Great Britain -- History -- Henry II, 1154-1189 -- Juvenile fiction; Guilds -- Juvenile fiction; Middle Ages -- Juvenile fiction
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?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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