The famous romances of the middle ages supplied endless subjects for sculptors in ivory as well as for the painter, the illuminator, and the enameller. They may be referred, in general, to four classes, of which the first and the fourth seem to have been the favourite sources from which were taken the decorations of caskets and mirror cases. They were— 1. Those relating to Arthur and the knights of the round table. 2. Those connected with Charlemagne and his paladins. 3. The Spanish and Portuguese romances, which chiefly contain the adventures of Amadis and Palmerin. 4. What may be termed classical romances, which represent the heroes of antiquity in the guise of romantic fiction: such, for example, as the romance of Virgil, of Jason, or of Alexander. To these may be added one more, the romance of the Rose, an allegorical poem which was probably more widely read than any other of the time. From this, realising an allegory, came the frequent subject of the siege of the castle of Love. Many of the romances were written both in prose and verse: three splendid volumes, French manuscripts of the beginning of the fourteenth century, in the British museum, contain the Saint Graal and Lancelot du Lac. The histories of Merlin, Perceval, Meliadus, Tristan, and Perceforest were also amongst the most popular.

The French manuscripts just referred to (additional, 10,292) are full of illuminations, some illustrating in an especial way the carvings on ivories of the same date. Another, of the same character and of like interest and value, is in the Bodleian: the romance of Alexander.

The romance of the Rose was a dull and monotonous poem of perhaps ten thousand lines, from which for nearly three hundred years its readers, if they looked at it with pious and religious eyes, learnt their maxims of morality, of science, and philosophy. Others, again, read it as men now read Ovid’s Art of love and saw nothing of its mysticism or scholastic subtleties. It was written somewhere about the year 1300, and, with the omission of some five thousand lines in the middle, Chaucer’s translation is very accurate and good. It was frequently moralised: in France, by Clement Marot; and in England (perhaps from the French also) long before, by Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln. These made the Rose to be the Virgin Mary, and the towers and the defences of the castle are the four cardinal virtues, and holy chastity, and buxomness, and meekness. The castle itself is thus described:

Among the many fictions which were founded on the traditions of king Arthur none were more common or better known than those which related the love adventures of Lancelot and queen Guinevre; and of Tristan and Isoude, the queen of Mark king of Cornwall. Subjects from both these tales are frequent on ivory caskets and mirror cases. The disgrace of Aristotle comes from the romance of Alexander; and from that of Virgil we have the poet in his mediÆval character of magician. Both the poet and the philosopher, in spite of their great age and wisdom, are made fools of by the ladies of the story. One is induced to carry his mistress on his back, the other is hauled up in a basket to a window and left there dangling at sunrise before all the people.

We must not leave caskets without mention of the very graceful open work with which the panels of many of them were often decorated, and which have come down to us (speaking generally) only in parts or fragments. Two woodcuts are given here, full size, from a series of small panels, formerly in the Meyrick collection, which is, unhappily, now dispersed.

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The South Kensington museum is rich also in the marriage coffers, as they are commonly called, of Italian work of about the fourteenth century. Coffers of this kind, such, for example, as the small casket (in the two woodcuts) no. 2563, were seldom executed in ivory: almost always in bone of fine quality, sometimes nearly equal to ivory in delicacy of grain and colour. It is probably owing to their general use in Italy at that time that ivory could not be obtained in sufficient quantity, except at great cost; for the workmanship is frequently that of artists who must have been of the highest eminence as sculptors. One of the most interesting of the marriage caskets in the South Kensington museum is no. 5624, formerly in the Soulages collection, of which there is almost a duplicate in the public library at Paris.

Lenormant, in the TrÉsor de glyptique, has given three plates of the Paris casket and says also that another, exactly like it was (when he wrote) in the possession of M. D’Assy, of Meaux.

The largest casket of this kind in England is in the possession of Mr. Julian Goldsmid. It is in excellent preservation and well finished in every respect. The size is certainly unusual: two feet three inches in height, two feet and a half long, and two feet broad. The separate bones which ornament it are filled with shields and armorial bearings; ten on the front and back, seven on each side. The mouldings at the top are richly decorated with bold scrolls of foliage and animals. The top of the coffer and the side mouldings are marquetry, inlaid in diamond-shaped quarries with large pieces of bone.

