Dosseret

A larger seat was required, however, for the base of the arches, and, therefore they introduced the abacus, which is simply a moulded dosseret, square, and of much less height than the Byzantine example. I think it is inferior to the dosseret, and the Corinthian examples of the nave will, I think, support my view. They have no connection with the capital which does not lead up to it. / Now, with the Ionic capital it was different, it was so small and of such slight height, comparatively, that they made it part of the dosseret.

Over the duke’s head is a daïs or “dosseret” of state. “As for the fashion of a dosseret”, says our lady, “seeing that many people don’t know what one is, a dosseret should be as wide as three widths of cloth of gold and made just like the canopy of a bed. A dosseret behind and above a dresser must not rise above it more than a quarter or half an ell, and it has flounce and fringe like the canopy of a bed. The part behind the dresser is bordered from top to bottom on both sides with a different material from the centre, and the border should be about a quarter of the whole width, and the same for the canopy.” The dosseret in the Countess of Charolois’s chamber was of cloth of gold “cramoisy”, bordered with black velvet, and the velvet was embroidered in fine gold with the device of Duke Philip the Good, which was a flint and steel.

The most important feature of Clayton is the Early Romanesque chancel arch, the jambs of which are decorated on their reveal with a half column against a dosseret, while a further half-column on each face bridges the difference in thickness between the dosseret and the wall: the same elements are repeated in the arch itself.

Yet the piece at Ag. Vassileios is far less close to these early examples in technique: the relief is lower and the stylization of the patterns brings us closer to eleventh-century dosserets from Daphni or Antalya in Asia Minor.[…]With the exception of the Ionic capital and the pyramidal dosseret, the sculptures are decorated with Latin crosses in relief with flaring terminals. The pyramidal dosseret (Sc15, fig. 123) is decorated with a Greek cross whose execution and design is identical that of the Latin cross on the mullion-dosseret (Sc3) from Panagia Trimitou (fig. 116); both pieces could very well be contemporary and works of the same hand.