of Spain; they are sometimes of bronze, as the pairs in Burgos and Toledo cathedrals, or in wrought iron, like those at Zamora and in the church of San Gil, Burgos. The great candelabrum or tenebrarium in Seville Cathedral is the finest specimen of 16th-century metal-work in Spain; it was mainly the work of Bart. Morel in 1562. It is of cast bronze enriched with delicate scroll-work foliage, and with numbers of well-modelled statuettes. Especially in the art of metal-work Spain was much influenced in the 15th and 16th centuries by both Italy and Germany, so that numberless Spanish objects produced at that time owe little or nothing to native designers. At an earlier period Arab and Moorish influence is no less apparent.
Fig. 6.—Part of the “Eleanor Grill.”
England.—In Saxon times the English metal-workers, especially of the precious metals, possessed great skill, and appear to have produced shrines, altar-frontals, retables and other ecclesiastical furniture of considerable size and magnificence. Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury (925–988), like Bernward, bishop of Hildesheim a few years later, and St Eloi of France three centuries earlier, was himself a skilful worker in all kinds of metal. The description of the gold and silver retable given to the high altar of Ely by Abbot Theodwin in the 11th century, shows it to have been a large and elaborate piece of work decorated with many reliefs and figures in the round. In 1241 Henry III. gave the order for the great gold shrine to contain the bones of Edward the Confessor. It was the work of members of the Otho family, among whom the goldsmith’s and coiner’s crafts appear to have been long hereditary. Countless other important works in the precious metals adorned every abbey and cathedral church in the kingdom. In the 13th century the English workers in wrought iron were especially skilful. The grill over the tomb of Queen Eleanor at Westminster, by Thomas de Leghton, made about 1294, is a remarkable example of skill in welding and modelling with the hammer (see fig. 6). The rich and graceful iron hinges, made often for small and out-of-the-way country churches, are a large and important class in the list of English wrought-iron work. Those on the refectory door of Merton College, Oxford, are a beautiful and well-preserved example dating from the 14th century. More mechanical in execution, though still very rich in effect, is that sort of iron tracery work produced by cutting out patterns in plate, and superimposing one plate over the other, so as to give richness of effect by the shadows produced by these varying planes. The screen by Henry V.’s tomb at Westminster is a good early specimen of this kind of work. The screen to Bishop West’s chapel at Ely, and that round Edward VI.’s tomb at Windsor, both made towards the end of the 15th century, are the most magnificent English examples of wrought iron; and much wrought-iron work of great beauty was produced at the beginning of the 18th century, especially under the superintendence of Sir Christopher Wren (see Ebbetts, Iron Work of 17th and 18th Centuries, 1880). Large flowing leaves of acanthus and other plants were beaten out with wonderful spirit and beauty of curve. The gates from Hampton Court are the finest examples of this class of work (see fig. 7).
Fig. 7.—Part of one of the Hampton Court Gates.
From an early period bronze and latten (a variety of brass) were much used in England for the smaller objects both of ecclesiastical and domestic use, but except for tombs and lecterns were but little used on a large scale till the 16th century. The full-length recumbent effigies of Henry III. and Queen Eleanor at Westminster, cast in bronze by the “cire perdue” process, and thickly gilt, are equal, if not superior, in artistic beauty to any sculptor’s work of the same period (end of the 13th century) that was produced in Italy or elsewhere, These effigies are the work of an Englishman named William Torel. The gates to Henry VII.’s chapel, and the screen round his tomb at Westminster (see fig. 8), are very elaborate and beautiful examples of “latten” work, showing the greatest technical skill in the founder’s art. In latten also were produced the numerous monumental brasses of which a large number still exist in England (see Brasses, Monumental).
In addition to its chief use as a roof covering, lead was sometimes used in England for making fonts, generally tub-shaped, with figures cast in relief. Many examples exist: e.g. at Tidenham, Gloucestershire; Warborough and Dorchester Oxon; Chirton, Wilts; and other places.