A coffer of the same school and date, not much less in size and of much higher quality and workmanship, is in private possession at Leamington, in Warwickshire. The sides are filled with small statuettes admirably executed, and perhaps giving the history of some poem or romance. This is, probably, the best example of Italian marriage coffers in this country.

M. Lenormant also refers, as of the same school, to the magnificent Retable de Poissy, in the museum of the Louvre, of which Sir D. Wyatt has given the following description: “It was made for Jean de Berry brother of Charles V. and for his second wife, Jeanne, countess of Auvergne. They are represented on it kneeling, and accompanied by their patron saints. It is no less than seven feet six inches wide, and is one mass of carving. It consists of three arcades, surmounted by canopies, and supported by angle pilasters and a base. The subjects are taken from the New Testament and from the legends of the saints. It is believed [there can, rather, be no doubt] that it is of Italian workmanship, the little figures having much Giottesque character in their treatment.” This famous retable is, like the marriage caskets, carved in bone.

There is no finer specimen of this style and work than the beautiful predella, formerly in the Gigli-Campana collection, now at South Kensington, no. 7611. It is, unfortunately, not perfect; the centre panel is a later addition and the original piece has been lost. It is possible that there were at one time also other smaller panels. The woodcut shows well the general style of these carvings in bone.

The French and English caskets of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were frequently ornamented, like the mirror cases, the combs, and the writing-tablets, with domestic scenes. We have ladies and gentlemen sometimes represented playing at chess or draughts or similar games; sometimes riding, or hawking, or hunting; sometimes in gardens with birds and dogs; sometimes dancing. Subjects of this character are of great importance and interest, no less valuable than illuminations in manuscripts, as showing the dress and the armour and, to a considerable extent, the manners and customs of the day.

One other class of subjects may be noticed which supplied the decorations of caskets of the fifteenth century, and which is found occasionally on panels of cabinets or the larger kind of household furniture; namely, morris dancers and women playing on musical instruments. Generally, carvings of this description are found upon bone: two examples are in the South Kensington museum, no. 4660 and no. 6747. There was also one in the Meyrick collection, of which a woodcut is given on the next page.

Domestic subjects are of more common occurrence upon combs and mirror cases than on caskets; and, upon the former, scenes also from early legends; occasionally, some circumstance from Scripture. Of Scripture subjects the message from David to Bathsheba is the most frequent; probably, because Bathsheba is represented generally in her bath. There are two examples in the South Kensington museum alone: no. 2143 and no. 468. It is not difficult to understand why scenes from the old story of the fountain of Youth should have been a favourite subject.

It may be observed that the garden scenes on ivory combs remind us often of the beautiful painting of the “Dream of life” by Orcagna, in the Campo santo, at Pisa.

Combs of ivory and bone are frequently found in tombs of the Roman and Anglo-saxon period in England; and before that time in British graves. They are often tinged and coloured green, from lying in contact with metal objects. A very curious one, in the shape of a hand, was mixed with the remains buried in a Pict’s house in the north of Scotland; a double tooth-comb was found on the site of the Roman station at Chesterford, in Essex; and (to name no more of this kind, for the specimens are very many) an ivory comb was among the relics in the tomb said to be of St. Cuthbert, at Durham. Mr. Raine also prints an inventory (dated 1383) of relics at Durham, among which are the comb of Malachias the archbishop, the comb of St. Boysil the priest, and the ivory comb of St. Dunstan. Somewhat later than this date is an entry in the register of the cathedral of Glasgow, where a precious burse is mentioned with the combs of St. Kentigern and St. Thomas of Canterbury.

A very curious comb, but much mutilated, is preserved in the library of the Society of antiquaries. It was exhibited in 1764 and engraved in the 8th vol. of the ArchÆologia. The statement is that it was found deeply buried under a street in Aberdeen, and supposed to have been lost there in the time of Edward III. who burnt the city. But the type of the ornaments upon it is of an earlier character than that date.

The comb given by queen Theodolinda at the end of the sixth century to the church of Monza is still kept.

