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Below the figure we have the text of the indulgence—

‘Seynt gregor’ with othir’ popes & bysshoppes yn feer

Have graunted’ of pardon xxvi dayes & xxvi Mill’ yeer’

To theym that befor’ this fygur’ on their’ knees

Deuoutly say v pater noster & v Auees.’

Ottley was of opinion that his cut might be of as early a date as the St. Christopher; but that is, of course, a point impossible to determine. From the writing of the indulgence, Bradshaw considered it to belong to the northern part of England; and the subject is differently treated from other specimens of the Image of Pity issued subsequently to the introduction of printing, for in them the various symbols of the Passion are arranged as a border round the central figure. Inserted at the end of a Sarum Book of Hours in the British Museum is a drawing of an Image of Pity, with some prayers below, which resembles in many ways the earlier cuts.

The woodcut alphabet, described by Ottley, now in the British Museum, has been considered to be of English production, because on one of the prints is written in very early writing the two words ‘London’ and ‘Bechamsted.’ There seems very little reason beyond this for ascribing these letters to an English workman, though it is worth noticing that they were originally bound up in a small volume, each letter being pasted on a guard formed of fragments of English manuscript of the fifteenth century.