Cumberland, with inscription, "Kestula Radulfi," (Lysons); Irthington, Cumberland, with inscription, "Hic jacet Radulfus," (Lysons); St. John's, Chester, with inscription to John de Serjam, (Lysons); Wycliffe, Yorkshire, (Gent. Mag. 1812, p. 321); two at Rhuddlan, Denbighshire, (Archæologia Cambrensis, vol. iv. p. 47); Thormanby, Yorkshire.

Sword and book, meaning doubtful. Example, Newbigging, Northumberland.

Sword and knife, knight or man at arms probably. Example, Castle chapel, Newcastle.

Sword and mantel de fer, knight probably, or man at arms. Example, Rhuddlan, Denbighshire.

Sword and harp, of doubtful meaning. The symbols naturally suggest ideas of the warrior minstrels of the days of chivalry, but in fact nothing can be adduced to support this poetical idea. The sword and harp appear on a tall cross at Auldbar, co. Angus, (date perhaps eighth, ninth, or tenth century.) Example, Heysham, Lancashire, (Whittaker's Richmondshire, vol. ii. p. 319.)

Helmet, unaccompanied by other symbols, has not yet been met with in English slabs. There is a French slab in the Gagnières collection from the Abbaye de Barbeau, which has three helmets, one and two, the upper one crowned, to "Hernoule nostre seigneur le Roi de France et Jehanne sa femme."

Sword and bugle. Enough of the inscription remains on one of the slabs which bear these symbols, to suggest that its subject was an officer of Englewood Forest. This strengthens the idea which naturally suggests itself, that these symbols denote a forest ranger or keeper. Examples, Darley, Derbyshire, Plate 1x.; Great Salkeld, Cumberland, Plate XIII.

Axe. Knight or man at arnis. See p. 63. Examples, Bakewell, Plate vII.; Brecon priory; Chelmorton, Derbyshire.

Bow and arrow.

Most probably a forester.

It may

be noticed that a cross-bow has not yet been met with among these symbols. Example, Bakewell, Derby, Plate

XLVI.

Bow, arrow, and bugle. Probably a forester. Example, Papplewick, Nottinghamshire, Plate XXVII.

Knife. May perhaps be the symbol of an "Ecuyer trenchant," or the official "kerver" in some great family, which was a post of honour. Examples, Papplewick, Nottinghamshire, Plate XXIV.; Lichfield cathedral, (Gent. Mag., vol. lix. p. 467.)

Knife and dredging box. Symbols of a cook. The only example on which they occur is that of William Coke. See p. 8.

Horse-shoes, tongs and hammer. There cannot be any danger in assigning these emblems to a smith or farrier. They appear on the seal of "Ralph farrier of the bishopric of Durham," as the symbols of his craft; engraved in the Arch. Journal, vol. iv. p. 149. Example, St. Peter's, Jersey, Plate VIII.

Shears. We find two types of shears, one sharp-pointed the other with square ends. The latter kind is probably that which the clothier used to shear his cloth, i. e. to cut the nap; the blunt ends being intended to preserve the cloth from injury; so that we may assign this symbol to the clothier.

It is possible that the sharp-pointed shears may also be an emblem of the woolstapler, or clothier. On the Dereham slab we find them associated with what looks very like a comb. On early slabs in the catacombs we find the pointed shears, not unlike these medieval ones in shape, and the comb and speculum, or magnifying glass, which was then and still is used for examining the quality of cloth, and an instrument like a cleaver, probably a scraper

G

of some kind. These were undoubtedly symbols of the cloth or wool merchant.

Yet it is almost certain that the shears were sometimes used as the symbol of a female. We find them in double cross slabs, Plates v., LXII., LXV., placed beside the dexter cross, which we suppose to belong to the wife; we find them in two instances on slabs which have inscriptions to females, Plates LVII. and LXVI.: we cannot doubt then that sometimes these implements of housewifery were used as a female symbol. For remarks on this subject see Archæological Journal, No. XX. p. 253. In an example at Blidworth, Nottinghamshire, the shears are of the modern shape working on a pin. Examples, Bakewell, Derbyshire, Plate v.; Hexham, Northumberland, Plate LVII.; Horton, Northumberland, Plates LX. and LXVI.; Camboe chapel, Northumberland; Wycliffe, Yorkshire, (Gough); Kirkby in Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, (Gough); East Shaftoe, Northumberland; Rokeby.

