Of other flabella which exist, one is preserved in the Dominican Monastery of Prouille, in the diocese of Toulouse; another, with a handle of silver, was formerly at St. Victor, near Marseilles.
In the British Museum is a portion of an ivory handle of a flabellum, French, of the twelfth century, about twelve inches in length, finely carved with figures of the twelve Apostles and emblems of the Evangelists. In the Victoria and Albert Museum is a similar fragment, but smaller, carved with compartments of animals, mythical beasts, monsters, etc.; these probably formed the two divisions of one single flabellum. These handles were sometimes square-shaped, as in the instance of the fragment in the Salting collection at present in the Victoria and Albert Museum. This is also French, of the fourteenth century, and is carved on each of its sides with figures of saints in niches, with crocketed arches.
A portion of the cylindrical stem of a flabellum or aspergillum, probably French of the twelfth century, is in the British Museum. This represents the occupations of the twelve months of the year in three bands, as follows: January, a two-headed Janus looking in opposite directions; February, a figure seated before a fire; March, cutting trees with a hatchet; April, gathering blossoms; May, an equestrian figure with hawk; June, a mower with sickle and hooked stick; July, a mower with scythe; August, a reaper with sickle; September, thrashing wheat; October, sowing corn; November, killing a pig; December, pouring wine into a cask.
The figures are separated from each other by trees, and the three bands by rings ornamented with foliage and zigzag patterns with semi-rosettes, and at top and bottom are rings with half-defaced inscriptions.
There is also in the same collection a capital of morse ivory for the handle of a flabellum, North German, twelfth century.
These instruments figure repeatedly in inventories of church and abbey property. Butler quotes from one at St. Riquier, near Abbeville, in 831, ‘a silver fan for chasing flies from the sacrifice.’ At Amiens, in 1250, there existed a fan for a similar purpose, ‘flabellum factum de serico et auro ad repellendas muscas et immunda.’ In 1363 La Sainte Chapelle possessed ‘duo flabella vulgariter nuncupata muscalia, ornata perlis’; in 1376, ‘ij flabella, Gallice esmouchoirs, ornata de perlis.’
In the sacrist rolls of Ely, ‘Item, j flabello empt. ad Aurifabrum, 7d. Item, in pari flabellorum pro le Colpeyt empt. 6d.’
A Salisbury inventory mentions two fans of vellum or other material.[66] The Chapel of St. Faith in the crypt of old St. Paul’s possessed, in 1298, a muscatorium or fly-whip of peacocks’ feathers.[67] There is record of a gift to York Minster, between the years 1393 and 1413, of a silver-gilt handle for a flabellum.[68] In 1346, Hamo, Bishop of Rochester, presented to the cathedral ‘unum flabellum de serico cum virga eburnea.’[69] In the inventory of the Chapel of West Exeter, Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, ‘i. muscifugium de pecock.’[70] In the enumeration of the valuable effects of the deceased Queen Isabella, daughter of Philippe le Bel, and consort of Edward II., the following entry appears: ‘De Capella, Duo flagella pro muscis fugandis.’[71]
| Portion of Ivory Handle of a Flabellum, French, 12th Cent. Lower portion of the same handle. Ivory Fan Handle, Italian, 16th Cent. Capital or node of a Flabellum. Portion of handle of a Flabellum, 14th Cent. | Victoria & Albert Museum. British Museum. Salting Coll.n. Victoria & Albert Museum. Salting Coll.n. |