4 CROSS-LEGGED EFFIGIES IN DORSET. 



it. That which is common to the whole of a given class is called 

 their nature, and it is the business of artistic generalisation to 

 discover, extract, and exhibit this common quality which 

 pervades and permeates a certain class. The exaggeration of 

 a general idea is idealisation ; the exaggeration of an individual 

 quality is caricature ; and we can hardly sufficiently estimate the 

 nicety of the generalisation displayed by the early sculptors, 

 which enabled them to give us faithful representations of a class 

 of men without either idealisation or caricature. 



That individual portraiture was sometimes successfully carried 

 out even in these early effigies is proved by many monuments, 

 notably by that of the elder Longspee in Salisbury Cathedral, a 

 famous Crusader, who is not shown cross-legged. 



On the other hand, there is no doubt that the greater number 

 of our cross-legged effigies are purely conventional likenesses, 

 and, except in rare instances, genuine facial portraiture is not to 

 be looked for upon effigies earlier than the middle of the XHIth 

 century. Mr. Albert Hartshorne says, in his " Schools of 

 Monumental Sculpture," " In short, portraiture was attempted 

 where circumstances were very favourable for its production, as 

 in the cases of effigies made during lifetime, or, it may be 

 presumed, from sketches, or possibly after the XlVth century 

 from casts or careful personal directions given by cultivated 

 members of conventual bodies. When such information did not 

 exist, or could not be conveniently applied as in the examples, 

 for instance, of effigies made in the distant Isle of Purbeck 

 our ancestors made the best of the matter, and contented 

 themselves with routine figures, showing, if not absolutely the 

 man himself, at least adequately, the armour, the vestments, or 

 the habits in which he lived." 



If 1 was pressed for an answer as to what underlying motive, 

 what inner meaning, seems to be suggested by the expression of 

 these early effigies, I should say militant energy, protection, 

 challenge of some unseen foe, but not devotion. They represent 

 fully-armed alert men, with every muscle stretched for attack or 

 defence. Their era, that of or immediately following the 



