boxes of round shape, which are commonly set down as having been used for preserving the consecrated host in tabernacles, or for carrying it to the sick. Frequently, these may have been originally made for that purpose; but it is not easy always to determine the fact exactly. The word Pyx in its earliest meaning included any small box or case, and particularly for holding ointments or spices; and often, when we find the word used in inventories of the middle ages, it is further explained as containing relics or other things. Thus, there was in the Durham treasury in the fourteenth century “item, a tooth of St. Gengulphus, good for the falling sickness, in a small ivory pyx”; and in St. Paul’s cathedral, about the same time, two ivory pyxes, one containing relics of St. Augustine, the other of St. Agnes. Nor is the size a sure guide to determine the doubt: although by many people all small round boxes of ivory would seem to be understood as having been certainly used for preserving the eucharist. Du Cange quotes from Leo Ostiensis, “in pyxidulis reliquiÆ sanctorum reconditÆ sunt.” On the other hand, there can be no question that for many centuries, and more especially in the earlier ages, round boxes of ivory were in constant and general use for preserving and carrying the Sacrament. Thus we see included amongst the property belonging to the church of St. Faith, under St. Paul’s, “una cupa cuprea deaurata, cum pyxide eburnea sine serura interius clausa, in qua reponatur eucharistia.” From Waddingham, in Norfolk, the queen’s commissioners report in 1565 that they have destroyed “one pyx of yvorie, broken in peces.” The following also may be quoted from the will of king Henry the seventh, though the material is not specified: “Forasmuch as we have often to our inwarde displeasure, seen in diverse churches of oure Reame, the holy Sacrament kept in ful simple and inhonest pixes, we have commaunded to cause to be made furthwith pixes, in a greate nombre, after the fashion of a pixe which we have caused to be delyvered to theym, etc.”

When, therefore, we find a small round box which is ornamented with subjects from the Gospel or with divine types and emblems or the like, we may safely call it a pyx, in its proper ecclesiastical meaning. When an example is carved with subjects relating to any saint it may or may not have been made for a sacramental pyx: it may indeed have been changed from its first use as a reliquary and afterwards employed for the more sacred use. Of this kind, perhaps, is the very curious round box of the sixth century with subjects from the life of St. Mennas, exhibited in 1871 by Mr. Nesbitt at a meeting of the Society of antiquaries; which is further remarkable as being the earliest known representation on an ivory box of events in the life of a saint.

Du Cange gives references to three English provincial synods of the thirteenth century, as if ivory pyxes were distinctly ordered by their canons. But it is not so. Order is merely given that the Sacrament should be reserved and carried to the sick in proper pyxes: “in pyxide munda et honesta;” again, “circa collum suum in theca honesta, pyxidem deferat.” But the synod of Exeter in 1287 is more precise and to our present purpose, which orders the priest to carry the eucharist to the sick “in pyxide argentea vel eburnea.”

We find from inventories printed by Dugdale in the Monasticon that in the fourteenth century, a.d. 1384, there were in the treasury of St. George’s, Windsor, “una pixis nobilis eburnea, garnita cum luminibus argenteis deauratis,” etc.: and “una pixis de eburneo gemellato argenteo, cujus coopertorium frangitur.” In Lincoln cathedral, in 1557, “A round pix of ivory, having a ring of silver;” and two others, both of ivory with similar bands. Four other ivory pyxes are named in the earlier inventory of the same cathedral, before the spoliation in 1536.

Two other very important and beautiful caskets, at South Kensington, are no. 176 and no. 263. The subject of the first of these, the life of the blessed Virgin, is unusual, although that may probably be not because it was unusual at the time but because very few examples have been preserved. The panels of the other are most richly carved and in the best style of the fourteenth century with scenes from the life of St. Margaret.