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Apart from the use of the Vine as an emblem of the Church 
it is easv to find carvings of it in most Cathedrals as a purely 
naturalistic decoration, and in some instances, with a tendency 
to the conventional, in which the surface of the leaves begins to 
show the curious bulbous undulations that became almost universal 
in the following century. 
The stone canopy in the Presbytery of Winchester Cathedral 
is a good example of this conventional form of the Vine, which, 
although erected at an early date, is represented with the curious 
swelling in the centre of the leaf and thereby giving to the border 
a rich and elaborate effect of light and shade. 
Bristol Cathedral has an interesting application of the Vine leaf 
in one of the bosses over the Berkeley tomb. It shows a life-size 
face of a woman in the veil head-dress and with an unduly wide 
mouth, from the corners of which spring the stalks of large vine 
leaves to form a circle round the head with a cluster of grapes 
on either side covering the ears. Such bosses formed of a central 
face wreathed in foliage were very common devices at this period 
and probably had their origin in the actor's dramatic mask used 
by the performers in the Miracle Plays. Such masks would be 
familiar objects to the craftsmen, who found in them a model for 
the grotesque. The large opening, left that the actor might 
speak his part clearly, lent itself when used in decorations to form 
the starting point of the surrounding foliage, and as these masks 
were often hung in vineyards in ancient times to frighten birds, 
this arrangement of the foliage may have been suggested by the 
tendrils of the vine actually finding their way through the mouth 
aperture. In this instance, however, the woman’s head with 
the head-dress of the time is thought to be a portrait of the 
Lady Margaret Berkeley, buried in the tomb beneath in A.D. 1327. 
Another instance of a mask being the main feature of 
ornamentation is the carving of a man’s head at the base of a 
pillar. From the mouth issue two oak leaves, which encircle the 
face in place of hair, and help to give a grotesque appearance to 
the whole. 
The Rose is one of the most frequent plants carved in stone¬ 
work, and in its first form was double, like the early Provence 
rose of the garden, the lineal ancestor of the homely cabbage 
rose of to-day. The numerous petals in its naturalistic form, 
however, soon gave way to the simpler and more easily designed 
single or dog rose, which, in its turn, became conventionalised 
into the well-known Tudor rose. It appears to be used as a 
purely decorative ornament, and to have probablv come into use 
in the Norman period„ because it was such a well-known and 
beloved flower in England and was suitable for the simple 
ornamentation then required. This is its purpose in Bristol 
Cathedral, where a formal row of single blossoms of the double 
rose are carved round the arch of a window in a very bold and 
effective style, alternating with the leaves arranged symmetrically 
in squares in the same large proportion. 
