of Geddington cross may have been, it is certain he was not the
artist that Battle or Crundale was, to whose genius the crosses of
Northampton and Waltham respectively are owing.
Royal account rolls, extant down to the year 1293, throw considerable
light on the progress of the work, the identity of the artists
engaged on it, and the cost of their services, as well as of the
material used. But the particulars of the several undertakings are not
always kept distinct, so that it is difficult, if not impossible, to
disentangle the precise amount of the cost of any individual cross.
John, of Battle, a master mason, contracted for his share of the work
of a number of crosses, viz., at Northampton, Stony Stratford, Woburn,
Dunstable, and St Albans, for £95 each. The imagery and much of the
ornamental sculpture was executed in London. The figures of the queen,
for the crosses of Lincoln and Northampton, were the work of William,
of Ireland; while Alexander, of Abingdon, another image maker,
provided the statues for other crosses, the figures all being produced
at a uniform rate of five marks, or £3. 6s. 8d. each. Purbeck marble,
from the quarries at Corfe, was used for parts of the crosses at
Lincoln, Northampton, Stony Stratford, Dunstable, St Albans, Waltham,
and Charing.
The first of the stopping-places at which crosses were erected was
Lincoln. The Eleanor cross there "stood on Swine Green, opposite the
Gilbertine Priory of St Catherine, where the queen's body rested." The
cross was built by Richard, of Stowe, otherwise Gainsborough, then
master mason of the works of the cathedral. From time to time, during
the years 1291 to 1293, he received payments, amounting to £106. 13s.
4d., for the king's work. The statues, and some of the carved ornament
for the cross, were executed at Westminster by William, of Ireland,
called in the accounts "_Imaginator_" _i.e._, image maker. William,
as mentioned above, received £3. 6s. 8d. each for the statues of the
queen; while the ornaments for the head of the cross seem to have
cost £13. It is computed that the total cost of the cross at Lincoln
amounted to about £134. Not a vestige of it now remains.
The cross at Grantham, Lincolnshire, stood in an open space on the
London road, at a place called Peter Church Hill. Dr William Stukeley,
in 1776, recorded that the people had some memory of it in his time;
and, moreover, he was shown "a stone carved with foliage work, said to
be part of it." All remains of the cross have long since vanished.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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