Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/312

286

above-named work is the publication of a sister society in France, to the establishment of which, and to some of its several General Sessions, we have already called attention at pages 81 and 186 of our first volume. But with the view of rendering the nature of its labours better known among us, and thereby of inducing, if possible, a feeling for more direct intercourse than yet exists with this Society, and with other Continental Associations similar to our own, it has been proposed to analyze occasionally such of its papers as may be most illustrative of English monuments. We shall therefore proceed to lay before our readers, as a supplement to the Essay on Sepulchral Brasses and Incised Slabs at page 197 of our first volume, the following abstract from a Memoir by the Abbé on "Sepulchral Stones in the Cathedral at " in Picardy, hoping that it may aid our English correspondents in appropriating some of those dateless effigies and inscriptions with which many of our churches still abound.

Beginning with Monumental Slabs of the thirteenth century, says that they are almost invariably coffin-shaped, and that their effigies are represented as in an arch springing from columns which occupy the whole length of the stone; while in each spandrel are quatrefoils or rosettes, and often a small angel with extended wings carrying a censer or a trumpet, the style being altogether simple and elegant. But the only Costume of this epoch which he instances is that of a Sub-deacon in an ample vestment descending to the feet and lifted up over the arms, as the chasuble then was, his hand holding a book against his breast. The inscriptions, of which the lines, as well as the lines of the effigy, are filled up with red or black mastic, are generally on the border of the slab, and merely indicate the deceased's name and title, and the year of his death, concluding with a brief pious invocation or consolatory sentiment. But sometimes Ave also find about the head of the effigy—and when there is no effigy, upon the middle of the slab—a scriptural passage admonishing the reader of his last days: these inscriptions, though sometimes in the vernacular tongue, being usually in Latin, especially when relating to ecclesiastics, who alone, whether priests or not, have the title of "Magister" before their names.

Incised Slabs of the fourteenth differ from those of the preceding century in having the arch, which contains the effigy, more acutely pointed and more adorned, and sometimes in having two persons represented on