Melbury Bubb / Meleberie / Melesberie

There are four entries for Melbury [Bubb and Osmond] [variant spelling] in the Domesday survey [http://opendomesday.org/place/XX0000/melbury-bubb-and-osmund/] [accessed 8 June 2016], none of which mentions cleric or church in it. The 3rd ed. of Hutchins (1973 c1861-1874), quoted from an earlier edition [not the original] notes: "The font is neat, and in the form of a common beaker or drinking glass. On the outside are carved several figures of beats, &c suspended by their legs by a cord or bandage running round the font in a variety of knots." The later [3rd ed.] description is fuller: "The very curious circular font, of Early-Norman date, remains in the nave, ornamented all round with monstruous figures of something like horses, crocodiles, deer, and other anomalous animals, in low flat relief, sunk about one-half or three-quarters of an inch. At the extreme top and bottom are small narrow bands, composed of lengths of half-rolls, placed side by side. It is just possible, though very improbable, that the present top may have been originally the bottom, as, although the present top is the widest part, the figures are all upside down. It may possibly symbolize the ruin and overthrow even of the lower animals -'the whole creation'- through the wiles of the old serpent, and, in any case, is probably the most curious existing specimen of Early-Dorset art." Jones (1891) mentions the font at Melbury Bubb as "formed out of a sculptured fragment upside-down." Clarke (1907) notes that the section in which a tiny quadruped appears to hang from the mouth of the larger one "represents the crocodile and the hydra", even though, as she puts it, it really is "a weird quadruped". Described in Cox & Harvey (1907): "the font is formed out of a section of a cylindrical Saxon cross, as at Wilne". The tub-shaped font is said to have been originally the foot of an Anglo-Saxon carved cross, supposedly hollowed out and made to serve as a baptismal font either in pre-conquest days or after the invasion. Bond (1908) opts for the latter date on the grounds that the Anglo-Saxon would not likely "pull down and mutilate his beautiful sculptured cross", whereas the Norman "to whom such sculpture was alien and unintelligible" might have done it. Neither argument is very convincing, yet the font stands there now with its upside-down carved bestiary which includes a stag, a serpent, a horse with paws instead of hoofs, a lion biting a dog, a large animal with a hare and a horse to the right of them and, finally, two small dragons located between the stag and the large animal. All of it executed with flair and there is some intricate interlace at several spots. The new lead lining of the basin well is over-flowing on to the basin sides [and over-powering it as well!]. In Long (1923), as Saxon. Mee (1939) writes that the font is "as beautiful as it is curious", and does not decide whether the object was originally a font or a recycled Saxon cross.. Stone (1955) dates it to the 10th century. The entry for this church in English Heritage [Listing NGR: ST5959406550] (1961) reads: "Font, cylindrical tapering stone bowl, reversed, formerly base of a shaft, carved with continuous design of beasts: stag, horse, wolf, and ? lion, and lesser beasts, and interlacement, C10." Newman & Pevsner (1972) are not very complimentary: "Font. A barbaric piece, cylindrical and slightly tapering. Shaft and base in one. Wild, entangled animals all upside down." Nordström (1984) identifies a representation of a Stag Eating a Snake among the other images. [cf. Index entry for Douze / La Douze, in France, for another example of an older object over-turned and used also as a baptismal font]. Described and fully illustrated in Gerald Duke [www.martinstown.co.uk].