Canterbury was one of the most prized relics of old St. Paul's, London. Many such Tau-staves -some beautifully carved-are to be seen in the museums of this country and the Continent. It was adopted as the official form by the Oriental prelates.

The short curved divining rod, Lituus,' of the Roman augurs is said never to have disappeared as an emblem of office and out of it grew the crook of the western bishops, influenced probably by the frequent representation in the catacombs and elsewhere of the Good Shepherd, crook in hand, surrounded by His sheep. In early times the crooked staff was usually much shorter than it was later. St. Nicholas' crosier on the Brighton font is quite short. Not infrequently they were as short as an ordinary walking stick (about a yard). The favourite wood seems to have been yew. The crosier of St. Melis (Irish, 12th century) is 3 ft. 0 in. The beautiful Clonmacnoise crosier (9th or 11th century) is 3 ft. 2 ins. The quigrich of St. Fillan of Aberdeenshire was the old saint's plain straight staff. All that now remains is the beautiful metal crook that was fitted to it. The opposite is the case with the Bachul of Moloc. All its ornaments have been stolen off it and the staff would also have probably disappeared only for the fact that its possessor, through it, holds certain property (Arch. Fnl., 1859). Giraldus Cambrensis (1185) tells us how highly venerated were the staves of the old missionary fathers and many of the gilt and jewelled crosiers of medieval times were really but the cases in which these venerable, perhaps

1 Vide Smith's Dict. G. & R. Antiqs.

short

Early sculptured representations of bishops with such crosiers may be seen on St. Gobnet's Stone, Ballyvourney, Co. Cork (Archæol. Fnl., 1855) and Bressay (Shetlands) Ogham Stone, Reliq., 1884-5.

miracle-working, relics were enshrined. Westwood' says that the worn parts of these short staves show that they were carried crook up over the shoulder. But that they were sometimes carried like a walking stick is shown by the picture of St. Luke in the Gospels of MacDurnan, an early 9th century MS. in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth Palace. St. Matthew's picture in the same work tells us that the long crosier was also in use at the same time. It was this latter that developed into the beautiful carved, tabernacled and enamelled crosier of later date. It gradually replaced all others in the Western church, from the 11th century onwards, but apparently had not entirely superseded the straight baculum even in the 14th century, if we may judge from the slab, of that date, on the tomb of the founder, St. Yestin, in Llaniestin church, Anglesey."

Among all these varied forms of episcopal crosier, baculum, or cambutta, there is nothing at all like the object P.3 carries in his hand. It is flat, with squared edges. It is just short of 7 ins. long. Its upper end is rounded. Half an inch from the very top it is in. wide, and gradually broadens to the lower end, which is 1 ins. across. The lower border is nearly straight and squared. These dimensions mean that proportionately to life-size it would be a flat wedge-shaped object nearly a yard long, with a base 6 ins. across and gradually narrowing to between 3 or 4 ins. before it was rounded off at the top. Some of the photographs of this object show slight notching on each side, near the lower end. This made me think it might be an asperge, but careful examination convinces me that the notches are due to injury.

1 Anglo-Saxon and Irish MSS.

2 Illustrated in Arch. Cambrensis (1847).

A club or mace has been suggested, as an object that widens from the handle to the other end, and a club is the symbol of two Apostles, St. Simon and St. James, and of at least eleven other saints, but a club would not be represented flat, with square edges and would not be carried in this manner.1 Mr. Roberts has suggested that some of the figures, he does not say which, carry candles. I cannot agree. The characteristic part of a candle is its flame, and there is nothing to suggest it, and candles are always circular in section, not flat. They are frequently represented as gradually narrowing-tapering-to the burning end. A good example is seen in the 14th century representation of the Mass in plate 32, vol. I. of Mercuri and Bonnard's Costumes Historiques. The only thing I can think of that is the shape of the object under discussion is the opening of some Saxon or Early Norman windows, e.g., those of Hardham Church, Sussex.

