HISTORY OF SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS.

In the early ages of Christianity the honour of being deposited within the walls of the church was reserved to martyrs; and it was the request of the emperor Constantine in imitation of this holy mode of interment, that after his death, his remains might be allowed to lie in the porch of the basilica of the Apostles, which he himself had erected in Constantinople. Hence the eloquent Chrysostom, when speaking of the triumphs of Christianity, exultingly observes, in allusion to this circumstance, that the Cæsars, subdued by the humble fishermen whom they had persecuted, now appeared as suppliants before them, and gloried in occupying the place of porters at the doors of their sepulchres. Bishops and priests distinguished by their learning, zeal, and sanctity, were gradually permitted to share the honours of the martyrs, and to repose with them within the sanctuary itself. A pious wish in some to be deposited in the neighbourhood of such holy persons, and to rest under the shadow of the altars; in others an absurd love of distinction even beyond the grave; to which may be added, that the clergy, by making such a distinction expensive, rendered it enviable; so that bydegrees, all the wholesome restrictions of antiquity were broken through, and at length the noblest public edifices, the temples of theEternal, the seats of holiness and purity, were converted into so many dormitories of the dead.

Our present business is to investigate the antiquity and variety of sepulchral monuments, which have been erected as memorials of the illustrious dead, in the cathedral, conventual, and parish churches of this island. During the time of our Saxon ancestors, it is probable, that few or no monuments of this kind were erected; at least, being usually placed in the churches belonging to the greater abbeys, they felt the stroke of the general dissolution, and it is believed there are now scarcely any extant. Those we meet with for the kings of that race, such as Ina at Wells;[59]Osric, at Gloucester; Sebba and Ethelbert, which were in OldSt.Paul’s, or where-ever else they may occur, are undoubtedly cenotaphs, erected in later ages by the several abbeys and convents of which these royal personages were the founders, in gratitude to such generous benefactors.

The period immediately after the conquest was not a time for people to think of such memorials for themselves, or friends. Few couldthen tell how long the lands they enjoyed would remain their own; and most indeed were put into the hands of new possessors, who, frequently, as we find in Domesday Book, held thirty or forty manors, or more, at a time. Allthenabove the degree of servants, were soldiers, the sword alone made the gentleman, and accordingly on a strict inquiry, we shall meet with few or no monuments of that age, except for the kings, royal family, or some few of the chief nobility and leaders, among which, those for the Veres, Earls of Oxford, at Earl’s Colne, in Essex, are some of the most ancient. It is probable that this state of things, so far as regards sepulchral monuments, continued through the troublesome reign of Stephen, and during the confusion which prevailed while the barons’ wars subsisted, and until the ninth year of king Henry the third, 1224.

In that year Magna Charta being confirmed, and every man’s security better established, property became more dispersed, manors were in more divided hands, and the lords of them began to settle on their possessions in the country. In that age many parish churches were built, and it is not improbable that the care of a resting-place for their bodies, and monuments to preserve their memories, became more general and diffused.

In country parish churches, the ancient monuments are usually found either in the chancel, or in small chapels, or side aisles, which have been built by the lords of manors, and patrons ofthe churches, (which for the most part went together,) and being designed for burying places for their families, were frequently endowed with chantries, in which priests officiated, and offered up prayers for the souls of their founder and his progenitors.

The tracing out, therefore, of such founders, will frequently help us to the knowledge of an ancient tomb which is found placed near the altar of such chantries. If there are more than one, they are, probably, for succeeding lords, and where there have been found ancient monuments in the church, also, besides what are in such chapels or aisles, they may be supposed to have been erected in memory of lords, prior to the foundation of the buildings.

