Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/68

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ON CROSS-LEGGED EFFIGIES.

order, and therefore I doubt whether any of the nine be effigies of Templars. The effigy brought from Yorkshire—one of the cross-legged—represents, we have good ground for supposing, a Lord de Ros, who was not a Templar. There are two however not identified, that have a great resemblance to each other. They may possibly be representations of knights of the order, but only one of them is cross-legged. I do not infer from the circumstance of some gilding and painting having been found upon them, that the living originals were not Templars, because the order, or at least the superiors among them, may have departed from the plainness of attire enjoined by St. Bernard. No one, however, of the nine effigies is bearded or habited in a mantle, or has any cross apparent; but some of those not identified have moustaches, and their chins being hidden by the hoods or helmets, they may be supposed to have also beards. I can hardly believe that a Templar would be represented without the peculiar distinctions of his order being made quite evident.

As far as my information extends, the only known effigy of a Templar is or was to be found in the church of St. Yvod de Braine, near Soissons in France, and is figured by Montfaucon in his "Monumens de la Monarchie Francaise," (tome ii. planche 36.) It appears to be that of John de Dreux, second son of John first Count de Dreux, who is said to have been living in 1275. He is not mentioned in the list of those confined at Paris, A.D. 1310, given in the "Memoires Historiques sur les Templiers," (published in 1805). Probably he died some years previously. He is represented bearded, and wearing the coif or cap, but, what is very remarkable, without armour of any kind, in a gown and a mantle with a cross upon it; probably the undress habit of the order. The cross on the mantle is of Greek form, but the horizontal arms of it are rather shorter than the perpendicular arms, and it is not at all of patée form. This example is therefore altogether unfavourable to the supposition of the effigies in the Temple Church here being those of Templars.

There would not, I conceive, be much difficulty in shewing that many of the cross-legged effigies in this country are representations of persons who died seised of manors and estates—a fact inconsistent with the opinion of their having been Templars;—and others must be known from direct evidence not to have belonged to the order. The surcoat