The Distribution of Tournai Fonts

Abstract

In The Society's Journal of 1944, G. C. Dunning F.S.A. published a brief article, with a map, entitled ‘The distribution of black Tournai Fonts’. There has been no other view published since that occasion (at least not in Britain) and indeed J. R. Blatchly and Birkin Haward (1983), writing some forty years later on the font in St Peter's church, Ipswich, reproduced Dunning's map. The body of knowledge of Tournai fonts has advanced considerably since the war and this article offers a more up to date picture. As discoveries of fragments of fonts continue to be made, it does not claim to be exhaustive, though it is most unlikely that there are any more complete bowls to be found (see map fig. 1). In fact further research may show that the list published here may need to be reduced by three or four examples, which are discussed below.