The first species of monument, of which I propose to give the history, is that denominatedcross-legged, from its having the recumbent effigy of the deceased upon it, represented in armour, with the legs crossed. During the Norman period of our history, the holy war, and vows of pilgrimage to Palestine, were esteemed highly meritorious. The religious order of laymen, the knights templars, were received, cherished, and enriched throughout Europe, and the individuals of that community, after death, being usually buried cross-legged, in token of the banner under which they fought, and completely armed in regard to their being soldiers, this sort of monumentgrew much in fashion, and though all the effigies with which we meet in that shape are commonly called knights templars, yet it is certain that many of them do not represent persons of that order; and Mr. Lethieullier says (Archæologia,vol.2.p.292) that he had rarely found any of these monuments which he could with certainty say had been erected to the memory of persons who had belonged to that community.

The order of knights templars had its rise but in the year 1118, and in 1134, we find Robert duke of Normandy, son of William the conqueror, represented in this manner on his tomb in Gloucester cathedral.[60]—Henry Lacy, Earl ofLincoln, was represented thus on his fine tomb, which was inSt.Paul’s cathedral, before the fire of London. And in the Temple church there still remain the cross-legged effigies of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, who died in 1219; William his son, who died in 1231; and Gilbert, another son, who died in 1241; none of whom it is believed were of the order of Templars.

If these monuments were designed to denote at least, that the persons, to whose memory they were erected, had been in the Holy Land, yetall who had been there did not follow this fashion, for Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, second son of king Henry the third, had been there, and yet, as appears by his monument, still in being in Westminster-abbey, he is not represented cross-legged.[61]However, it seems to have been a prevailing fashion till the sixth year of Edward the second, 1312, when the order of Templars coming to destruction, and into the highest contempt, their fashions of all kinds seem to have been totally abolished.

By this it may be determined that all those effigies, either of wood or stone, which we find in country churches, whether in niches in the walls or on table tombs, and represented in complete armour, with a shield on the left arm, and the right hand grasping the sword, cross-legged, and a lion, talbot, or some animal couchant at the feet, have been set up between the ninth ofHenry the third, 1224, and the seventh of Edward the second, 1313, and what corroborates this opinion is, that whenever any such figures are certainly known, either by the arms on the shield, or by uninterrupted tradition, they have always been found to fall within that period, and whenever, says Mr. Lethieullier in the before mentioned paper, I have met with such monument, totally forgotten, I have, on searching for the owners of the church and manor, found some person or other, of especial note, who lived in that age, and left little room to doubt but it was his memory which was intended to be preserved.

It must, however, be acknowledged that this sort of monument did not entirely cease after the year 1312, for there is one in the church of Leekhampton, in Gloucestershire, which, by tradition, is said to be for Sir John Gifford, who died possessed of that manor, in the third of king Edward the third, 1328.

TheRev.Dr. Nash, in his History of Worcester, has the following observations on this sort of monument:—“It is an opinion which universally prevails, with regard to the cross-legged monuments, that they were all erected to the memory of knights templars; now, to me, it is very evident that not one of them belonged to that order, but as Mr. Habingdon, in describing those at Alvechurch, hath justly expressed it, to ‘Knights of the Holy Voyage,’ for the order ofknights templars followed the rule of the canons regular ofSt.Augustin, and as such were under a vow of celibacy. Now there is scarcely any one of these monuments which is certainly known for whom it was erected, but it is as certain that the person it represents was a married man.

“The knights templars always wore a white habit, with a red cross on the left shoulder. I believe not a single instance can be produced of either the mantle or cross being carved on any of these monuments, which surely would not have been omitted, as by it they were distinguished from all other orders, had these been really designed to represent knights templars.

“Lastly, this order was not confined to England only, but dispersed itself all over Europe, yet it will be very difficult to find one cross-legged monument any where out of England; whereas no doubt they would have abounded in France, Italy, and elsewhere, had it been a fashion peculiar to that famous order.

