Love scenes, as in the etching, or the siege of the castle of Love are subjects often found on mirror cases. The woodcut on this page is copied from an example at South Kensington, no. 1617. Another copy of the same romance of Lancelot, which has been just referred to, has an illumination of a real assault upon a castle, treated in a similar manner. Knights place ladders against the wall; the battlements are defended by the garrison; the attack is made with cross-bows and a catapult; and men lie dead upon the ground. Another of much interest is given as “the twelfth battle” in the manuscript in the British museum so well known as queen Mary’s psalter, written about the year 1320; in this, women look at the attack over the battlements of the town or castle.
[Illustration: IVORY CARVING. CIRCULAR MIRROR COVER. DATE 1300-1330. (SOLTIKOFF COLL.) DIAM 5½ in.
Knights tilting, or a tournament, or ladies and gentlemen riding through woods and preceded by attendants with dogs, are also common subjects. The contemporary manuscripts illustrate the same design. Both on the mirror cases and in the illuminations the lady is generally seen riding astride. Women are so represented more than once in the romance of Lancelot: for example _fol._ 120_a_, and 163_a_. A queen is riding, _fol._ 181_b_. In queen Mary’s psalter, the treatment on the mirror cases of people riding is almost exactly repeated, _fol._ 217; again, 218_b_, and 223_b_. Other examples may be seen in the Bodleian manuscript of the romance of Alexander, _fol._ 100 and 130. The same custom lasted in Lithuania until, at least, the year 1800.
There is one other ornamental design very common on mirror cases; people playing at chess or draughts. Margaret Paston writes in the reign of Richard the third to her husband, and says that at the Christmas following the death of lord Morley his widow would permit no amusements in her house, “non dysgysyngs ner harpyng ner lutyng—but pleying at the tabyllys and schesse.” This brings us to an interesting and important class of carvings in ivory.
The date of the introduction of the games of chess and draughts into Europe, and more particularly among the northern nations and our own ancestors the Anglo-saxons, is a historical question upon which there has been great dispute. The game of chess was certainly played at a very early period in the east, and from thence probably passed through the Arabs into Greece. There are allusions to chess and chessmen in many writers before the twelfth century, and these incidental references are of more value than the positive assertions which later authors, after the manner of their day, did not hesitate to advance.