ROMAN PAVEMENTS AND INTRECCi. 1 87 



in Sussex, at St. Albans, at Earl's Barton and Brixworth in 

 Northamptonshire, at Barton-on-Humber, and at Jarrow and 

 Monkwearmouth. There is nothing like this use of them in the 

 churches of Italy. 3. The Comacine sculptors, following a 

 habit of old Rome, were above all things fond of representing 

 the peacock ; but they made it, as was done in the catacombs, 

 an emblem of the redeemed. An example from S. Pietro, 

 Villanova, is shown in Illustration VIII. If only Italian con- 

 ceptions had been wrought here, and only Italian traditions 

 obeyed, peacocks would have covered the carved stones of 

 Saxon times. But where are these Imperial birds ? 



It is certainly possible to show two, on a stone from Rous 

 Lench in Worcestershire, Illustration XX., discovered last year 

 built into the church's wall. Bishop Browne calls the sculpture 

 unique. It is certainly of great rarity. The full influence of 

 Italian art is displayed upon it, though no Italian was the artist. 

 We are permitted to see Christ as the True Vine, sickle in hand, 

 raising aloft a cluster of grapes of which two peacocks are tast- 

 ing. They are souls drinking new wine in the Father's Kingdom. 

 The tree is full of tendrils and fruit, and forms a wide-spreading 

 intreccio, which, like the Arbor pereclixion, protects the birds 

 on its boughs from the guile of the serpent. But the serpent 

 is neither biting its own body, nor writhing in the contortions of 

 death. 



In fine, the Comacine interlacements have no depth of feel- 

 ing. They were got at second hand. Symbols that elsewhere 

 had a solar significance, or a zoomorphic meaning, are mis- 

 understood and distorted. Everything is turned into mere 

 decoration. There is no passion of living legend ; no emotion 

 of magic. The shafts and columns of Lombard Churches like 

 Csedmon's cross, waedum geworSode were clad with intrecci 'as 

 with a garment, to please a prevailing taste, but in no wise to 

 minister to a fear-stricken soul. 