In

Finding no explanation in real life, I turned my thoughts to symbolism and sought for something as being symbolised of this shape. representations of the Baptism of Christ, diverging lines are often shown passing from the beak of a dove towards the head of the Baptised and are intended to signify radiations of Divine influence passing from the Holy Spirit to the Saviour.2 Such radiations are shown in other baptisms, as for example, the Baptism of a Goth in

1 For a man carrying a club see Kirkburn font in Bond's Fonts, P. 161.

2 Bond, in Fonts and Font Covers, gives several excellent illustrations, but considers these lines to represent streams of water (vide p. 14 passim). The incorrectness of such an explanation will at once be seen on applying it to examples other than baptisms. That the ancients had the idea of radiations is shown, for example, by the following: ".. the mutual gaze of persons, and that which emanates from their eyes, whether we call it light or something else . . .” and there is so great a penetration into the inward parts by a look.. -Plutarch's Symposium, Book v., prob. 7.

.

at

Munter's Sinnbilder, or the tombstone Aquileia, in Bond. They also occur in representations of the Annunciation' and in blessings generally. Moreover, the radiations do not always come from the Dove. They often proceed from the Divine hand (Dextera Dei) or from a cloud or crescent or other symbolic representation of heaven.s

The beautiful enamelled 14th century Sienese morse in the British Museum has on it a representation of the birth of John the Baptist. Here a 'single gradually diverging ray descends from Heaven on to the infant. The 6th century Italian ivory in the same museum, illustration of which forms plate iii. of the Guide to Early Christian Antiquities, shows excellent carved examples of wedge-shaped rays proceeding from a cloud.

But it was not only spiritual influences that were so represented. The symbolists indicated all emanations, radiations or influences in this way. As for instance, light from a star. Sunbeams are figured in the same way. Indeed, there can be little doubt that from them, as seen when the sun is behind a cloud or his light comes through a chink into a dark room, the idea originated of representing beams of radiation by long, slightly widening wedges. Radiations were not always shown diverging from their source. They were frequently represented as converging to their recipient. This method is very ancient, and is found in hieroglyphics. It was commonly

1 Op. cit., p. 8.

Bock, Geschichte der liturgischen Gewaender des Mittelalters. xiii.

Plate

See Twining, Symbols and Emblems. Blessing of Isaiah from 10th century German MS. and Blessing of Charles the Bald from his 9th century illustrated Bible.

Illustration from painted glass in Lyons Cathedral. Twining, op. cit. 'See Clodd, History of Alphabet, p. 170.

used in classical times as, for example, in the rays of the corona radiata. It was the method usually adopted by the heralds and in decorative designs and fabrics to which it better lent itself."

The Dove in the baptism of Christ on the font in Shorne church (Kent) has such rays, and they are usual in representations of the Holy Eucharist. In the heraldic badge of the "Rising Sun" they come from behind a cloud. In "the Sun-in-splendour" they are still more decoratively treated, each alternate ray being given the wavy outline of a flame. The heralds did not, however, always use this method. Occasionally they used the more naturalistic diverging beam, as, for example, in the Yorkist sun and around the star of the garter and other orders.'

To summarise: The ancients and mediævals, the heralds, decorative artists and symbolists generally, though differing slightly in detail, all agree in representing rays of light or of spiritual influence by long narrow wedges. Such, then, was the single symbolic ray, and such is the shape of the object P.3 carries in his left hand.

There is a story of St. Chad, which, though it does not appear in any extant life of the saint, is said to have been very popular in the middle ages. It made him the chief instrument in

1 See coin of Ptolemy V., illustrated in Arch. Jnl., 1897. * For good reproductions of such fabrics, see Bock op. cit. 3 Illustrated in Planché, Cycl. of Costume. Similar to, but immensely older than the examples I have cited is the obelisk, with its gradually diverging sides. Obelisks were dedicated to the sun-god-the fertiliser of the earth. Pliny tells us that each was a sun's-ray in stone-" effigies radiorum solis." The pyramids are but very obtuse obelisks, and the word is said to mean sun's ray" (vide Dodd's paper on the Rudstone in Reliquary, vol. 14).

"

5 The story occurs in the life of SS Wulfad and Ruffin, which was printed in Dugdale's Monasticon (1846 ed., vol. vi., pp. 226-30) and subsequently in the Acta SS .(July, vol. v., pp. 575-81). For the MSS. see Hardy, Descrpt. Catal. (Rolls Ser.), I., pp. 269-72.