To the costume of the twelfth century we must therefore look for the only safe guide to the origin of the Lewis chessmen. Those of the kings and queens are of little value for this purpose, and those of the bishops, though minutest of all, of none. It is to the military costume of which the knights and footmen afford such curious examples that we must have recourse for some solution of the question. But these also are mostly of Southern and not of Scandinavian origin. Both the shield and the pointed helmet are what would usually be styled Norman. We find the kite-shaped shield represented in the Bayeux tapestry; a curious example of it is engraved on a candlestick of the twelfth century, now in the collection at Goodrich Court;[600] and a still more conclusive instance is the remarkable group of warriors, each with nasal, spear, and kite-shaped shield, sculptured on the lintel of the doorway of Fordington Church, Dorchester, circa 1160.[601] Sir S. R. Meyrick conjectures that the Normans derived this shield from Sicily. There is, at any rate, good evidence for believing that while it was in use in Britain early in the twelfth century, the Northmen retained their round shield till a later period. Judging from Mr. Worsaae's valuable treatise, as well as from the "Guide to Northern Antiquities," the round shield appears to be alone known among the defensive arms of the latest Pagan period, which closes little more than a century prior to the probable date of the Lewis chessmen. But Sir F. Madden has referred to an authority the bearing of which on this point has escaped him, although it seems conclusive. The passage is that in Giraldus, (quoted from a MS. temp. John,) in which he describes the descent of the Norwegians under Hasculph or Asgal, to attack the city of Dublin, then defended by Miles de Cogan, about the year 1172, as follows: "A navibus igitur certatim erumpentibus, duce Johanne ... viri bellicosi Danico more undique ferro vestiti, alii loricis longis, alii laminis ferreis arte consutis, clipeis quoque rotundis et rubris, circulariter ferro munitis, homines tam animis ferrei quam armis, ordinatis turmis, ad portam orientalem muros invadunt." Such shields, formed of wood bound with iron, and with an iron umbo in the centre, are still preserved in Norway, and correspond not only to the requisitions of the old Gulathings-law, cap. 309, circa 1180, but even to a later one—circa 1270. Into the minuter details of wambeys, gambeson, panzar, &c., referred to in the Archæologia, it is needless to enter, because most of them are wanting on the chessmen, or can at best only be guessed at. Were the swords and shields removed from the warders, along with their beards, so little would any one dream of detecting such traces of medieval armour in their costume, that even their sex might be in doubt, and some of their conical helmets and gambesons might serve equally well for the scapulars and tunics of gentle nuns.[602] Of the horsemen also little positive can be made out of anything but the helmet and shield; and of the former scarcely two are alike on knights or warders, the difference in some of them amounting to a total dissimilarity in form and fashion. Perhaps the most remarkable feature in the knight-pieces is the small size of the horses, so characteristic of the old Scottish breed. But it is even matter of doubt if the Norse warriors of the twelfth century ever fought on horseback. If they did so at that period, it was a novelty borrowed, like their new faith and arts, from the nations of the south.