“But though for these reasons I cannot allow the cross-legged monuments to have been erected for knights templars, yet they have some relation to them; being memorials of those zealous devotees, who had either been in Palestine, personally engaged in what is called the Holy War, or had laid themselves under a vow to go thither, though perhaps they were prevented from it by death; some few indeed might possibly beerected to the memory of persons who had made pilgrimages thither, merely out of devotion; among the latter probably was the lady of the family of Metham, of Metham in Yorkshire, to whose memory a cross-legged monument was placed in a chapel adjoining the once collegiate church of Howden, in Yorkshire, and is at this day remaining, together with that of her husband on the same tomb.

“As this religious madness lasted no longer than the reign of our Henry the third, (the seventh and last crusade being published in the year 1268) and the whole order of knights templars dissolved in the seventh of Edward the second; military expeditions to the Holy Land, as well as devout pilgrimages thither had their period by the year 1312, consequently none of those cross-legged monuments are of a later date than the reign of Edward the second, or the beginning of Edward the third, nor of an earlier than that of king Stephen, when those expeditions first took place in this kingdom.”

Kings and princes, in what part, or by what means soever, they died, were represented upontheir tombs clothed with their coats of arms, their shield, bourlet or pad, crown, crest, supporters, lambrequins ormantlings, orders, and devices, upon their effigies, and round about their tombs.

Knights and gentlemen might not be represented with their coats of arms, unless they had lost their lives in some battle, single combat or rencontre with the prince himself, or in his service, unless they died and were buried within their own manors and lordships; and then to shew they died a natural death in their beds, they were represented with their coat of armour, ungirded, without a helmet, bareheaded, their eyes closed, their feet resting against the back of a greyhound, and without any sword.

Those who died on the day of battle, or in any mortal conflict on the side of the victorious party, were to be represented with a drawn sword in their right hand, the shield in their left, their helmet on their head, (which some think ought to be closed and the vizor let down, as a sign that they fell fighting against their enemies) having their coats of arms girded over their armour, and their feet resting on a lion.

Those who died in captivity, or before they had paid their ransom, were figured on their tombs without spurs or helmets, without coats of arms, and without swords, the scabbard thereof only girded to, and hanging at their side.

Those who fell on the side of the vanquished in a rencontre or battle were to be represented without coats of arms, the sword at their side and in the scabbard, the vizor raised and open, their hands joined before their breasts, and their feet resting against the back of a dead and overthrown lion.

Those who had been vanquished and slain in the lists in a combat of honour were to be placed on their tomb armed at all points, their battle-axe lying by them, the left arm crossed over the right.

Those who were victorious in the lists were exhibited on their tombs armed at all points, their battle-axe in their arms, the right arm crossed over the left.

It was customary to represent ecclesiastical persons on their tombs clothed in their respective sacerdotal habits. The canons with the surplice, square cap, and aumasse or amice, that is the undermost part of the priest’s habit.

The abbots were represented with their mitres and crosiers turned to the left.

The bishops, with their great copes, their gloves in their hands, holding their crosiers with their left hands and seeming to give their benediction with the right, their mitres on their heads and their armorial bearings round their tombs supported by angels.

The popes, cardinals, patriarchs, and archbishopswere likewise all represented in their official habits.

The editors of the Antiquarian Repertory (vol.2.p.226.) have given the following additional particulars relating to these monuments:—

“Although the figures represented on tombs with their legs crossed, are commonly stiled Knights Templars, there are divers circumstances which intitled other persons to be so represented. The first, having served personally, though for hire in the Holy Land. Secondly, having made a vow to go thither, though prevented by sickness or death. Thirdly, the having contributed to the fitting out of soldiers or ships for that service. Fourthly, having been born with the army in Palestine. And lastly, by having been considerable benefactors to the order of Knights Templars, persons were rendered partakers of the merits and honours of that fraternity, and buried with their distinctions, an idea which has been more recently adopted abroad by many great personages, who have been interred in the habits of Capuchins. Indeed the admission of laymen to the fraternity of a religious order was no uncommon circumstance in former days.