This last would be a ceremonial comb, used formerly by a bishop before celebrating high mass or before other great functions, and included among the vestments and ceremonial ornaments of a bishop of England down to the reign of Edward the sixth. “Tobalia et pecten ad pectinandum” were ordered to be provided for the consecration of a bishop elect, in the Sarum pontifical. One of the earliest of these combs now known to exist is in the treasury of the cathedral of Sens, and said to be of the sixth century. Another, English and of the eleventh century, is in the British museum. It is carved in open work with men and interlacing scroll ornament. Unhappily, it is not perfect. A woodcut is given on the next page of this very important ivory.

Another, richly carved with subjects from the gospels, is said to be preserved at Hardwick court, in Gloucestershire. Such ceremonial combs are often mentioned in church inventories and other ecclesiastical documents of the middle ages. Seven or eight are specified as belonging to St. Paul’s cathedral in the year 1222: three large, three small; one “pecten pulchrum” the gift of John de Chishulle; and three others; all of ivory. There were as many in the treasury of the cathedral of Canterbury, in 1315.

When the supposed tomb of St. Cuthbert was opened in 1827 it has been already said that there was found, among other relics deposited with the body of the saint, an ivory comb. This comb has a double row of teeth, divided by a broad plain band perforated in the middle with a round hole for the finger. In size it measures six inches and a quarter by five inches. The historian of the proceedings on that occasion says that the comb is probably of the eleventh century, but he gives no reason; and if the grave were really the grave of St. Cuthbert it is almost certain that the comb was his and used by him, ceremonially, as bishop.

The examples in the South Kensington collection were all made for private use, and the woodcut represents an Italian specimen, no. 2144. English family inventories from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, occasionally include combs of that kind. To name one only: the list of the effects of Roger de Mortimer at Wigmore castle, in the reign of Edward the second, specifies “j pecten de ebore.”

One half only of the mirror cases, speaking generally, has been preserved. It is very rare to find both covers. Originally, the mirror was fastened to one side, and the other slid over it or was unscrewed. No example of both parts is in the South Kensington collection, and only one (it is believed) in the British museum. People, as time went on, probably thought that an unornamented side was not worth taking care of.

We find the subjects sculptured on mirror cases to be almost always scenes from domestic life, or from some poem or romance. Naturally it would be so. The only exceptions among all the examples at South Kensington are two, on one of which is a representation of the Almighty Father and the dead Christ, on the other the message of David to Bathsheba. The rest, ten or twelve in number, have hunting and garden scenes, or players at chess, or assaults on the castle of Love. So it is also with the large collection of ivory mirror cases in the British museum.

The use of small mirrors is to be traced to the earliest historic period, and to be found among almost every people of the world. In the most ancient times they were commonly of metal; and it is believed that none, except of that material, has yet been found in any tomb of Egypt, or Greece, or Italy. These, unlike the mediÆval mirror, had generally flat and broad handles, and the backs were often incised with various designs, mythological subjects, gods and goddesses, or from stories of the poets.

Many metallic mirrors have been found in Roman burial-places in England. Several are described in modern archÆological publications; one especially curious, found in 1823 at Coddenham in Suffolk. This is important as an early example in respect of the smallness of its size and because it is enclosed in a case. It “is a portable trinket, consisting of a thin circular bronze case, divided horizontally into two nearly equal portions, which fit one into the other; and, being opened, it presents a convex mirror in each face of the interior.” The diameter is scarcely more than two inches, and on one side is the head of the emperor Nero.

Anglo-saxon mirrors have seldom been found. Two, both discovered in a barrow near Sandwich, are engraved in the Nenia Britannica. Mirrors were nevertheless commonly used by ladies at that time; and there is a letter preserved in Bede from pope Boniface IV. to Ethelberga, queen of Edwin of Northumbria in 625, wherein he requests her acceptance of an ivory comb and a silver mirror. Combs and mirrors are frequent on the sculptured stones of Scotland; they occur on more than fifty, according to a table given in the preface to the admirable work published by the Spalding club; and seven stones have representations of mirror cases.