A figure of a mounted warrior, apparently bearing a close resemblance to the chess knights, with a peaked helmet, carrying a spear, and with a long saddle cloth pendant from his horse, is sculptured in relief, amid knotwork and floriated ornaments, on an early monumental slab in the Relig Oran at Iona. A claymore of antique form occupies the centre of the slab, but the shield is concealed by the position of the figure. It is not, however, to the sculptured monuments either of Scotland or of Norway and Denmark that we must look for identifying the costume of these figures with any contemporary examples. Fortunately the same class of evidence has been preserved, on perhaps still more trustworthy authority, not in marble but in wax, in the royal and baronial seals attached to early charters. From these we learn that prior to the date of the Norwegians assailing Miles de Cogan, armed with their "shields, round and red," both the peaked helmet and nasal, and the kite-shaped shield, were the usual defensive armour of the Scottish baron. On the seal, for example, appended to the charter of Robert de Lundres, c. A.D. 1165, conveying a carucate of land in Roxburghshire to the Abbey of Melros, the knight is represented on horseback in full armour, with a flattened helmet with nasal and a kite-shaped shield.[603] So also in the seals of Uchtred, son of Osulf: William son of John: Philip de Valoniis, chamberlain of Scotland, c. A.D. 1176; and on that of Richard de Morville, constable of Scotland, appended to a charter A.D. 1176: all among the charters of the Abbey of Melros, about the middle of the twelfth century, we find the kite-shaped shield, the nasal, and the peaked helmet; while in the very beautiful seal of Patrick de Dunbar, c. A.D. 1200, the nasal appears attached to a round chapel-de-fer, very similar to those worn by some of the Lewis warders.[604] Such examples might be greatly multiplied, but these are sufficient to shew the entire correspondence of the chessmen found in Lewis, both with the contemporary native costume and with other productions of Scottish art of the twelfth century, while it still remains to be shewn that such resemblance is traceable in any single undoubted Scandinavian work of the same period. The intimate intercourse between the Scandinavian and native races of the north of Scotland, and their offensive and defensive alliances already referred to, would indeed render it probable that in the twelfth century no great difference existed in their weapons or defensive armour. Yet we find no traces in the arms or armour of the Scottish Highlanders, with whom alone such close alliances were formed, of anything resembling those in question. In the Lothians, or Saxonia, as it is sometimes styled even in the Pictish Chronicle, it was entirely different. Before the close of the eleventh century, a mingled Saxon and Norman population occupied the old kingdom of Northumbria, a Saxon queen shared the Scottish throne, and exercised a most important influence in changing the manners of the people, and in modifying and reforming their ecclesiastical system. To this period, therefore, and from this source it is that we must look for the introduction of the military costume of the South, as well as of the minutiæ of clerical attire, which may be presumed to have previously been as little in conformity with the Roman model as the other parts of the system.
Founding on the supposed discovery of the Lewis chessmen within tide-mark, and exposed to the sea on the shores of Lewis, it has been suggested that they "formed part of the stock of an Icelandic kaup-mann or merchant, who carried these articles to the Hebrides or Ireland for the sake of traffic; and the ship in which they were conveyed being wrecked, these figures were swept by the waves on shore, and buried beneath the sandbank."[605] This supposition, however, was formed under imperfect information of the circumstances attending the discovery, as they were found in a stone building, which, from the general description furnished of it, there appears reason to assume, must have been a Scottish Weem, and in the vicinity of a considerable ruin. There is greater probability in the earlier conjecture, that the carving of these ancient chessmen may have helped to relieve the monotony of cloistral seclusion. The minuteness of detail in the ecclesiastical costume is much more explicable on such a supposition than by a theory which would ascribe either to an Icelandic kaup-mann, or Norse carver of the twelfth century, such a knowledge of Episcopal chasuble, dalmatic, stole, cope, and tunic, as is traceable in the bishops of the Lewis chessmen.
