The male figure still more remarkably exhibits the peculiarity I have endeavoured to describe, for the right foot has been cut away as far as it was practicable without injuring the corresponding leg: the shield is merged into the slab, and the upper part of the head projects over the cushion, beyond the field of the stone, more than a couple of inches.
I. |
II. |
III. |
From the foregoing considerations, combined with the general character of their design, and the style of workmanship, I am inclined to conclude that these effigies are of the thirteenth century, that they were the work not of Irish, but of Anglo-Norman artists, and that they were not executed in Ireland, but sent from England as they were required, in order to ornament the tombs of the English nobility who died at Cashel or in its neighbourhood. That they are thus designedly mutilated may be accounted for on the supposition that the coffins, being too cumbrous for transportation, were constructed in Ireland, and that their sculptured lids were imported from England, and being found on their arrival too large for the coffins, were, at the expense of the design, pared down till they agreed in size.
The stone coffin found with these effigies, and already
