XXI
GOLD OF BYZANTIUM
HOW GUY OF LIMOGES TAUGHT THE ART OF BYZANTIUM TO WILFRID OF SUSSEX
Guy Bouverel was again in his own country, where he was called, according to the habit of the day, Guy of Limoges. He had spent nearly ten years working with Eloy, the master artist, in Limoges, and studying the art of enameling on copper, silver and gold. The new name was to him what a degree from some famous university is to the modern scientist. When a man was called Guy of Limoges, William of Sens, or Cornelys of Arras, it usually meant that he was a good example of whatever made the place mentioned famous. Guy Bouverel might be anybody. The name was known among the goldsmiths of Guthrum’s Lane in London; that was all. But Guy of Limoges meant a reputation for enamel-work.
The matter on which he was meditating, however, as he left Cold Harbor and walked up toward the house of Wilfrid the potter, was clean outside his own craft. The King, being much pleased with certain work done at the Abbey for which Guy was bound, had questioned him about it, and ended by giving him a rather large order. Brother Basil, a wise monk from an Irish monastery, had come to England to gather artists and artisans, and was for the time at this Abbey in the north, directing and aiding some work for the Church. Several of the company that lay the night before at Cold Harbor were going there, and among them they would be able to do what the King required.
The dowry of Princess Joan was to include a table of gold twelve feet long, twenty-four gold cups and as many plates, and some other trifles. A part of this work would be done in Limoges; but the King seemed to think that the rest might be done in England quite as well. He had also ordered stained glass for a chapel, and some reliquaries, or cases for precious relics, and three illuminated missals. The Sicilian court was one of the most splendid in Europe. The King evidently meant his daughter’s setting out to be nowise shabby.
A chest of gold was to be delivered by the Chancellor to Guy, and he was to accompany it, with its guard, to its destination. One of the King’s accountants would be nominally in charge, but of course if anything should happen to the chest, Guy would be in difficulties. There were ingots, or lumps, of gold, cast in molds for convenience in packing, and to be used in the goldsmith-work; but the greater part of the gold was coined bezants—coins worth about half a sovereign in modern money, and minted in Byzantium. This would pay for materials brought from almost every corner of the known world, and for the work of the skilled metal-worker, enamel-worker, glassmaker, and lumineur who would fill the order. Tomaso the physician had established himself in a half-ruined tower not far from the workshop on the Abbey lands, and would aid them in working out certain problems; and altogether, it was such a prospect as any man of Guy’s age and ambition might find agreeable.
“Hola, lad!” called Ranulph the troubadour cheerily. “Have you the world on your shoulders, or only some new undertaking?”
Guy laughed, with a certain sense of relief. He had known Ranulph for some time, and it occurred to him that here he might safely find a listener.
“Do you know a certain clerk named Simon Gastard?” he asked.