IV. d, Another sketch of a sitting lion.
Review.
It was with a sense of astonishment that, after so great a lapse of time, this interesting communication, so voluminous in detail, and, so apparently explanatory of doubts and difficulties in connection with the obscure problem of the Loretto Chapel, should have presented itself unsought, unexpected, and inclusive of strange new elements which suggested the existence at Glastonbury in Bere's day of an architectural model which would be unique for the period in these islands, and probably without parallel in Northern Europe.
Several questions arise in the mind. Could the little windows in Coney's sketch have stimulated a subconscious dream of an Italian chapel? But where are we to look for the original model of these undulating parapets, Lions sejeant with shields, patellæ, fruit and flower enrichment, the conchoidal "Cava Virginis," and the precision of the general proportions? Was there, in the subconscious memory of either of the sitters, some forgotten impression of a building in Padua or elsewhere in Northern Italy, which in its main features, or subsidiary detail, might tally with what was here given? That we cannot say, for nothing of the sort could or can be recalled by the conscious mind.
Should the day come when the bank of rubble on the north side of the nave of Glastonbury Abbey can be thoroughly explored, it may be that beyond some traces of the freestone wall spoken of by the old gardener there may be found nothing>; but if, on the other hand, it should appear that by the same obscure mental process which has already, in the case of the Edgar Chapel, predicated the existence, with practical truth in form and detail, of a building whose very memory was lost (and the evidence for which had been ignored, nay even scouted, by the most competent antiquaries), another architectural treasure, long buried and forgotten, might once again be brought to light, and its wealth of Italian detail verified; then, indeed, would come into sight new vistas, new possibilities of exploration and research into the secrets of old time, and we should stand at the threshold of the Gate of Remembrance.
SITTING. 16th August, 1917 (at Gloucester).
Note.—The objects sought in this communication were formulated by F.B.B. in advance. They chiefly concerned the discrepancies between the two descriptions of Bere's buildings given at previous sittings, 13th June, 1911, and 4th December, 1916, the first of which referred to some work unidentified. F.B.B. suggested that the discovery of the footings of the transept "aisle" immediately before the former of these two sittings had created a mental bias in favour of a "chapel" there, and thus confused the script.
"Maestro ... Francesco de Padua qui me instruxit et capella(m) cognoscit in Italia. Ille etiam scripsit cum me et ille ... (struebat) in modo Italiano, et mecum in nave navigavit ad Brit(tanniam). Ille aedificavit et ornavit."
"Deepe, by ye Bank, is ye walle where ye fathers didde sit in their old age; and they had not the use[52] of the younger brethren, but were free—and who wished to spend hys dayes in ease and luxury? But capella wasne in muro in Boreali parte. I have told ye. It was soe, and in the banke deepe down ye shall find hym full perfect as I do think. There was a deepe place where they destroyed and they covered him and made a banke full six feet high, and soe saved the wall at the west end for all tyme.
"Ask ye, what was the chapel under the Tower beyond the Porche? He was for the reliquaries, and ye did enter hym from the garth on the syde of St. Mary's and uppe four steppes to him, and soe through to the upper garth and ye road to the John's Gate."