Although it is impossible to enter in detail into any history of an object so well known, by name at least, as the pastoral crook of a bishop, it may yet be not without interest to offer a few remarks upon it in explanation of the varieties of shape of old ivory croziers still existing, and as a subject not without interest in our own days to many people. The Tau, spoken of in the last chapter, is but a form of the pastoral staff, adopted in more than one country of western Europe early in the middle ages.

The most ancient shape of the episcopal staff is found represented in the catacombs; a short handle, with a plain boss or oval knob bent aside at the top like the pagan lituus. Sometimes in the catacombs we also find the truer form of a shepherd’s crook, a plain but complete curve at the extremity. The Tau is commonly seen and given without apparent distinction to bishops and abbots in manuscripts of the eighth and ninth centuries, about which period there came in another fashion, unpleasing and hardly intelligible in its design, where the crook is but slightly bent and extended almost horizontally from the staff itself. One more shape, and more rare, was a double plain crook like horns joined together. After all these came the admirable design, of which the South Kensington museum possesses one or two splendid examples, wherein the volute is carried half round again and frequently contains within the circle other ornaments or groups of figures.

The extremities of the Taus were often hollowed, to receive relics. The beautiful Tau now at Kensington, engraved in the etching, shows the old recesses; but the crystal ends are lost. It is of this Tau that a learned author writes as follows, in the MÉlanges archÉologiques:—“Avant de quitter ce beau monument, je ferai observer la riche ciselure du treillis sÉparant les signes. Il est À peine croyable que chaque petite perle d’ivoire le long des entrelacs enchÂsse une pierre prÉcieuse, et que les yeux des animaux sont ainsi formÉs.” A very fine ivory of the same admirable kind and style is preserved in the library at Rouen, probably of earlier date, of the tenth century; and another is in the Cluny museum, unusually simple in shape and plain in ornament, which was found at St. Germain-des-PrÉs in the tomb of Morard, abbot of that monastery from 990 to 1014. In the etching is another Tau, also at Kensington.

Ivory Taus are of great rarity. They were gradually superseded towards the end of the twelfth century by that form which, with certain varieties of ornament, has continued down to our own times. The most common mode of treating the volute itself was to imitate a serpent; and the termination of the crook was the head of the serpent, sometimes with widely-expanded jaws.

It may appear unreasonable that the serpent was so constantly used as a religious emblem in such a way; but the symbol was certainly adopted in Christian art and with several pious significations from the first ages of the Christian faith. As the chief decoration of a bishop’s pastoral staff it might be regarded as an emblem of prudence, or as a record of the rod of Moses, which was changed into a serpent and destroyed those which had been cast down by the magicians; or again, as an emblem of the subtlety or wisdom required in a ruler over Christ’s flock. When the serpent is also chained or entangled, then, perhaps, the triumph of the Church over Satan is symbolised; or the contest itself between the two, when the head and open jaws seem to be on the point of closing over the lamb and cross, as in the pastoral staff of the Ashmolean museum at Oxford. Once more, the triumph would be shown when our Lord in glory is represented within the sweep of the serpent’s body. It is also probable that the men twisted and twined with serpents and animals and branches of trees, in the older examples, were meant to typify the struggle against the evil influences of the world, the flesh, and the devil.

The triumph of Christianity over the world is of a class of ornament which was largely introduced towards the middle of the thirteenth century, and which included others of a like character: such as, especially, the Crucifixion (as in the etching) or the Virgin standing with the Child in her arms, sometimes attended by angels, or the adoration of the Magi; and, a little later, the coronation of the Virgin; or the destruction of the dragon by the archangel Michael.

The author of the paper in the MÉlanges d’archÉologie speaks of a pastoral staff of ivory having “the Coronation” so early as the time of St. Gautier, abbot of St. Martin de Pontoise about 1070, to whom it is attributed. An engraving of it is in that publication; and it is worthy of especial notice because, although of wood, the handle is not only enriched with decorations like the handle of the fan at South Kensington, no. 373 and the corresponding piece in the British museum, but the ornaments are placed within exactly similar small square compartments.

Sometimes the volutes of croziers were filled merely with foliage and twisted branches; but these were more commonly of copper or silver, for the further purpose of being enamelled.

We must not fail to observe how cleverly in many of the mediÆval ivory heads of bishops’ staffs the volute is occupied by a double subject, placed back to back, so that one of the two might face the people as it was borne along. These are generally, on one side the Crucifixion, on the other the Virgin and Child. The figures standing upon the one side on either hand of the cross are carved on the reverse as angels in attendance on the Virgin. This is well shown in the woodcut, from a pastoral staff of the thirteenth century, preserved in the cathedral at Metz.

