Ivories Ancient and Mediæval

by William Maskell

The diptych of Justinianus, in the public library at Paris, is one more example of the same kind. Inside are written litanies of the ninth century, with the names of saints inserted who were particularly revered at Autun.

Another half of a consular diptych may be mentioned, a single leaf, in which instance the original carving has not only been removed but the ivory has been sawn into two pieces. As it happens, both fragments are in this country—one in the British museum, the other in the South Kensington collection, n^o. 266. The two together have still sufficient traces left to enable us to recognise the old design: a consul seated in the usual way, under a round arch. Below, there seem to have been the two boys or servants emptying their sacks of money and presents.

This mutilation occurred about the eighth or ninth century; and the other side of the leaf was then carved with subjects taken from the gospels. It was an unnecessary injury to destroy and plane away the first design. As the new purpose was probably to decorate the panels of some shrine or book-cover, the old carvings might have been concealed when the plaques were inlaid, in the same manner as the very curious pieces were treated, now at South Kensington, n^os. 253, 254, and 257.

It would be a subject far too extensive to attempt to give a history of the use and purpose of diptychs in the public service of the Christian Church. Their origin is to be traced to the very earliest times; perhaps to the apostolic age. Mention is made of them in the liturgy of St. Mark. Gori (or his author) quotes also the ecclesiastical hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite. This is certainly not the writing of the true Dionysius, the contemporary of St. Paul. Yet, putting the pseudo-Dionysius as late as the fifth century, his evidence is valuable, and he speaks of the use of diptychs as of things long known.

Numerous treaties and dissertations, even long books, have been written on the subject; and it would be idle work to repeat the names of the authors who are referred to, over and over again, by most writers on ivory carvings. In fact, the learning which some of these exhibit might much better have been shown if their subject had been the primitive history and practices of the Church. Except to state the mere fact of their use, the connection of ceremonial ecclesiastical diptychs with sculpture in ivory requires only a few remarks.

The common use of such diptychs is well and shortly summed up in a dissertation printed by Gori in his Thesaurus. The summary may be given in few words, and, moreover, the dissertation itself is written in explanation of the diptych of the consul Clementinus just mentioned, which we are now fortunate enough to possess in England, in the Mayer collection at Liverpool. Inside the leaves, as has been already observed, is an inscription in Greek of the eighth century, to be read during mass, desiring the people to be devout and reverent and to pray for the persons whose names were to be recited.

The Christian diptychs were intended for four purposes. First come those in which the names of all the baptised were entered, a kind of Fasti ecclesiæ, and answering to the registers kept now in every parish. Second, those in which were recorded the names of bishops and of all who had made offerings to the church or other benefactions. This list included the names of many persons still living. Third, those in which were recorded the names of saints and martyrs; and, naturally, in various places the names would be particularly of saints who in their lives had been connected with the locality. Such additions are of the utmost importance in tracing the history of ancient lists which have come down to our own time. Diptychs of this class were read aloud at mass, as a sign of the communion between the Church triumphant and the Church militant on earth. Fourth, those in which were written the names of dead members of the particular church or district, who having died in the true faith and with the rites of the church were to be remembered at mass.

As regards the living, the continuance of their names in the diptychs was of the highest consequence; to be erased was equal to the denunciation of them as heretics and unworthy of communion.

In the diptychs also were probably sometimes added the names of people who were sick or in trouble.

But besides these four objects for which Christian diptychs were made, there was another which must certainly have caused the production of many large sculptured works in ivory from the seventh to the tenth century: namely, for the purpose of exciting devotion and as a means also of teaching the ignorant. Ivory tablets or diptychs of this description are ordered to be exposed to the people in the old Ambrosian rite for the church of Milan.