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Godefroid [Godfrey] of Huy [de Claire]
(b Huy, nr Liège; d Neufmoustier Abbey, nr Huy, after 1173). South Netherlandish metalworker. According to a note appended c. 1240 to his name in the necrology of Neufmoustier Abbey, he was a monk and worker in precious metals. The note records that he was an exceptionally able goldsmith and had produced many shrines ( feretra) and other objects in various neighbouring regions; these included two shrines, an incense burner, a chalice for the church of Huy and a reliquary for the abbey church of Neufmoustier to receive the finger of St John the Baptist that Godefroid himself had brought back from the Holy Land. None of these works can be identified with certainty, but it is probable that the two reliquary shrines preserved at Notre-Dame, Huy, containing respectively relics of St Domitian and St Mangold, are the two feretra mentioned in the necrology. They are in poor condition, however, and have been much altered, making it difficult to judge the quality of the work. According to a description of 1745, a reliquary shrine (destr. French Revolution) at St Vanne Abbey, Verdun, bore the inscription Godefridus aurifex (‘Godefroid, goldsmith’) and was related to the shrines at Huy (see Ronig). It may well have been another of Godefroid’s works.
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