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In remote times the pastoral staff of a bishop was usually made of wood; at least, we may suppose so from the jest of Guy Coquille:—

These lines are not, perhaps, all in jest, for the wooden staff of St. Erhard exists at Ratisbonne: and another is in the church of St. Ursula at Cologne. The two Benedictines in their famous travels (as recorded in the “Voyage littÉraire”) come to Maurienne, and tell us: “Nous vÎmes aussi dans le trÉsor une croce d’yvoire: car les anciens ÉvÊques aimoient mieux employer leur argent À soulager les pauvres, qu’en des ornemens vains et superflus.” They saw other ivory pastoral staffs before their journeys ended: one at Marseilles, in the abbey of St. Victor; and one of the eleventh century at St. Savin, in the diocese of Tarbes; another, worthy of special mention, at Cluny: “La croce de S. Hugue, qui est de bois couvert de feuilles d’argent, dont le dessus est d’yvoire.”

In later days the use of wood was generally limited to the staffs and croziers which were buried in their graves with archbishops and bishops, abbots and abbesses. A few of these have been found: one, very remarkable and in a fair state of preservation, in Westminster abbey in the tomb of bishop Lyndwood, the great canonist. This is now in the British museum. A full account of the opening of this tomb, with engravings, is printed in one of the volumes of the ArchÆologia.

Probably the pastoral staff mentioned in the will of Richard Martyn bishop of St. David’s, who died about the year 1498, was of wood. He bequeathed to the church of Lyde “the cross-hed that Oliver the joiner made.”

Inscriptions are sometimes found upon ivory pastoral staffs. For example on that of St. Aunon, archbishop of Cologne: “Sterne resistentes, stantes rege, tolle jacentes;” others on those of St. Saturnin at Toulouse, and of Otho, bishop of Hildesheim.

The old Sarum pontificals order, in the first rubric for consecrating a bishop, that the baculus pastoralis should be provided with the other necessary episcopal ornaments and vestments; and the staff is delivered to the new bishop in the course of the office. “Quum datur baculus dicat ordinator, Accipe baculum pastoralis officii,” etc., and the purpose is further alluded to as the ceremony proceeds.

The symbolism of the shape and ornaments of the ivory pastoral staffs is clearly explained by Hugo St. Victor: “Episcopo, dum regimen ecclesiÆ committitur, baculus quasi pastori traditur, in quo tria notantur, quÆ significatione non carent, recurvitas, virga, cuspis; significatio hoc carmine continetur:—

It remains only to notice that the Pope uses neither pastoral staff nor crozier, nor is it delivered to him at his consecration, if at his election he be only a simple priest. It is said, however, that he should carry one in the diocese of Treves because St. Peter gave his own to the first bishop of that place, where it is preserved as a famous relic. This tradition is mentioned by St. Thomas Aquinas: “Et ideo in dioecesi Treverensi papa baculum portat, et non in aliis.”

An engraving is given (p. 90) of the head of a pastoral staff, rather more than five inches in height, not only unusual and remarkable in style but probably of English work. This was preserved in the Meyrick collection and is carved from bone. The outside of the upright part and the volute are decorated with pierced work, now slightly mutilated. Inside the volute, which terminates with the open mouth of a serpent, is a man in a grotesque position, his feet within the serpent’s jaws. A rich interlaced scroll decorates both sides of the head of the staff.

It is perhaps not to be wondered at that a Tau should be, as we know it is, amongst the most rare of ornaments or utensils in ivory which have been preserved. The early and total disuse of them would have naturally led to their destruction and loss, sometimes wilful, sometimes accidental. But that the pastoral staff (that is, the head of it) should be of almost equal rarity is less easily to be explained. Few collections possess a good example; still fewer more than one. Nevertheless, in England alone pastoral staffs must have been almost without number at the beginning of the sixteenth century; and although many were probably of metal, silver or copper enamelled and having some intrinsic value, yet an equal or perhaps greater number were of ivory. Not merely bishops but the heads of religious houses, abbots and abbesses, carried them as official tokens of their rank and dignity. We find frequent mention of them in the old inventories. For example, at St. Paul’s, in 1295; “Item, baculus cum cambuca eburnea, continente agnum.” “Item, baculus de peciis eburneis, et summitate crystallina,” etc. “Cambuca” is a word often used in the middle ages for the staff itself; derived, perhaps, from ??pt?, I bend.

