Memorial figures to seven Saxon bishops carved in Doulting stone on coffin-lids are in Wells Cathedral. The five earlier of these were sculptured by masons who had been engaged on the newly completed quire built by Bishop Reginald, and the leaf-carving on the canopied niches for the heads and the folds for the draperies in parallel-curved ribs give the date of 1200 for two of these effigies and a few years later for the other three. The latest two bishop-effigies show, however, that these masons or their sons, who were training themselves to become statuaries, were using stiff-leaf foliage on the slab of Bishop Dudoc's effigy, and on both are found the ripple folds of drapery, a well known characteristic of the statues on Bishop Jocelyn's west front (1220–40), giving us the date of 1230 (pl. 1, fig. 1). We are thus enabled to study at Wells the gradual advance towards statue technique from the beginning of the thirteenth century until the death of Bishop Jocelyn in 1242, marking a stage in a local experiment of English sculpture. These thirteenth-century craftsmen of Wells show wonderful restraint as well as great simplicity, while at the same time in no way indifferent to the charm of light and flowing drapery.