Dr. Stuart in a short paper upon these sculptures, read before the International congress of prehistoric archÆology in 1868, assigns to them a date not later than the seventh, eighth, or ninth century, and believes that the figures on the rude pillars may be of even an earlier date, before Christian times.

It is not known when glass covered at the back with lead was introduced in place of the earlier metallic mirror. Probably some of the cases which are in various collections were the covers of the new material. John Peckham, an Englishman, wrote in the middle of the thirteenth century a treatise on optics in which he speaks not only of steel mirrors but often of glass mirrors, and adds that when the lead was scraped off the back no image was reflected.

There is, or perhaps was 150 years ago, a curious coat of arms in a painted window of the fourteenth century, in the chancel of the church of Thame in Oxfordshire, on which was blazoned a mirror in a case with a handle attached to it. “He beareth argent,” says Guillim in his Display of heraldry, “a tyger passant, regardant, gazing in a mirror or looking-glass, all proper.... Some report, that those who rob the tiger of her young, use a policy to detain their dam from following them, by casting sundry looking-glasses in the way, whereat she useth long to gaze, etc.”

Ladies using mirrors at their toilet frequently form a subject for illustration in fourteenth century manuscripts. These mirrors are precisely of the usual shape and size of those which have come down to us in ivory. Several may be seen in the manuscript romance of Lancelot du Lac in the British museum: in one, a lady lying on a couch holds the mirror in her hand whilst an attendant dresses her hair with a comb; in another, she herself uses both mirror and comb. A hundred years later the same design was engraved on one of a pack of cards, “la damoiselle,” by “the Master of 1466,” now in the national library at Paris.

Love scenes, as in the etching, or the siege of the castle of Love are subjects often found on mirror cases. The woodcut on this page is copied from an example at South Kensington, no. 1617. Another copy of the same romance of Lancelot, which has been just referred to, has an illumination of a real assault upon a castle, treated in a similar manner. Knights place ladders against the wall; the battlements are defended by the garrison; the attack is made with cross-bows and a catapult; and men lie dead upon the ground. Another of much interest is given as “the twelfth battle” in the manuscript in the British museum so well known as queen Mary’s psalter, written about the year 1320; in this, women look at the attack over the battlements of the town or castle.

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Knights tilting, or a tournament, or ladies and gentlemen riding through woods and preceded by attendants with dogs, are also common subjects. The contemporary manuscripts illustrate the same design. Both on the mirror cases and in the illuminations the lady is generally seen riding astride. Women are so represented more than once in the romance of Lancelot: for example fol. 120a, and 163a. A queen is riding, fol. 181b. In queen Mary’s psalter, the treatment on the mirror cases of people riding is almost exactly repeated, fol. 217; again, 218b, and 223b. Other examples may be seen in the Bodleian manuscript of the romance of Alexander, fol. 100 and 130. The same custom lasted in Lithuania until, at least, the year 1800.

There is one other ornamental design very common on mirror cases; people playing at chess or draughts. Margaret Paston writes in the reign of Richard the third to her husband, and says that at the Christmas following the death of lord Morley his widow would permit no amusements in her house, “non dysgysyngs ner harpyng ner lutyng—but pleying at the tabyllys and schesse.” This brings us to an interesting and important class of carvings in ivory.

The date of the introduction of the games of chess and draughts into Europe, and more particularly among the northern nations and our own ancestors the Anglo-saxons, is a historical question upon which there has been great dispute. The game of chess was certainly played at a very early period in the east, and from thence probably passed through the Arabs into Greece. There are allusions to chess and chessmen in many writers before the twelfth century, and these incidental references are of more value than the positive assertions which later authors, after the manner of their day, did not hesitate to advance.

For example Caxton, or rather the author of the “Playe of the Chesse.” “This playe fonde a phylosopher of thoryent whych was named in caldee Exerces, for which is as moche to say in englissh as he that louyth Justyce and mesure.” And this decision was not without due consideration of the matter; for just before we are told: “Trewe it is that somme men wene that this play was founden in the tyme of the bataylles and siege of troye. But that is not so.... After that cam this playe in the tyme of Alixaunder the grete in to egypt, and so unto alle the parties toward the south.”