Yet numerous as they must once have been, the heads of English pastoral staffs are now among the rarest of ivory carvings. It is true that no. 298 at South Kensington can, with some kind of probability, be attributed to an English artist and may have been used in England; but no other in that collection can be referred to. The almost complete destruction in England of all ecclesiastical ornaments—books, vestments, reliquaries, and the like—in the middle of the sixteenth century will account for the extreme rarity of them in this country. But it is very difficult to explain the reason why so few should still be found in France, or Germany, or Italy. The bishop’s pastoral staff, again, has not dropped out of use like the pax or the flabellum.

There are examples of the pax in the South Kensington collection, nos. 246 and 247. It was used in the middle ages at high mass and sometimes at low mass also, for sending the kiss of peace from the celebrant, first to the deacon and subdeacon or to the acolyte, afterwards to the people. With regard to the custom in England, provincial and diocesan statutes repeat again and again the obligation upon parishes to provide the pax, “osculatorium” or “asser ad pacem,” equally with the proper vestments or books or other furniture of the altar. The rubrics of the Sarum missal—the use most largely observed in England before the reign of queen Elizabeth—direct the priest, immediately after the Agnus Dei, to kiss the outside rim of the chalice in which was the Sacred Blood, and then to give the pax to the deacon who delivered it in regular order to the ministers and choristers in the sanctuary.

Everything connected with the correct text of the plays of Shakespeare is of the highest interest to every Englishman; and will serve, it is hoped, as some excuse for a few words by way of remark upon a passage where he alludes to a pax. The unfortunate Bardolph came to an untimely end on account of it:

Until lately the editors of Shakspeare printed pyx on the emendation (so-called) of Theobald. Johnson, who approved the new reading, informs us in his note upon the place that the two words “signified the same thing.” As far as Bardolph was concerned it mattered not; he had “conveyed” a sacred thing and, as Holinshed tells us, the king would not move on till the thief was hanged.

The quartos of 1600 and 1608 (and also the three folios) read pax: “he hath stolne a packs;” “a packs of pettie price,” in both editions. Shakspeare very well knew that a pax exposed or left carelessly on an altar was much more likely to be stolen than a pyx, which would be taken infinitely greater care of and locked up in the tabernacle. Even Dr. Johnson was ignorant upon some subjects; and the way in which editors “emend” their authors is something marvellous. When Shakspeare lived, and when the quartos were printed, people had not forgotten the distinction between the pax and the pyx; and many even could still remember when that now mysterious thing, the pax, had been brought down to them in the services of the Church from the altar.

The introduction of the pax instead of the old practice of mutual salutation was not until about the thirteenth century. The earliest mention in England occurs in a council held at York, a.d. 1250, under archbishop Walter Gray, where it is called “osculatorium.” A like order was made in the province of Canterbury, at the council of Merton, 1305, directing every parish to provide “tabulas pacis ad osculatorium.” Several figures of the pax are given in works relating to the subject; and we find it almost always represented as part of the furniture of an altar in the woodcut which often precedes the service for advent sunday, in the printed editions of the Salisbury missal from about 1500 to 1557. Le Brun has an interesting disquisition on the pax: and he tells us in a note that in its turn it also fell into disuse, because of quarrels about precedency which were occasioned among the people. Le Brun is borne out by Chaucer who, in the Parson’s Tale, speaking of the proud man explains that “also he awaited to sit, or els to go above him in the waie, or kisse paxe, or be encenced before his neighbour, etc.”

Occasionally, paxes in ivory have inscriptions upon them. One of the three in the Liverpool museum has the appropriate prayer, “Da pacem Domine in diebus nostris.” Two exhibited at Norwich in 1847 had legends. On one, the Annunciation, “Ave Maria;” on the other, the Nativity with the shepherds, “Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax, etc.”

Notices of the pax are common in monastic and church inventories. In the Rites of Durham abbey we are told that they possessed “a marvelous faire booke, which had the epistles and gospels in it, the which booke had on the outside of the coveringe the picture of our Saviour Christ all of silver—which booke did serve for the paxe in the masse.” A book which an abbot of Glastonbury gave to his church there probably answered the same purpose; and other then existing examples might be referred to. “Unum textum argenteum et auratum cum crucifixo, Maria, et Johanne, splendidus emalatum.” A mediÆval English pax made of wood does not now, probably, exist: but there is a curious entry in the inventory of church goods belonging to the parish of St. Peter Cheap, in the year 1431; “item iij lyttel pax breds of tre.” Many such wooden paxes are mentioned as having been burnt in the diocese of Lincoln in 1566 by the royal commissioners: “a paxe of wood” at Baston, another at Dunsbie, another at Haconbie.

