A Work by Esteban Jordan: an Effigy of a Spanish Knight of the Order of St John*

VARIA DE ARTE 351 agosto de 1554), María (12 de abril de 1556) y Paula (5 de febrero de 1559) 3. Poste- riormente no aparecen anotaciones referidas a la familia, que o bien cambió de domicilio o no tuvo más hijos. Su hermano había nacido antes que Adrián, siendo el mayor de todos los hermanos.—RAFAEL MARTÍNEZ. A WORK BY ESTEBAN JORDAN: AN EFFIGY OF A SPANISH KNIGHT OF THE ORDER OF ST JOHN* Days before the outbreak of First World War, a fine alabaster effigy of a Knight of the Order of St John in Jerusalem was presented to the Most Venerable Order of St John in Clerkenwell, just outside the boundaries of the City of London. The donor was Sir Guy Francis Laking, Bart., Keeper of the London Museum, an emi- nent scholar, best known for bis catalogues of the arms and armour in the Wallace Collection, at Windsor, and the Armoury in Malta. He had "always had the greatest interest in anything relating to the Order of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem, more especially since (his) work at Malta'''. He offered to buy the effigy for the Order, having seen it on exhibition at the Spanish Galleries of the dealer Lionel Harris in Conduit Street', where it had been imported from Spain, "in one consign- ment together with 24 other cases of stonework'. After some discussion as to where exactly it should be housed, the effigy was placed against the North wall of the twelfth-centuty crypt in the Priory Church of St John in Clerkenwell, of which the Order of St John was Patron. The church is a few yards from the Order's headquar- ters, S t John's Gate, in which the Museum and Library of the Order are today situa- ted. Described by Pevsner as "of a quality unsurpassed in London or England" 4, the figure is a magnificent example of sixteenth-century Castilian sculpture. The recumbent, lifesize effigy represents a Knight of the Order of S t John. Al- 3 Ibídem. "- 1 am grateful to Pamela Willis and Stella Mason of the Museum of the Order ofStJohn, and Mer- cedes Suárez and the Librarian and staff of the Hispanic Society of America, and Doña Eloisa García de Wattenberg of the National Museum of Sculpture in Valladolid for all their help and cooperation. I should also like to thank Ian Eaves and Anthony North for their advice on armour, and Jesús Urrea Fer- nández, Malcolm Baker and Paul Williamson for their helpful comments when the article was in prepa- ration. 1 Letter from Sir Guy Laking to H. W. Fincham Esq, April 16th, 1914. All corresp.ondence quoted in this article is now housed in the Museum and Library of the Order ofSt John in Clerkenwell. Sir Guy's catalogue of the arms and armour at Malta had been published in 1902. See G. F. LAKING: A Catalogue of the Armour and Arms in the Armoury of the Knights of St John in Ierusalem, nozo in the Palace, Va/cita, Malta, London (n.d.). -2 Letter from Sir Herbert Perrott, Secretary-General of the Order, to Edmund Fraser, of 26th June, 1914. 3 Letter from Lionel Harris to H. W. Fincham Esq ofJuly lst, 1914. Two tomb-figures from Ocaña in Spain, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum (inv. A.48 and A.49-1910) were bought from the same dealer in 1910. 4 N. PEVSNER: The Buildings of England: London except the Cities of London and Westminster, mondsworth, 1951, p. 113 and fig. 10. The figure is also mentioned in H. W. FINCHAM: The Order of the Hospital of S/John offerusalem and its Prioor of England, London, 1933, p. 69 and is illustrated in Si Jobn's Gafe Pie/ore Book (introduction by R. Williams), London, 1947, and in E. LA ORDEN MIRACLE: Arte e His- toria de España en Inglaterra, Madrid, 1980, pp. 45-6 and fig. 13. I am grateful to Jesús Urrea Fernández for giving me this reference. 352 VARIA DE ARTE though now placed against a wall, it may have been intended to be freestanding. Apart from some breaks and surface dirt, the figure is in good codition 5 . It represents a bearded man wearing a cloak and armour with the Cross of the Order of St John on the breastplate and on the left shoulder of the cloak. Over the cloak in a now damaged area would probably have been a carved maniple, the tassled sash embroidered with symbols of the Passion, showing that wearer was a professed Knight6. Rosary-beads are clasped in the right hand, and a sheathed dagger is worn at the waist. The hilt of the sword is just visible under the right hip. Piety and military prowess are inextricably combined. The armour is largely typical of European armour of about 1575-80, although