Figs. 22 and 23.—Thirteenth Century Coffins, Temple Church.
St. Dunstan was re-interred in the new work, at Canterbury in 1180 in a coffin of lead which was “not plain, but of beautiful plaited work.”
Some most remarkable coffins thus decorated were discovered in 1841 in relaying the floor of the Temple Church in London; the style of their design would show that they were made about the year 1200. They contained the bodies represented above them by the cross-legged stone effigies of knights. These coffins were drawn and published by Mr. Edward Richardson in 1845, from whose careful drawings are made the [accompanying] [illustrations].
Fig. 24.
The extreme delicacy of the ornament is most remarkable. Here again the pattern design is made up of portions several times repeated in similar or different combinations; the panels were either cast to the required number and then arranged on a board from which the final mould was made; or the parts were impressed separately in a smooth and level surface of moulding sand, and this with all the rapid ease of self-sufficient art. They are about 6 feet 6 inches long, and some are formed like the stone coffins of the time with a circular end for the head. The sides as well as the covering are decorated in the richest example by two of the same small square patterns alternating, and in others by vertical cords at intervals.
At Winchester there has recently been exposed a fifteenth century coffin bearing on the lid a cross and the arms of the Bishop Courtenay. ([Fig. 24].)
Later the form was made to conform more closely to the body, being rather a wrapping than a box. That of Henry IV. (1413) at Canterbury was of this form, as also was that found at Westminster under the tomb of Henry VII., the latter had a small cross at the breast only.
Fig. 25.—At Moissac.