We have a remarkable illustration of the late use of the pax in England in one of the injunctions issued by the king’s visitors to the clergy within the deanery of Doncaster, in the first year of Edward the sixth, and printed by Burnet in his Records: “The clerk was ordered at the proper time to bring down the pax, and standing without the church door to say these words aloud to the people. This is a token of joyful peace which is betwixt God and men’s conscience, etc.” The “church door” here means the door in the screen which in those days divided the chancel from the body of the church. As in Chaucer, where he says of the wife of Bath

“Husbands at the church door had she had five.”

In England before the change of religion in the fifteenth century the marriage ceremony was performed outside the chancel, sometimes at the great door of the church itself; and then all proceeded towards the sanctuary for mass and communion.

One of the most beautiful as well as one of the most rare objects in the South Kensington collection is part of the handle of an ecclesiastical fan, or flabellum. It is, probably, one half of a handle; and another half, so nearly alike that it is a question whether it does or does not belong to the same handle, is in the British museum. The fan is still used in the Catholic Church in the east, where the purpose and benefit of it in order to keep off flies from the sacred vessels, or on account of the heat, are obvious. But in the west, except perhaps for part of the year in Italy, the fan was a kind of fashion and, having no symbolism, an unmeaning introduction from the oriental rite. The various churches of France and England had dropped the use of it before the sixteenth century; but we have plenty of evidence that the fan was commonly adopted in the thirteenth and the twelfth. Illuminations in two of the manuscripts in the public library at Rouen are very clear in this matter. One represents the deacon raising the flabellum, a circular fan with a long handle, over the head of the priest standing at the altar. In the other, the deacon is in the act of waving the fan, holding it by a short handle, over the head of a bishop who is elevating the Host.

A very curious flabellum, supposed to be of the ninth century, is described by Du Sommerard; it had long been preserved in the abbey of Tournus, south of Chalons, and was said to be in the possession of M. Carraud about twenty years ago. The fan of queen Theodolinda, of purple vellum with ivory handle, given by her to the cathedral of Monza is still preserved there. Other examples are, perhaps, still existing; two or three are mentioned by writers of the last century.

Inventories of churches and monasteries include the fan. In one of Amiens, about 1300, is “flabellum factum de serico et auro ad repellendas muscas.” Another, of the Sainte Chapelle at Paris, 1363, gives “Item, duo flabella, vulgariter nuncupata muscalia, ornata perlis.” Nor ought we to omit some entries of the same kind in English inventories. In one, of the cathedral of Salisbury, in 1314, are “ij flabella de serico et pergameno.” The church of St. Faith, in the crypt of St. Paul’s, possessed among its ornaments in 1298 “unum muscatorium de pennis pavonum.” Still more to our present purpose was the fan given to a chantry in the cathedral of Rochester, by bishop Hanno, in 1346; “unum flabellum de serico cum virga eburnea:” or the “flabellum de serico” named in the inventory of the property of Robert Bilton, bishop of Exeter, in 1330. John Newton, treasurer of York minster, gave to that church about the year 1400 a splendid fan, which was in the treasury there when everything of the kind was destroyed by the commissioners of Edward the sixth: “Manubrium flabelli argenteum deauratum, ex dono Joh. Newton, cum ymagine episcopi in fine enameled, pond’ v. unc.” It is not at all improbable that fans were used in England at mass even in parochial or country churches until a late period. The following entry occurs in the accounts of the churchwardens of Walberswick, in Suffolk: a payment in the year 1493 for “a bessume of pekok’s fethers, iv. d.”

Care must be observed, however, not to set down all works in ivory which are similar to no. 373 as having been the handles of ecclesiastical fans. Other church ceremonies required utensils of the same kind; though, probably, they were seldom if ever so profusely decorated and enriched with carving. For example, holy-water sprinklers would often have had ivory handles; and one is specified as belonging to St. Paul’s in 1295, “aspersorium de ebore.” More than this; whip handles, which we see on mirror cases and in illuminations, and other like things were made and ornamented for secular purposes. Hearne gives a copy of a curious inscription on the handle of a whip found in the ruins of the abbey of St. Alban. It commemorates the gift of four horses to the monks of that house from Gilbert of Newcastle. Hearne leaves the date of the handle doubtful, but is disposed to put it about the end of the fourteenth century.

The wife of Roger de Mortimer of Wigmore castle in Herefordshire had, among other valuable things as specified in the inventory taken in Edward the second’s reign (before quoted) “item, j scourgiam de ebore.”

The etching represents a very beautiful reliquary, French work of the sixteenth century, in the Kensington museum.

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