210 The Norman Tympanum of Little Lang for A Church. 



He concludes after speaking of the boar-hunt : — 



" The whole group may not inappropriately represent the Church 

 and the power of evil." 



Anyone who was in an allegorical vein might add that the pel- 

 lets were a happy illustration of the grain of mustard-seed in the 

 Parable, " which becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come 

 and lodge in the branches thereof." 



But the lattice with pellets is really an instance of a type of 

 ornament which appears at Great Koll right (Oxon) and St. Nicholas, 

 Gloucester ; compare also the example at Leckhampstead. They 

 are all figured in Keyser. 



The interpretation for which I would argue is this : the boar- 

 hunt is a scene by itself, and the ecclesiastic and the tree refer to 

 the story of St. Aldhelm. Now, is there any special reason why 

 Aldhelm, more than anybody else, should be represented here ? 

 The neighbourhood of the Plain is rich in traces of early work ; 

 for instance, the arcade at En ford (about 1130, 1 or a little earlier), 

 the Tympanum at Knook (probably between 1120 and 1150), the 

 fine Arcade at Stapleford, about 1160, Longbridge Deverel (about 

 the same date as Enford), Bulford, about 1130 (W.A.M., xxxi., 

 69) , in all of which we may see the influence of the great Norman 

 builder Eoger, Bishop of Salisbury, 1102 — 1139, and not of any 

 one earlier. But the probability of earlier Norman work than 

 this is strong in the case of Codford St. Mary, Codford St. Peter, 

 Imber, and Netheravon. Mr. Pouting has not yet dated the 

 Norman work at the neighbouring Churches of Berwick St. James 

 and Winterbourne Stoke. To turn to the church under discussion, 

 although Mr. Keyser (op. cit.) pronounces the arch-mouldings to 

 be certainly not of early Norman character, Mr. Pouting, whom I 

 have followed in the examples above, tells me that he would class 

 this doorway among distinctly early Norman examples, and he is 

 quite prepared to allow it as early a date as the lifetime of 

 Osmund. 



1 Mr. C. E. Ponting gives these dates in various numbers of W. A.M., see 

 Index sub voce. The facts about Little Langford he has communicated to me. 



