Inventories of churches and monasteries include the fan. In one
of Amiens, about 1300, is “flabellum factum de serico et auro ad
repellendas muscas.” Another, of the Sainte Chapelle at Paris, 1363,
gives “Item, duo flabella, vulgariter nuncupata muscalia, ornata
perlis.” Nor ought we to omit some entries of the same kind in English
inventories. In one, of the cathedral of Salisbury, in 1314, are “ij
flabella de serico et pergameno.” The church of St. Faith, in the crypt
of St. Paul’s, possessed among its ornaments in 1298 “unum muscatorium
de pennis pavonum.” Still more to our present purpose was the fan
given to a chantry in the cathedral of Rochester, by bishop Hanno, in
1346; “unum flabellum de serico cum virga eburnea:” or the “flabellum
de serico” named in the inventory of the property of Robert Bilton,
bishop of Exeter, in 1330. John Newton, treasurer of York minster,
gave to that church about the year 1400 a splendid fan, which was
in the treasury there when everything of the kind was destroyed by
the commissioners of Edward the sixth: “Manubrium flabelli argenteum
deauratum, ex dono Joh. Newton, cum ymagine episcopi in fine enameled,
pond’ v. unc.” It is not at all improbable that fans were used in
England at mass even in parochial or country churches until a late
period. The following entry occurs in the accounts of the churchwardens
of Walberswick, in Suffolk: a payment in the year 1493 for “a bessume
of pekok’s fethers, iv. d.”
Care must be observed, however, not to set down all works in
ivory which are similar to no. 373 as having been the handles of
ecclesiastical fans. Other church ceremonies required utensils of the
same kind; though, probably, they were seldom if ever so profusely
decorated and enriched with carving. For example, holy-water sprinklers
would often have had ivory handles; and one is specified as belonging
to St. Paul’s in 1295, “aspersorium de ebore.” More than this; whip
handles, which we see on mirror cases and in illuminations, and other
like things were made and ornamented for secular purposes. Hearne
gives a copy of a curious inscription on the handle of a whip found in
the ruins of the abbey of St. Alban. It commemorates the gift of four
horses to the monks of that house from Gilbert of Newcastle. Hearne
leaves the date of the handle doubtful, but is disposed to put it about
the end of the fourteenth century.
The wife of Roger de Mortimer of Wigmore castle in Herefordshire had,
among other valuable things as specified in the inventory taken in
Edward the second’s reign (before quoted) “item, j scourgiam de ebore.”
The etching represents a very beautiful reliquary, French work of the
sixteenth century, in the Kensington museum.
[Illustration: TRIPTYCH, SERVING AS A RELIQUARY IN CARVED IVORY ABOUT
1480. ENTIRE WIDTH OPENED 10¼ in. S.K.M. (N^o 4336)
D. JONES FECIT.]
CHAPTER IX.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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