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496 MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
some manuscripts illustrated at Peterborough
Robert de Lindeseye (1214-22) we can see the new features
under Abbot
appear: legs and arms are grotesquely thin and give a curious
affected refinement to the
poses;
there is a graceful swaying
movement throughout; the Cross itselfis decorated with bands
ofEnglish stiff leaf. In the works of one of our named illumi^
nators, William de Brailes, the scenes are set in ovals linked by
decorative patternings which recall the tracery ofa window; in
a Psalter at Trinity College, Cambridge (MS. B. II. 4), some of
the scenes used in the Gloucester Munich Psalter are repeated;
probably some twentyfive years only lie between them, but the
thin'limbed, mincing figures ofthe later version are a new world
of
fantasy, charming, tender, and fresh in
ingenuous, inspira^
tion, lacking the less couth force and grandeur of the upo's
(PL 98 ).
In sculpture the main surviving English achievement ofthe
first part of the thirteenth century is the west fafade of Wells.
Here a great army of statues, including 176 fulUength figures,
interspersed with smaller biblical scenes in quatrefbil openings,
were set in tiers of pointed niches covering the whole facade.
When fully painted, as traces show that they originally were, it
must have been a fantastically imaginative spectacle. It has no
exact parallel in France, and the small size of the doorways,
with their lack of emphasis, is a peculiarly English feature.
of the Church triunv
Iconographically it is a great summary
phant. The work seems to have been mainly completed be^
tween 1220 and 1242. Many different hands were at work on
it, though there is little marked stylistic development and some
of the more archaic, squatter figures are scattered amongst the
finer examples. The Gothic counterpoised pose is sometimes
apparent and in the higher ranges there are thin, elongated
figures, which contrast strikingly with the finely proportioned
deacons on the bottom range ofthe eastern gable. These latter
are the work ofa considerable master ofthe close ofthe classicist
period: rarely has virile manhood been so vigorously portrayed
as in these powerful heads, finely erect on their strong necks, the
broad/built frames curiously contrasted with the long, loose