“So long as the Knights Templars remained in estimation it is probable that persons availed themselves of that privileged distinction, but as at its dissolution the Knights were accused of divers enormous crimes, it is not likely any one wouldchuse to claim brotherhood with them, or hand themselves or friends to posterity as members of a society held in detestation all over Europe, so that cross-legged figures, or monuments, may pretty safely be estimated aspriorto the year 1312, when that dissolution took place, or at most they cannot exceed it by above sixty or seventy years, as persons of sufficient age to be benefactors before that event, would not, according to the common age of man, outlive them more than that term.”

Geoffrey de Magnaville, first Earl of Essex.

(1148.)

He is represented in mail with a surcoat, and round helmet flatted on the top, with a nose piece, which was of iron to defend the nose from swords. His head rests on a cushion placed lozenge fashion, his right hand on his breast, a long sword at his right side, and on his left arm a long pointed shield, charged with an escarbuncle on a diapered field. This is the first instance in England of arms on a sepulchral figure.

This Earl, driven to despair by the confiscation of his estates by king Stephen, indulged in every act of violence, and making an attack onthe castle of Burwell, was there mortally wounded, and was carried off by the Templars, who as he died under sentence of excommunication, declined giving him Christian burial, but wrapping his body up in lead, hung it on a crooked tree in the orchard of the Old Temple, London. William, prior of Walden, having obtained absolution for him of the Pope, made application for his body, for the purpose of burying it at Walden, upon which the Templars took it down, and deposited it in the cemetery of the New Temple.

William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke.

This monument represents a knight in mail with a surcoat, his helmet more completely rounded than the adjoining one, and the cushion as in all the rest laid straiter under his head. He is drawing his short dagger or broken sword with his right hand, and on his left arm has a short pointed shield, on which are his arms, per pale,orandvert, a lion rampant,gules, armed and langued,gules, below his knees are bands or garters, as if to separate the cuisses from the greaves; his legs are crossed, and under his feet is a lion couchant.

The first account of this William is in the28thof Henry the second, when Henry son of that prince, who had behaved himself rebelliously against his father, lying on his death bed, with great penitence delivered to him, as to his mostintimate friend, his cross to carry to Jerusalem. He obtained from Richard the first on his first coming to England after his father’s death, Isabel, daughter and heiress of Richard, Earl of Pembroke, in marriage, and with her that earldom. He died advanced in years at his manor of Caversham, near Reading, in 1219. His body was carried first to Reading abbey, then to Westminster, and last to the Temple church, where it was solemnly interred.

Robert Lord Ros of Hamlake.

The most elegant of all the figures in the Temple church represents a comely young knight, in mail, and a flowing mantle, with a kind of cowl; his hair neatly curled at the sides, and his crown appearing to be shaven. His hands are elevated in a praying posture, and on his left arm is a short pointed shield, charged with three water-bougets, the arms of the family of Ros. He has at his left side a long sword, and the armour of his legs, which are crossed, has a ridge or seam up the front, continued over the knee, and forming a kind of garter below the knee: at his feet a lion.

This Robert Lord Ros was surnamedFursan, and incurred the displeasure of king Richard the first, but for what offence is not said. He was one of the chief barons who undertook to compel king John’s observance of the great charter. At the close of his life he took upon him theorder of the Templars, and died in their habit. He was buried in this church in 1227.

William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke.

The next figure but one to that of the Earl of Pembroke, may be for William Marshall, eldest son of that Earl. It is a cross-legged knight in mail, with a surcoat, his helmet round, surmounted with a kind of round cap, and the mouth piece up, his hands folded on his breast, his shield long and pointed, and now plain: a very long sword at his right side; the belt from which his shield hangs studded with quatre-foils, and that of his sword with lozenges.

This William Marshall died without issue in 1231, and was buried in this church near the grave of his father.

Uncertain Monuments in the Temple Church.

