The Figjire-Sculpture : Majesty 269 



At the top of the third order, two angels hold a crown over the head 

 of Christ. There are faint traces of color in the tympanum ; Durand 

 in 1881 could perceive, near the border of clouds, parallel bands of 

 color representing the rainbow (Rev. IV. 3) surrounding the throne of 

 God.i 



Le Sauveur est vetu de la tunique talaire et du manteau de I'anti- 

 quite ; il a la barbe courte et les cheveux longs et plats. La tete, quoique 

 endommagee, porte le caractere d'une douce gravite; elle est entouree 

 du nimbe divin ou crucifere. . . . De sa main droite, il benit les fideles 

 qui entrent dans le temple. ^ 



The book is sometimes interpreted as that of the Gospels.^ At 

 other times it is called the Book of Life.* At St. Sophia, Constanti- 

 nople, the open book bears the inscription : Enter, I am the light of 

 the world • and similarly at Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome : Ego sum 

 lux mundi ; while at St. Peter's it has : Ego sum via, Veritas, et 

 vita- qui credit in me, vivet^. 



In the north porch at Chartres, the tympanum of the central 

 doorway bears a Coronation of the Virgin, in which Christ is 

 represented in the same attitude, and with the same attributes.^ 



Sometimes the infant Christ, in the lap of his mother, blesses with 

 his right hand, and holds the book with his left.'' 



1 Marriage, Sculft. of Chartres Cath., p. 56 ; cf. Porter, 111. 215, Vol. 2. 



2 Bulteau, Moyiografhie 2. 57-8. Durand (Monographie de la Cathedrale 

 de Chartres, p. 43) says that Christ is blessing the world, and that the book 

 is that of the Gospels. Other examples of about the same period are at 

 Moissac (VioUet-le-Duc 7. 391); St. Genest at Nevers, ca. 1150 (7. 395-6); 

 Notre Dame du Port at Clermont (7. 400-401) ; St. Urbain at Troyes (7. 428) ; 

 St. Pierre at Mella (7. 401) ; St. Trophime at Aries (7. 418) ; Cahors (8. 132) ; 

 Bourges (Porter, 111. 267, Vol. 2). Several examples are noted by Michel 

 (P. 517, 614, 619, 871; cf. Greenwell, Catalogue, p. 141, and Plate A), and 

 Keyser {List of Norman Tympana, pp. LX-LXVII) counts twenty-one 

 examples, of which nineteen are figured in his book, one of the earliest being 

 at Castor, in a church dedicated in 1124. The tympana with the Majesty 

 at Ely, at Barfreston, and at Rochester, are, according to Enlart (Michel 

 2. 204), works parallel to those of the French portals, and themselves proceed 

 from a Continental inspiration. 



3 Cf. note 2, and Viollet-le-Duc 9. 365-6. * Cf. Marriage, p. 238. 

 5 Bulteau 2. 58. « Marriage, p. 152 ; Bulteau 2. 189. 



' Thus in the Oratory of John VII, 705-7 (Michel 1^. 77) ; the Baptistery 

 of St. Valerian at Rome, 9th century (Viollet-le-Duc 9. 365) ; Santa Maria 

 in Domnica, 9th century (Michel 1^. 84); Notre Dame at Paris, ca. 1140 

 (Viollet-le-Duc 9. 365-6) ; Fownhope, England (Keyser, p. 1, and Fig. 89). 



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