Note 203 — LECTURE II THE SOURCES (continued)

Gesta Pontificum, pp. 389 f.: ‘Fastigium cristallinum rex Ethelwulfus apposuit scrinio, in quo nomen eius litteris aureis est legere.’ In front were ‘ex solido argento iactae imagines,’ i.e. statuettes cast in solid silver; at the back ‘leuato metallo miracula figurauit,’ i.e. scenes representing Aldhelm’s miracles. Does ‘metallo leuato’ mean that they were engraved? or does it indicate ‘champlevé’ enamel? The latter would be another link with Alfred’s Jewel, though the enamel of that is ‘cloisonné.’ Malmesbury speaks in the present tense, so that the shrine had survived to his time; and he must have seen it almost daily. In the Chron. Monast. Casinensis, under the year 1020 we find mentioned: ‘loculus mirificus … argento et auro ac gemmis Anglico opere subtiliter ac pulcherrime decoratus,’ Pertz, vii. 649; cf. ibid., 712: ‘Anglus quidam aurifex.’