Master John of St. Albans worked in about 1257, and was designated "sculptor of the king's images." There was at this time a school of sculpture at the Abbey. This Westminster School of Artificers supplied statuettes and other sculptured ornaments to order for various places. One of the craftsmen was Alexander "le imaginator." In the Rolls of the Works at Westminster, there is an entry, "Master John, with a carpenter and assistant at St. Albans, worked on the lectern." This referred to a copy which was ordered of a rarely beautiful lectern at St. Albans' cathedral, which had been made by the "incomparable Walter of Colchester." Labour was cheap! There is record of three shillings being paid to John Benet for three capitals!
Among Westminster labourers was one known as Brother Ralph, the Convert; this individual was a reformed Jew. Among the craftsmen selected to receive wine from the convent with "special grace" is the goldsmith, Master R. de Fremlingham, who was then the Abbey plumber.
There was a master mason in 1326, who worked at Westminster and in various other places on His Majesty's Service. This was William Ramsay, who also superintended the building then in progress at St. Paul's, and was a man of such importance in his art, that the mayor and aldermen ordered that he should "not be placed on juries or inquests" during the time of his activity. He was also chief mason at the Tower. But in spite of the city fathers it was not possible to keep this worthy person out of court! For he and some of his friends, in 1332, practically kidnapped a youth of fourteen named Robert Huberd, took him forcibly from his appointed guardian, and married him out of hand to William Ramsay's daughter Agnes, the reason for this step being evidently that the boy had money. Upon the complaint of his guardian, Robert was given his choice whether he would remain with his bride or return to his former home. He deliberately chose his new relations, and so, as the marriage was quite legal according to existing laws, everything went pleasantly for Master William! It made no difference, either, in the respect of the community or the king for the master mason; in 1344, he was appointed to superintend the building at Windsor, and was made a member of the Common Council in 1347. Verily, the Old Testament days were not the last in which every man "did that which was right in his own eyes."
Carter gives some curious historical explanations of some very quaint and little-known sculptures in a frieze high up in the Chapel of Edward the Confessor in Westminster. One of them represents the Trial of Queen Emma, and is quite a spirited scene. The little accusing hands raised against the central figure of the queen, are unique in effect in a carving of this character. Queen Emma was accused of so many misdemeanours, poor lady! She had agreed to marry the enemy of her kingdom, King Canute: she gave no aid to her sons, Edward the Confessor and Alfred, when in exile; and she was also behaving in a very unsuitable manner with Alwin, Bishop of Winchester: she seems to have been versatile in crime, and it is no wonder that she was invited to withdraw from her high estate.
The burial of Henry V. is interestingly described in an old manuscript of nearly contemporary origin: "His body was embalmed and cired and laid on a royal carriage, and an image like to him was laid upon the corpse, open: and with divers banners, and horses, covered with the arms of England and France, St. Edward and St. Edmund... and brought with great solemnity to Westminster, and worshipfully buried; and after was laid on his tomb a royal image like to himself, of silver and gilt, which was made at the cost of Queen Katherine... he ordained in his life the place of his sepulchre, where he is now buried, and every daye III. masses perpetually to be sungen in a fair chapel over his sepulchre." This exquisite arrangement of a little raised chantry, and the noble tomb itself, was the work of Master Mapilton, who came from Durham in 1416.
Mr. W. R. Lethaby calls attention to the practical and expedient way in which mediæval carvers of effigies utilized their long blocks of stone: "Notice," he says, "how... the angels at the head and the beast at the foot were put in just to square out the block, and how all the points of high relief come to one plane so that a drawing board might be firmly placed on the statue." Only such cutting away as was actually necessary was encouraged; the figure was usually represented as putting the earthly powers beneath his feet, while angels ministered at his head. St. Louis ordered a crown of thorns to be placed on his head when he was dying, and the crown of France placed at his feet. The little niches around the tombs, in which usually stood figures of saints, were called "hovels." It is amusing to learn this to-day, with our long established association of the word with poverty and squalor.
Henry VII. left directions for the design of his tomb. Among other stipulations, it was to be adorned with "ymages" of his patron saints "of copper and gilte." Henry then "calls and cries" to his guardian saints and directs that the tomb shall have "a grate, in manner of a closure, of coper and gilte," which was added by English craftsmen. Inside this grille in the early days was an altar, containing a unique relic,—a leg of St. George.
Sculpture and all other decorative arts reached their ultimatum in England about the time of the construction of Henry VII.'s chapel at Westminster. The foundation stone was laid in 1502, by Henry himself. Of the interesting monuments and carvings contained in it, the most beautiful is the celebrated bronze figure by Torregiano on the tomb of the king and queen, which was designed during their lives. Torregiano was born in 1470, and died in 1522, so he is not quite a mediæval figure, but in connection with his wonderful work we must consider his career a moment. Vasari says that he had "more pride than true artistic excellence." He was constantly interfering with Michelangelo, with whom he was a student in Florence, and on one memorable occasion they came to blows: and that was the day when "Torregiano struck Michelangelo on the nose with his fist, using such terrible violence and crushing that feature in such a manner that the proper form could never be restored to it, and Michelangelo had his nose flattened by that blow all his life." So Torregiano fled from the Medicean wrath which would have descended upon him. After a short career as a soldier, impatient at not being rapidly promoted, he returned to his old profession of a sculptor. He went to England, where, says Vasari, "he executed many works in marble, bronze, and wood, for the king." The chief of these was the striking tomb of Henry VII. and the queen. Torregiano's agreement was to make it for a thousand pounds: also there is a contract which he signed with Henry VIII., agreeing to construct a similar tomb also for that monarch, to be one quarter part larger than that of Henry VII., but this was not carried out.
St. Anthony appears on a little sculptured medallion on the tomb of Henry VII., with a small pig trotting beside him. This is St. Anthony of Vienna, not of Padua. His legend is as follows. In an old document, Newcourt's Repertorium, it is related that "the monks of St. Anthony with their importunate begging, contrary to the example of St. Anthony, are so troublesome, as, if men give them nothing, they will presently threaten them with St. Anthony's fire; so that many simple people, out of fear or blind zeal, every year use to bestow on them a fat pig, or porker, which they have ordinarily painted in their pictures of St. Anthony, whereby they may procure their good will and their prayers, and be secure from their menaces."
Torregiano's contract read that he should "make well, surely, cleanly, and workmanlike, curiously, and substantially" the marble tomb with "images, beasts, and other things, of copper, gilte." Another craftsman who exercised his skill in this chapel was Lawrence Imber, image maker, and in 1500 the names of John Hudd, sculptor, and Nicolas Delphyn, occur. Some of the figures and statuettes on the tomb were also made by Drawswerd of York.