a few discrepancies indicate that the sculptor may have been working from a drawing or model rather than from life. The tassets (the fixings which attach the thigh-pieces to the breastplate), have been misunders- tood, and the articulations on the sabatons (the footwear) are wrongly continued as far as the ankle'. As was common in recumbent Spanish effigies of the fifteenth and sixteenth century, the head rests on two embroidered cushions (fig. 2). Other featu- res also frequently seen in e'arlier and contemporary Spanish tombs are the lion at his feet, and a sleeping page, reclining on the left of the left leg, which are both carved on a smaller scale than the Knight. The base, inscribed with the name of the Knight and adorned with the coats of arms of the Vergara family, the Order of St John, and that of Spain, was made shortly after the effigy was acquired by the Order of St John. The original base (now lost) is likely to have been a relatively plain marble During the sixteenth century the Order of St John was particularly active, and its members were devout, aristocratic and military. Originally, the Order of the Hospital of St John the Baptist ofJerusalem (to give it its full name) was faunded in Jerusalem in the late eleventh century to ensure the welfare of pilgrims, and to secure pilgrimage routes from Moslem attacks 9. Unlike the Knights Templar and the Teutonic Order, the Knights of St John were hospitallers; men and women were recruited to undertake nursing activities which were at least initially more important than military duties. Although nursing duties were to be continued, the Order was reorganised during the twelfth century on a military basis: mercenaries were recruited, estates were won through their military exploits, and the Order acquired an international power independent of any authority except possibly the Pope's. The different regions in which the Order owned land were divided into Langues and 5 The figure measures approximately 202 cm in legth, and 69 cm in width. The left forearm and halfof the dagger are missing; the nose has been restored. Slight cracks and breaks occuron the cloak, the rosary-beads, the tops of the thighs, and on the face sleeping page. 6 I am grateful to Stella Mason for her advice on this point. 7 See C. BLAIR: European Armour, London, 1959, p. 217, figs. 228, 230 and 233. The style of the breastplate and sabatons in particular indicate the narrow time-span. I am grateful to lan Eaves for bis extensive advice on the dating and style of the, armour. 8 Cf. Pedro de la Gasca's tomb, which is on a simply carved jasper base. 9 For literature on the Order ofStJohn, ser J. D. LE ROULX : Carta/aire Général de l'Ordre des Hospita- liers de S.Jean de Jerusalem, I, Paris, 1894, pp. cxxxv-clvii and pp. ccxii-ccxxi, and A. T. LUTTRELL: "A Note on the Archives of the Order of St John ofJerusalem in Spain", Melita Historica, II, n. 3, 1958, pp. 182-5; IDEM: "The Aragonese Crown and the Knights Hospitallers ofRhodes: 1291-1350", The English Historical Review, January, 1961, pp. 1-19; E. BRADFORD: The Shield and the Szvord, London, 1972, and D. SEWARD: The Monks of War: The Military Religious Orders, London, 1972. VARIA DE ARTE 353 Priories. The Order was influential in the Iberian peninsula during the second half of the fourteenth century, partly because of the part they played in the reconquest. By 1464, the Spanish and Portuguese Priories were so important that they were divided into two Langues: Aragon and Castile. Aragon comprised the Priories of Ara- gon, Cataluña and Navarre, while Castile was composed of the Priories of Castile and Leon, and the Priory of Portugal. The Order had captured Rhodes in 1310, but lost it to the Turks in 1523. The Emperor Charles V offered the Order the island of Malta in 1524, as a substitute base, which was finally reluctantly accepted in 1531. This gift from a Spanish ruler was another reason that Spain became a dominant force within the Order. Between 1530 and 1796 eleven of the twenty-eight Masters of the Order in Malta were from the Langues of Aragon or Castile During the second half of the sixteenth century the Knights of the Order for- med an important military force in the Mediterranean, securing traderoutes from their base in Malta. The siege of Malta in 1565, when they repulsed the Turks, was both a trade war and a religious battle. It was a victory for the Christians, won because of the heavy European reinforcements shipped in to aid the besieged.

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