This treatise on chess is said to have been written nearly two hundred years before Caxton lived by Jacobus de Casulis, a French Dominican friar, about 1290. A copy is in the British museum, MS. Harl. 1275; and it was printed at Milan in 1479.

Chaucer however, in “the Dreame,” names not Exerces but Athalus as the supposed inventor of the game, in a passage worth quoting:

We may, however, put aside the old guesses of early writers, for evidence still exists which sets at rest all doubt that chess was known and played in France in Carlovingian times, and we can understand easily, therefore, why mediÆval poets and romance writers so often introduced stories about the game. Some ivory chessmen, six in number, were long preserved in the treasury of the abbey of St. Denis, and the old tradition was that they were given with the chess-table by Charlemagne himself. The greater number of the pieces and the table had been lost for many years, as long ago as 1600. The remainder, transferred at the revolution from St. Denis, are now in the public library at Paris. Sir Frederic Madden, in a very able and learned paper in the ArchÆologia, says of them: “The dresses and ornaments are all strictly in keeping with the Greek costume of the ninth century; and it is impossible not to be convinced, from the general character of the figures, that these chessmen really belong to the period assigned them by tradition, and were, in all probability, executed at Constantinople by an Asiatic Greek, and sent as a present to Charlemagne, either by the empress Irene, or by her successor Nicephorus.... One thing is certain, that these chessmen, from their size and workmanship, must have been designed for no ignoble personage: and, from the decided style of Greek art, it is a more natural inference to suppose them presented to Charlemagne by a sovereign of the lower empire, than that they came to him as an offering from the Moorish princes of Spain, or even from the caliph Haroun al Raschid, who gave many costly gifts to the emperor of the west.”

In the East India museum almost a complete set of ivory chessmen is preserved, perhaps the most ancient examples now known to exist: older even than the chessmen from St. Denis. These were found about twenty years ago, mixed with a quantity of broken pottery, human bones, and other relics, amongst the ruins of some houses excavated on the site of the city of Brahmunabad in Sind, which was destroyed by an earthquake in the eighth century. The pieces are turned; plain in character, without ornament. Several are in a very fragile state, having perished in the same way as the Assyrian ivories; and an attempt should be made to restore, if possible, some of the lost substance. A few fragments of a chessboard were also found, incised with small circles, not interlacing. The chessmen and the squares of the board are black and white: ivory and ebony. The kings and queens are about three inches high; the pawns one inch; and the other pieces are of different intermediate heights. Coins were also found of the caliphs of Bagdad, about a.d. 750.

The mediÆval chronicles, poems, and romances are full of references to the game. The anonymous author of the history of Ramsey monastery, writing about the year 1100, tells us that bishop Ætheric coming late one night to king Canute found him still playing chess, “regem adhuc scaccorum ludo longioris tÆdia noctis relevantem invenit.” Strutt quotes this passage in his sports and pastimes; and Sir F. Madden adds the following translation from a French manuscript of the thirteenth century. It is much to our present purpose, in illustration of the legends whence the subjects of mirror decorations were derived:—

The story is of a mission from king Edgar to earl Orgar in the tenth century.

Chaucer again tells us how

and in the merchant’s second tale he describes a chessboard:—

A very curious passage occurs in a book originally written in French, in April 1371, and translated about the reign of Henry the sixth: a copy is in the British museum; Harl. 1764. “There was a gentille knight’s daughter that wratthed atte the tables with a gentill man that was riotous and comberous and hadd an evelle hede, and the debate was on a point that he plaide, that she saide that it was wronge: and so the wordes and the debate rose so that she saide that he was a lewde [ignorant] fole, and thane lost the game in chiding.”

Chess-tables and chessmen are often specified in wills and inventories. The inventory of the effects of Sir Roger de Mortimer, referred to more than once, speaks of a coffer containing “j famil’ de ebore pro scaccario;” and among the jewels in the wardrobe book of Edward the first occur “una familia de ebore pro ludendo ad scaccarium,” and “una familia pro scaccario de jaspide et cristallo.” The “familia” in these entries is the same as the “meyne” in Chaucer’s lines just above; that is, the retinue, the company, or the set of domestics.