Shears and key or keys. Probably a female symbol, they occur on double slabs beside the dexter cross, at Aycliffe, Northumberland, Plate v., and at a church near Darlington, Durham, also on single slabs at Newbigging, Northumberland, and Bamburg, Northumberland, and at Bakewell, Derbyshire, Plate vi., and Greystoke, Cumberland.

Key. May have been the symbol of the steward of a nobleman's household, or of the mayor of a corporate town. At Wing, Buckinghamshire, on the brass of Thomas Coates, porter at Ascott hall, there are a key and staff. Examples, Bakewell, (Arch. Journal, vol. iv. p. 48); Margam, Glamorganshire.

Shears and comb. Cloth or wool merchant. The comb occurs on many of the upright crosses in Mr. Chambers's Monuments of Angus.

* Maitland, p. 223.

Shears and book. Difficult of explanation; may not the book be in fact a comb with the teeth omitted or oblitcrated. Example, Bakewell, Derbyshire, Plate LVII.; Dereham, Cumberland, Plate LXIII.

Scissors and gloves, on a staff or stand. A glover. A slab at Fletching, Sussex, has in brass a pair of gloves and an inscription to Peter Denot, glover. Gough (vol. ii. p. cccxxxv.) mentions another brass shield bearing a pair of gloves to John Altayn, glover, A.D. 1449. Example, St. John's, Chester.

Fish and key. It is difficult to imagine that a man carried on such dissimilar trades as those of fisherman and locksmith very probably the fish is here the mystic xous, the key perhaps the symbol of a woman. Example, St. Mary's, Gateshead, Durham, Plate xxII. Square. Perhaps a carpenter or a mason, or a freemason. Example, Thornton abbey, Lincolnshire.

Bell and crucible, or pot of metal. Probably a bellfounder, an artist of considerable importance in the middle ages, when a form of prayer, made for the occasion, was always repeated before a bell was cast, and the bells themselves were baptized. Example, St. Dionys, York.

Trumpets. Perhaps of some trumpeter, or they may be merely a punning device, as in the case of Sir Roger de Trumpington. They occur, incised, on a raised cross slab found near the Guildhall chapel, Lon

don, with the inscription

GODEFREY:

LE TROMPEUR GIST: CI: DEV DEL:
ALME EIT: MERCI.

Cross patéc within a circle. It has been conjectured that this symbol indicates the deceased to have been a Knight Templar.

Mr. Richardson (Archæological Jour

nal, vol. i. p. 49) shews that the effigies at the Temple church are not those of Templars, and that there are no monuments in England which bear the symbols which we should expect to find on a Templar's tomb. On some of these cross slabs however we find the badge of the Temple, the cross patée within a circle, and in several cases, for instance the slabs from Trumpington, Plate LIII., and from Chesterton, Plate LIII., it is clear that this is not merely one of the innumerable forms in which the device. of the cross and circle is presented to us on these slabs, but is a something introduced upon the slab in addition to the cross,―a symbol of something, and very probably of a Knight Templar.

There are some other sculptures whose meaning is far more difficult of explanation.

The most frequent and puzzling of these is the ornament about the middle of the shaft of the cross, which occurs in Oakington, Cambridgeshire, Plate XLV.; Stanford in the Vale, Plate XLVII.; Horningsea and Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, Plate LIII.; Landbeach, Cambridgeshire, Plate LIV.; Southwell, Nottinghamshire; two at Rumsey, and one at Steeple Gidding, Huntingdonshire, (Gough, vol. i.); three at Buckenham Ferry; and one at St. Mary Magdalen, Wiggenhall, at Watlington, and at Sandingham, Norfolk; and in many other examples. In some examples it looks merely like a riband, in others the stiffness of its form and the addition of an arrow negative this supposition; besides, a riband would assume more free and fanciful forms and not always the stiff form which we see pretty accurately preserved in all the examples. Various conjectures may be offered, but none appear very likely; for instance, are they hinges, as though the coffin-lid were supposed to open like a chest at the ridge;