Enamel entered to an enormous extent into the decorative metal work of the Middle Ages. Altars, Church vessels, and crosiers, caskets, nefs and other domestic objects, the girdles and clasps for ladies’ use, as well as the details of military trappings were among the many things that were adorned in this manner. The massive military belts that were worn below the hips and were indicative of high rank were especially rich in goldsmiths’ work and enamels, infinite pains and enormous sums being spent on their execution. [Illustration: FIG. 172.--Queen Eleanor’s Cloak Clasp. Champlevé Enamel. Thirteenth century.] Of the various methods of enamelling that which is known as Champlevé is especially associated with Gothic art. Among the most interesting of the personal ornaments is the cloak clasp of Queen Eleanor, wife of the warrior King Edward I (Fig. 172). Here the arms of her husband, England, with those of her own blood, Castile and Leon, unite to make a unique fastening to the Royal mantle of that Queen “of Good Memory.” This clasp was probably made at Limoges, where Champlevé enamel was certainly produced as early as the latter half of the twelfth century and probably earlier, the art having been imported, it is said, from Venice, whither it had come from the East. At this same time heraldry was coming into systematic form, and enamel was soon employed to display it on the Royal and other monuments, beginning perhaps with the memorial slab to Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou (father of Henry II), who died in 1151, which is now in the Museum at Le Mans. The succeeding centuries are increasingly rich in heraldic enamels, the shields in the monuments of Edward III and his Queen, Philippa of Hainault, and on the magnificent tomb of William de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, in Westminster Abbey, may be taken as examples. The shield on the latter monument is reproduced by Boutell and others and will well repay study, especially when it is rendered in the colour which is necessary to a full appreciation of its beauty (Fig. 174). Towards the end of the mediaeval period began the Garter stall-plates already alluded to as still to be seen on the panels of St. George’s Chapel, which date from the early fifteenth century, though some of them relate to personages of an earlier time. These have most fortunately been brought within reach of study in the valuable facsimile reproductions in the work by Mr. St. John Hope, which includes in its scope the plates which were executed down to nearly the end of the fifteenth century. As examples of heraldic composition they are invaluable, for although the deterioration of the Gothic was already begun, they possess to a remarkable extent those decorative qualities that their modern successors so unfortunately lack.