To quote from one will; Sir William Compton in his will, dated 1523 bequeathed to Henry the eighth “a little chest of ivory whereof one lock is gilt, with a chessboard under the same, and a pair of tables upon it, and all such jewels and treasures as are enclosed therein.”

The most complete set of ancient ivory chessmen now remaining was found in the isle of Lewis, in Scotland, about the year 1831, and most of them are now in the British museum. They are all of one character, similar to the accompanying woodcut, which is engraved from another walrus-ivory chessman, also in the British museum, and which was obtained some few years ago from a private collection.

It would be more proper to speak of the Lewis chess pieces as several sets, for there are some pieces enough for five or six. They are sixty-seven in number—six kings, five queens, thirteen bishops, fourteen knights, nineteen pawns, and ten (so-called) warders, which took the place of the modern rook or castle. This large collection was discovered by a labourer digging a sandbank, and every piece is accurately described in detail by Sir F. Madden in a paper read before the Society of antiquaries in 1832. They are all carved out of walrus ivory.

Upon this material Sir Frederic observes that “the estimation in which the teeth of the walrus were held by the northern nations rendered them a present worthy of royalty; and this circumstance is confirmed by a tradition preserved in the curious saga of KrÖka the crafty, who lived in the tenth century.” [The saga itself is believed to have been written in the fourteenth century.] “It is there related, that Gunner, prefect of Greenland, wishing to conciliate the favour of Harald Hardraad, king of Norway (a.d. 1050), sent him the three most precious gifts the island could produce. These were, 1, a white bear; 2, a chess-table, or set of chessmen, exquisitely carved; 3, a skull of the Rostungr (or walrus) with the teeth fastened in it, and ornamented with gold.” The best Icelandic scholars take the term Tan-Tabl in the sense of chessmen made of the teeth of the walrus.

Chessmen were occasionally made of considerably larger size. There is a good example of this kind in the South Kensington collection, no. 8987; and another, of which a woodcut is given, is in the British museum. This last remarkable piece was presented in 1856, by Sir Henry Cole.

Scarcely less common than chessmen are small round pieces, generally of the tusk of the walrus, which were used for a game probably like the modern game of draughts, and to which frequent allusion is found in mediÆval books under the name of “tables.” The mirror cases give us several representations of people engaged at this game, usually a lady and a gentleman. There seem to have been fewer pieces used than in our own days, and a smaller board or table. These draughtsmen are almost all of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries; and the subjects men and animals, with scroll ornament interlacing. Occasionally a single bird or a dragon fills the centre space.

Some of the decorations of the old church of Shobdon in Herefordshire (pulled down about 100 years ago) were similar to the carvings upon the draughtsmen and other works of that kind. These also were of the twelfth century. One pillar was ornamented with a series of small medallions tied together, exactly like the old draughtsmen. They are engraved, from fragments of three of the principal arches still preserved, in the first volume of the ArchÆological journal.

This style of ornament is shown to great advantage upon the arm of a chair of the eleventh or twelfth century, formerly in the Meyrick collection; carved from two tusks of the walrus. It is not easy to decide in what country this very important ivory was worked. One half of it is given in the accompanying woodcut. The name, arm of a chair, must be taken as a probable supposition. That it is one of a pair is apparently certain: for in the centre on one side is an eagle, on the other a winged lion; two of the four symbols of the Evangelists. These are deeply sunk and enclosed in ornamental borders, exactly similar to the draughtsmen of the same period. The sides from the centres to the ends are richly carved in admirable style and workmanship with an interlacing scroll ornament, in the midst of which are twined men and fabulous animals. The ends have, for terminations, the heads of lions designed with much spirit. On the under side, which is left perfectly flat, are incised some small crosses, composed of the well-known little circles called the bone ornament. There are other good examples of the same style of decoration upon the specimens of the ancient Tau in the South Kensington museum. In all of these, though the men and animals are grotesque yet they have life and movement, and the foliage and branches with which they are twined and intermingled are well executed. The technical merit of the carving, deep in relief and often cut clear from the solid substance of the ivory, is very remarkable.

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