Danish antiquaries have naturally been little inclined to dispute the idea of a Scandinavian origin assigned on such high authority to the beautiful specimens of carved chessmen found in Scotland. A keen spirit of nationality has been enlisted with the happiest effects in the cause of Northern Archæology, and however honestly bent on the discovery of truth, it was scarcely to be looked for that the Danish archæologist should search too curiously into the evidence by which such valuable relics were handed over to him. They are, accordingly, referred to in the Report of the Northern Antiquaries for 1836, under the title of Scandinavian Chessmen, and at length figure in the "Guide to Northern Archæology," among articles from the Christian Period, without its even being hinted that they were discovered, not in Denmark but in Scotland. The subject is treated more at large in the interesting paper on "Some Ancient Scandinavian Chessmen," included in the Report of the Northern Antiquaries to its British and American Members, in which several specimens found in Scandinavia are described and engraved. One of these, a female figure on horseback, supposed to be a queen-piece, (also figured in the Guide to Northern Archæology, p. 75,) is in the private collection of Professor Sjöborg. On it the writer remarks,—"The serpentine ornament upon it resembles, it will be observed, those on several of the chessmen found at Lewis. The mantle, too, or veil, hanging down the shoulders of the figure, is another point of similitude between them." A comparison of the engraving in Lord Ellesmere's translation of the Guide to Northern Archæology, with the Lewis chessmen in the British Museum, will suffice to shew how easily men are persuaded of what they wish to believe. The character both of horse and rider essentially differ; the costumes in no way resemble each other more than all female dresses necessarily do; while the horses differ as much as is well possible. In the Lewis knights their horses' manes are cut short and stand up, while the hair hangs down over their foreheads. In the Scandinavian example the mane is long, and the forehead uncovered; and what is no less worthy of note, the horse, both in this and the following examples, differs from the former in being of full size, as tested by the comparative proportions of the rider. The horse-furniture is equally dissimilar: but a still greater and more important disagreement is in the style of art. A very great resemblance may be traced between the square forms and most characteristic details of the Lewis horses' heads, and the contemporary sculptures of Dalmeny Church, Linlithgowshire, where a series of similar heads occur in the corbel-table of the Apse. Such a comparison affords the best test of style, the peculiarities of which are more easily illustrated than described. No such resemblance could possibly be suggested by Professor Sjöborg's chesspiece; and the similarity which the Danish antiquaries discover in its serpentine ornament to those of the Lewis carvings, is little more satisfactory. The difference in style is no less obvious in two carved groups from the Christiansborg Collection at Copenhagen, (tab. vi. figs. 1, 2,) representing, the one a king and the other a queen on horseback, and surrounded each by four attendants. They are also formed of the tooth of the Rostungr or walrus, and are believed to be the king and queen pieces of a set of chessmen. It is sufficient to say of them that they bear equally little resemblance to the Lewis figures in arms, armour, costume, or ornamental details. In Scotland it is otherwise. Examples have been found there admitting of comparison with the Lewis chessmen. Pennant engraves one discovered in the ruins of Dunstaffnage Castle, Argyleshire, the ancient royal abode of the Dalriadic kings. It represents a king seated in a chair of square form, holding a book in the left hand. The costume differs from the kings of the Lewis sets, and obviously belongs to a somewhat later period; but the general arrangement of the figures correspond, and there can be no doubt that the latter is the king-piece of a similar set of chessmen. It is still preserved at Dunstaffnage, where it was examined by Pennant in 1772.[606]
Another of the chesspieces referred to is in the Museum of the Scottish Antiquaries, and furnishes a most beautiful example of the skill of the early carvers. It is also wrought from the walrus ivory, and may be presumed to have formed a warder or rook-piece of the set. It represents two mailed knights, armed with sword and shield, and may be ascribed to the early part of the thirteenth century. The shields are shorter than in the Lewis figures, and the devices afford an interesting means of comparison. Several of the ornamental patterns wrought on the shields of the former bear such close resemblance to heraldic distinctions that they admit of intelligible description according to rules of blazonry, yet they are all evidently mere arbitrary ornaments and not bearings; whereas on one of the shields of the latter knight we have a curious and very early example of dimidiation in heraldry,—a fleur-de-lys dimidiated on a diapered field,—a figure little likely to be chosen for mere ornament. The history of this interesting relic is unknown. It was presented to the Society by Lord Macdonald in 1782, as the handle of a Highland dirk. From his extensive possessions in the Isle of Skye, it is not improbable that it may have been found there, where the frequent discovery of relics of different periods attests the ancient presence of a population skilled in the useful and ornamental arts. It measures three and five-eighth inches in height, and is fully equal, in point of workmanship, to any of the Lewis figures, though certainly exhibiting no characteristics which should suggest any doubt of its native workmanship.
