A HISTORY OF NORFOLK hands and feet, is however very feeble even in the best examples. In many instances, the heads are in proportion to the rest of the body with the features fairly well drawn, but occasionally, even in screens of importance, they are disproportionately large. The lower division of the screens has been dealt with, but it must not be forgotten that the traceries of the upper parts, when they exist (which is not very often the case), are in most instances fully covered with gold and delicate ornament in colour. Of the comparatively perfect screens remaining in the county, that at Ranworth (PI. ix.) best exemplifies what such features of a church were like in their pristine condition, although in the quahty of its paintings it is not equal to others which might be named. The screen at Worstead, an indifferently painted but large example, the finer one at Cawston, and that at Aylsham, of which only the lower panels remain, may be noted for the gesso work upon them. This substance, which has previously been spoken of in the description of the Norwich tabula^ is a species of plaster, reddened as a ground for gold, and is exceedingly hard and tough. It was applied in a thin layer upon the flat faces of the mullions forming the main divisions of a screen, and was evidently stamped when in a plastic con- dition with moulds, the patterns of which exhibit flat niches filled with tiny figures alternating with traceries. The moulds employed at Cawston were on an average 6 inches long, as may be seen by the traces of the joinings in the gesso. As has been mentioned, backgrounds in this material of figures in the panels still remain, and the screens last mentioned afford good examples of this sort of work. In these cases the layer of gesso was exceedingly thin, and the impressions of patterns upon it, if the patterns were formed by stamping, have much the effect of an engraving. The figure surrounded by such a ground w^ould seem to have been outlined first, and then the layer of gesso applied about it and trimmed to the outline either before or after being impressed with the moulds. The gesso work is always gilt (PI. x). The processes employed in painting can be fairly made out. The ground of the panel to be worked on (all the painting was on oak boards) was pre- pared with several layers of gesso mixed with parchment size, which, when rubbed down, presented to the painter a smooth white field on which he proceeded to outline his figure in strong black line. The grounds, whether in colour or in gesso were then applied, and the figure was carried forward. It is by no means certain what was the medium employed in these paintings, whether the colours were mixed with oil, or whether being ground in water, size or white of egg or some other glutinous medium was added to bind the pigments. Oil may have been employed, especially in the sixteenth century, but after a certain lapse of years it is impossible to tell which of the two mediums, tempera or oil, has been used. There is an indication that a glue or size derived from fish may have been employed by certain painters in the neighbouring county of Suffolk, w^ho were engaged upon the adornment of the chapel of Mettingham College in that county.^ In the fabric accounts of this college occurs an entry under the date 1417-18 that Thomas Barsham of Yarmouth, who appears to have been a painter and carver, received ' pro soundis piscium ijd.', and in the same accounts under date 1418— 19 Reginald 1 ' Original documents : Extracts from the Ancient Accounts of Mettingham College, Suffolk.' Communi- cated by the Rev. C. R. Manning in Arch. Jount. (1849), vi. 65, and in note p. 67. 550