The five figures in the north group of this church are not ascertained absolutely to whom they belong. Camden and Weever ascribe one of them to Gilbert Marshall, third son of the first William, who on the death of his brother succeeded to the whole of the paternal inheritance, and lost his life at a tournament at Ware in 1241. His bowels were buried before the high altar of the church of our Lady at Hertford, and his body in the Temple Church, London, near his father and brother.

In the present state of these monuments it is almost impossible to ascertain the property ofmore than one of the Marshall family. The two effigies whose belts have the same ornaments were it is probable of one family.

It may be observed that Magnaville, William Marshall, jun. and the last figure in the north groupe have their legs crossed in an unusual manner. They lie on their backs and yet cross their legs as if they lay on their sides. So were those of Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, 1312, in oldSt.Paul’s.

The spurs of all are remarkably short, and seem rather straps with rowels. Not above two or three have the long pointed shoe, and two have their surcoats exactly reaching to the knee, whereas the others are of different lengths and fall more easily.

Weever informs us that sepulture in this church was much affected by Henry the third and his nobility. Stowe has determined that four of the cross-legged figures belong to the three earls of Pembroke and Robert Ros: “and these are all,” says he, “that I can remember to have read of.”

Mr. Gough relates, (he says from good authority,) that a Hertfordshire baronet applied for some of these cross-legged knights to grace his newly erected parochial chapel, but the society of Benchers, discovered their good sense, as well as regard to antiquity, by refusing their compliance.

TABLE TOMB.

To the cross-legged monument it is highly probable, says Mr. Lethieullier, succeeded the table tomb, with figures recumbent upon it, with their hands joined in a praying posture, sometimes with a rich canopy of stone over them, sometimes without such canopy, and again, some very plain without any figures. Round the edge of these for the most part were inscriptions on brass plates, which are now too frequently destroyed.

The table monument, however, came in more early than Mr. L. supposes.

The most ancient monument of this kind that is extant, in England at least, of the sovereigns of this kingdom, is that of king John, in the choir of Worcester Cathedral.[64]His effigy lieson the tomb, crowned; in his right hand he holds the sceptre, in his left a sword, the point of which is received into the mouth of a lion couchant at his feet. The figure is as large as life. On each side of the head are cumbent images, in small, of the bishopsSt.Oswald andSt.Wulstan, represented as censing him.—This monarch died in the year 1216. His bowels were buried in Croxton abbey, and his body, which was conveyed to Worcester from Newark, was according to his desire, buried in that Cathedral.

At the same time came in common use the humble grave stone laid flat with the pavement, sometimes with an inscription cut round the border of the stone, sometimes enriched with costly plates of brass, as every person who has examined our cathedral and parish churches cannot fail to have observed. But either avarice, or an over zealous aversion to some words in the inscription, has robbed most of these stones of the brass which adorned them, and left the less room for certainty when this fashion began.Earlier than the fourteenth century very few have been met with, and even towards the beginning of that century it is thought they were but rare. Mr. Lethieullier says that one was produced at a meeting of the Society of Antiquaries, dated 1300.[65]Weever mentions one inSt.Paul’s for Richard Newport, anno 1317, and gives another at Berkhampstead in Hertfordshire, which he by mistake dates 1306, the true date being 1356. Upon the whole, where we have not a positive date, it is hardly probable that any brass plate met with on grave stones can be older than 1350, and few so old, but from about 1380 they grew into common use and remained so even to the time of king James the first. Only after the reign of Edward the sixth we find the old gothic square letter changed into the roman round hand and the phraseOrate pro animauniversally omitted.

Towards the latter end of the fourteenth century a custom prevailed likewise of putting the inscription in French and not in Latin. These inscriptions are generally from 1350 to 1400, and very rarely afterwards. John Stow has indeed preserved two, which were inSt.Martin’s in the Vintry, dated 1310, and 1311.

