Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/191

167 The Abbé Texier, whose learned Historical Essay on the Artists of Limoges affords the most valuable information hitherto published on the subject of Enamel, supposes that the art was introduced from Constantinople into France by way of Venice, towards the close of the tenth century. The artificers of Limoges appear to have excelled in the art of enamelling, and during a long series of years their productions were highly esteemed in many countries of Europe. A document dated A.D. 1197, shews that even in Italy their works were not unknown. Of the esteem in which they were held in England a curious evidence is supplied by the Constitutions of the bishops of Worcester, Walter de Bleys, A.D. 1229, and Walter de Cantilupe, A.D. 1240, respecting the ornaments and vessels to be provided for every parish church, in which it was ordained that the Eucharist should be reserved in a pyx formed either of silver, or ivory, or of the work of Limoges, "de opere Lemovitico ." Dr. Rock possesses a pyx of this period which had been used for that purpose in a parish church in Buckinghamshire, as he has reason to believe, previously to the Reformation. Of precisely similar form is the pyx in the possession of Mr. S. P. Cox, of which a representation is given. The field is partly of an intense blue colour, produced probably by cobalt: a pale green being