Most of the small objects connected with ecclesiastical ceremonial are of this period, for instance the liturgic combs used by the bishop or officiating priest before celebrating high mass; the comb was a special feature in Anglo-Saxon ritual, and several have been found in Great Britain. The strange large comb in the British Museum is said to have been found in Wales, and is probably about the eleventh century (Fig. 26). It shows the later forms of the Anglo-Saxon scroll-work and has much in connection with Romanesque decoration. The comb of St. Gauzelin, Bishop of Toul is still preserved in the cathedral at Nancy, and the comb of St. Loup in the cathedral at Sens; both betray strong Byzantine and oriental influence, and both date from the tenth century. These combs all have the more general arrangement of a double row of teeth, in two sizes; but that attributed to St. Heribert (in Cologne Museum), has only one row, and is probably more ancient, as the grouping of the Crucifixion is like that on the Carlovingian plaques of the ninth century (Fig. 24). The _urcei_, or holy water stoups are usually of German origin. A magnificent example in Milan Cathedral bears the inscription of Gotfredus, Archbishop of Milan, 973-978. It is very handsome in design, being surrounded by an arcade, above which rise the towers of the new Jerusalem. Underneath are seated the Virgin and Child and the Four Evangelists, modelled in the rather heavy German style of the tenth century. Another _urceus_ in the Hermitage Museum at St. Petersburg is of the same bucket shape, but ornamented with two tiers of arcades containing complicated scenes from the Passion. The Cathedral Treasury at Aix-la-Chapelle contains two of these _urcei_ one of an octagon shape, each panel having two figures. The style of carving is like that of the school of ivory carvers founded by Bernward at Hildesheim in the eleventh century. FOOTNOTES: [16] _L’Archittetura in Italia, VI.-XI. cent._ Venice, 1890. [17] See Marcel Reymond, _La Sculpture Toscane_. Florence, 1897. [18] Nos. 1041-2, Cat. 1881. [19] Dr. Paul Weber, _Geistliche Schauspiel und Kirchliche Kunst_. [20] See a plaque in the British Museum with the Nativity, and notably the Salutation. [21] See article by Dr. W. Vöge in the _Jahrbuch der kgl. preuss. Kunst-samml._, 1899. CHAPTER IV ROMANESQUE AND GOTHIC IVORIES Romanesque Art grew up north of the Alps in the valley of the Lower Rhone and South France, and is especially the work of the French people. The Italians led the way in the first centuries A.D., and were followed by the Greeks of Byzantium, and then by the Carlovingian Germanic peoples in the great art development of Europe; but from the eleventh century France entirely fills the stage, and this pre-eminence was kept up till the early Renaissance, when Italy again takes a leading part.