The most famous of all the works of that delightful Flemish painter Memling is the reliquary of St. Ursula. Those who saw the wonderful collection of “Primitives” brought together in Bruges in the year 1902 will recollect the eight exquisite miniatures on the reliquary. Happily no less than four of these contain representations of the ships in which St. Ursula and her accompanying maidens journeyed. The date assigned by Mr. Weale[55] to these paintings is not later than 1489. In Fig. 41 one of these panels is reproduced. We cannot regard these Memling pictures of ships as absolutely truthful: some allowance must be made for the artistic temperament. There is, for instance, no indication of any braces shown in the illustration. But Bruges is not far from the sea, and during the fifteenth century it was the great centre of commercial activity of the prosperous Hanse towns, and Memling would have plenty of opportunity to study the details of contemporary craft. It may fairly be assumed that in spite of a small inaccuracy here and there the general drawing of the ships is nautically correct. From other pictures and MSS. and stained glass windows of this time we know that this is so. Looking at the picture before us we see at once how the Viking lines have been modified. The fore-castle and stern-castles are seen in their latest form: that is to say, they have long since passed the time when they were mere additional structures to the hull of the ship. They have, in fact, now been absorbed into the general design of the whole vessel. There is still one mast supported by backstays, shrouds, and forestays, and there is one large mainsail which furls still to the yard. The lines of the ship are tubby, but we can easily see the progenitors of the Dutch craft which went on developing until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and there halted for ever after. Notice, too, that the rudder is in its proper place. Such a ship as this resembles in many points the one in “The Miracle of St. Nicholas” referred to above. The length of the Viking ship has given way to breadth. Roundness has taken the place of straightness: freeboard has added to her seaworthiness. We shall find this evidence before us confirmed by a certain mediæval Italian illustration[56] in which a Mediterranean ship is being tossed mercilessly about by the Wind, who, with inflated cheeks raises his head above the water and blows vigorously into the sails. Men are seen tumbling into the sea, the mainmast has gone by the board, and general confusion reigns. A somewhat similar kind of ship is also seen in a reproduction from a stained glass window of this period.[57] [Illustration: FIG. 41. PANEL OF THE SHRINE OF ST. URSULA, AFTER MEMLING (1489).]