The late editor of the Antiquities of Westminster affirms (from what authority he does not say) that stone coffins were never or rarely used after the thirteenth century.[66]If thisassertion had been correct we should have had an æra from whence to go upwards in search of any of those monuments where the stone coffin appears, as it frequently does, but there is reason to doubt the accuracy of this author’s statement.

As Grecian architecture had a little dawning in Edward the sixth’s time, and made a further progress in the three succeeding reigns, we find, in the great number of monuments which were then erected, the small column introduced with its base and capital, sometimes supporting an arch, sometimes an architrave, but every where mixed with them, may be observed a great deal of the Gothic ornaments retained, as small spires, ill carved images, small square roses and other foliage, painted and gilt, which sufficiently denote the age which made them, though no inscriptions are left.

Some knowledge of heraldry is very necessary in monumental researches, a coat of arms, device, or rebus, very often remains where not the least word of an inscription appears, and where indeed very probably there never was any.

Armorial bearings seem to have taken their rise in this kingdom in the reign of king Richard the first, and by little and little to have become hereditary; it was accounted most honourable to carry those arms which the bearers had displayed in the Holy Land, against the professed enemies of Christianity, but they were not fully established until the latter end of the reign of king Henry the third.

King Richard the first after his return from his captivity in Austria, had a new great seal made, on which seal he first bore three lions passant guardant for his arms, which from this time became the hereditary arms of the kings of England.

The arms assigned or attributed to the kings of the Norman dynasty, namelygules, two lions passant guardant,or, Mr. Sandford, in his Genealogical History of England, says he could not find had ever been used by those Princes, either on monuments, coins, or seals, but that historians had assigned or fixed them upon the Norman line to distinguish it from that of their successors the Plantagenets, who boregules, three lions passant guardant,or.[67]According to the opinion of modern genealogists, king Henry the second, whobore two lions for his arms, in the manner before mentioned, added, on his marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine, the arms of that dutchy, namelygules, a lion,or, to his own, and so was the first king of England who bore three lions; but for this there is no better proof than for those assigned to the Norman dynasty, for the arms of king Henry the second upon his monument at Fontevraud in Normandy, are on a shield of a modern form, and on the same monument are escutcheons with both impalements and quarterings which were not used till a hundred years after his death.

King Edward the first was the first son of a king of England that differenced his arms with a file, and the first king of England that bore his arms on the caparisons of his horse.

Margaret of France, second wife of king Edward the first, was the first queen of England that bore her armsdimidiatedwith her husband’s in one escutcheon, that is, both escutcheons being parted by a perpendicular line, orper pale, the dexter side of the husband’s shield, is joined to the sinister side of the wife’s, which kind of bearing is more ancient than the impaling of the entire coats of arms.

King Edward the third, in the year 1339, having taken upon him the title of king of France, was the first of our kings who quartered arms, bearing those of France and England, quarterly, and so careful were the kings, his successors, inmarshalling the arms of both kingdoms in the same shield, that when Charles the sixth, king of France, changed the semée of fleurs de lys into three, our king Henry the fifth did the like,[68]and so it continued till the union of Great Britain with Ireland in 1801, when the arms of France were relinquished.

The first example of the quartering of arms, is found in Spain, when the kingdoms of Castile and Leon were united under Ferdinand the third, and was afterwards imitated, as above described, by king Edward the third. Eleanor of Castile,his queen, introduced this mode of bearing arms into England, in which she was followed by the king, her husband.

Until the time of king Edward the third, we find no coronets round the heads of peers. The figure upon the monument of John of Eltham, second son of king Edward the third, who died in 1334, and is buried in Westminster abbey, is adorned with a diadem, composed of a circle of greater and less leaves or flowers, and is the most ancient portraiture of an earl, says Sandford, that has a coronet. For the effigies of Henry Lacy, earl of Lincoln, on his tomb in OldSt.Paul’s, had the head encompassed with a circle only, and that of William de Valence, earl of Pembroke, half brother of king John, who died in 1304, and is buried inSt.Edmund’s chapel, in Westminster abbey, has only a circle, enriched and embellished with stones of several colours, but without either points, rays, or leaves.

