makers of cups or hanaps, jewellers and harness makers, and other artificers.  John de Garlande was English, born about the middle of the twelfth century, and was educated in Oxford.  In the early thirteenth century he became associated with the University, and when Simon de Montfort was slain in 1218, at Toulouse, John was at the University of Toulouse, where he was made So professor, and stayed three years, returning then to Paris.  He died about the middle of the thirteenth century.  He was celebrated chiefly for his Dictionarius, a work on the various arts and crafts of France, and for a poem “De Triumphis Ecclesiae.”

During the Middle Ages votive crowns were often presented to churches; among these a few are specially famous.  The crowns, studded with jewels, were suspended before the altar by jewelled chains, and often a sort of fringe of jewelled letters was hung from the rim, forming an inscription.  The votive crown of King Suinthila, in Madrid, is among the most ornate of these.  It is the finest specimen in the noted “Treasure of Guerrazzar,” which was discovered by peasants turning up the soil near Toledo; the crowns, of which there were many, date from about the seventh century, and are sumptuous with precious stones.  The workmanship is not that of a barbarous nation, though it has the fascinating irregularities of the Byzantine style.

Of the delightful work of the fifth and sixth centuries there are scarcely any examples in Italy.  The so-called Iron Crown of Monza is one of the few early Lombard treasures.  This crown has within it a narrow band of iron, said to be a nail of the True Cross; but the crown, as it meets the eye, is anything but iron, being one of the most superb specimens of jewelled golden workmanship, as fine as those in the Treasure of Guerrazzar.

[Illustration:  THE TREASURE OF GUERRAZZAR.]

The crown of King Alfred the Great is mentioned in an old inventory as being of “gould wire worke, sett with slight stones, and two little bells.”  A diadem is described by William of Malmsbury, “so precious with jewels, that the splendour... threw sparks of light so strongly on the beholder, that the more steadfastly any person endeavoured to gaze, so much the more he was dazzled, and compelled to avert the eyes!” In 1382 a circlet crown was purchased for Queen Anne of Bohemia, being set with a large sapphire, a balas, and four large pearls with a diamond in the centre.

The Cathedral at Amiens owns what is supposed to be the head of John the Baptist, enshrined in a gilt cup of silver, and with bands of jewelled work.  The head is set upon a platter of gilded and jewelled silver, covered with a disc of rock crystal.  The whole, though ancient, is enclosed in a modern shrine.  The legend of the preservation of the Baptist’s head is that Herodias, afraid that the saint might be miraculously restored to life if his head and body were laid in the same grave, decided to hide the head