296 General Discussion of the Crosses 



11th to the beginning of the 13th century, in the Ile-de-France, the 

 Soissonnais, Normandy, and England. It is frequently found on the 

 tympana of churches, but in Normandy also on the faces of walls, 

 buttresses, etc. 



A form of diaper ornement in which the compartments are uniformly 

 square, as in late Romanesque and in Gothic surface carving.^ 



Le damier est un ornement d' architecture frequemment employe 

 pendant le XII" siecle. . . . C'est surtout dans I'lle-de-France, le 

 Soissonnais. et en Normandie, qu'on trouve I'emploie des damiers a dater 

 de la fin du XI® siecle jusqu'au commencement du XIII". . . . Les 

 damiers couvrent aussi, en Normandie, des parements de murs, des 

 rampants de contre-forts ; alors ils figurent des essentes ou bardeaux de 

 bois. C'etait un moyen peu dispendieux de donner de la richesse 

 aux tympans, aux surfaces des murs.^ 



Les damiers, carres alternes en creux et en relief, sont des motifs 

 courants tres repandus, connus des le XI® siecle, abandonnes a la fin 

 du XII®, et peu vent etre d'origine orientale.^ 



The average craftsman of Norman days had the ideas of interlacing, 

 chequers, and scrolls among his stock-in-trade.* 



1 



^ Sturgis, Dictionary of Architecture and Building, s. v. Checker. 



2 VioUet-le-Duc 5. 24-5, s. v. Damier. For tympana thus ornamented 

 in France, see Caumont, Abecedaire d' Archeologie 1. 91, 96, 160, 188. 



3 Enlart, Manuel d'Archeologie Fravgaise 1. 354 ; cf. pp. 363, 364 (note 6), 

 402 (picture) ; also Baum, Eomanesque Arch, in France, p. 70 (church of 

 Chauriat, Puy-de-D6me). 



* Colhngwood, Early Sculpt. Crosses, p. 290. Among Norman churches 

 in the diocese of Carlisle which have tympana or capitals ornamented with 

 chequers, Colhngwood mentions those of Bromfield (p. 85), Kirk-Bampton 

 (p. 214), Long Marton (p. 229), and Torpenhow (p. 271). Ruprich-Robert 

 {UArch. Norm. 1. 95) mentions the tympanum over a door at Norwich Cathe- 

 dral (see his Fig. 56, and compare his Plate XLII, Fig. 2). Keyser, List of 

 Norman Tympana, though professing to consider only the figure- or symbol- 

 ical sculpture, mentions tympana of the following churches as containing 

 chequers : Wold Newton, Yorkshire (pp. XXX, 31 ; Fig. 16) ; Tissington, 

 Derbyshire (pp. XXX, 51 ; Fig. 22) ; Findern, Derbyshire (p. XXX : ' a 

 diaper of the chequered pattern ' ; p. 16 : 'a diaper of square billets ' ; 

 Fig. 23) ; and, finest of all, Brize Norton, Oxfordshire (pp. XXXIV-V, 32 ; 

 Fig. 33). These he considers (p. XV) to ' belong to the Norman period of 

 architecture, say 1080-1200.' Cf. p. 127, note 1, below, and the Venetian 

 example in Ruskin, Works (Lib. Ed.) 11. 320, PI. 2. 

 (84) 