John Hastings, earl of Pembroke, who died in 1375, was the first subject who bore two coats quarterly.

Richard the second was the first of the English kings, who used supporters to his arms.

Henry the sixth was the first of our kings who wore an arched crown, which has been ever since continued by his successors.[69]

Henry the eighth was the first king of England that added to his shield, the garter and the crown, in imitation of which, the knights of the garter, in the latter end of his reign, caused their escutcheons on their stalls at Windsor, to be encompassed with the garter, and those who were dukes, marquesses, or earls, had their coronets placed on their shields, which has been so practised ever since.

Queen Elizabeth was the first sovereign who used in her arms, a harp crowned, as an ensign for the kingdom of Ireland.

King James the first was the first of our monarchs, who quartered the arms of England, Scotland, and Ireland in one shield.

The number of princes of the blood royal of the houses of York and Lancaster, may easily be distinguished, by the labels on their coats of arms, which are different for each, and very often their devices are added.

Where the figure of a woman is found with arms both on her kirtle and mantle, those on the kirtle are always her own family’s, and those on the mantle, her husband’s.

The first instance of arms on sepulchral monuments, in England, are those on the tomb of Geoffrey de Magnaville, first Earl of Essex, (so created in 1148,) in the Temple church, in London. Armorial bearings were used in France, on monuments, forty years before we find them in England.

Very intimately connected with the ornaments and devices upon sepulchral monuments are the figures and dresses of our early monarchs found on their great seals, and of the principal nobility of those times on their seals. King Henry the third was the first English sovereign who wore upon his helmet a crown, and he is also the first king who is depicted upon his great seal as wearing rowels in his spurs in the manner in which they are now used, all the former kings using spurs with a single point or spike from the heel.

Sandford, in his Genealogical History of England, says, that the arms upon the seal ofJohn, Earl of Morton, (afterwards king John,) namely, two lions passant, are the first which he had seen upon any seal of the royal family. This was in the reign of king Henry the second.

As to monuments for the several degrees of churchmen, as bishops, abbots, priors, monks, &c. or of religious women, they are easily to be distinguished from other persons, but equally difficult to assign to their true owners. Among these, as among the before-mentioned monuments, for the most part the stone effigies are the oldest, with the mitre, crosier, and other proper insignia, and very often wider at the head than feet, having, indeed, been the cover to the stone coffins in which the body was deposited.

When brass plates came in fashion they were likewise much used by bishops, &c. many of whose grave stones remain at this day, very richly adorned, and in many, the indented marble shews that they have been so. In Salisbury cathedral, says Mr. Lethieullier, I found two very ancient stone figures of bishops, which were brought from Old Sarum, and are consequently older than the time of king Henry the third. In that church, likewise, the pompous marble which lies over Nicholas Longespee, bishop of that see, and son of the, Earl of Salisbury, who died in the year 1297, appears to have been richly plated, though the brass is now quite gone, and is one ofthe most early of that kind which has been met with. Frequently, where there are no effigies, crosiers or crosses denote an ecclesiastic. The latter have been met with, but with little difference in their form, for every order from a bishop to a parish priest.

One sort of monument more may be mentioned, which is somewhat peculiar; this is the representation of a skeleton in a shroud, lying either under or upon, but generally under a table tomb. A monument of this kind is to be met with in almost all the cathedral and conventual churches throughout England, and scarcely ever more than one, but to what age the unknown ones are to be attributed, we have no clue to guide us, since there is one in York cathedral for Robert Claget, treasurer of that church, as ancient as 1241, and in Bristol cathedral, Paul Bush, the first bishop of that see, who died so late as 1558, is represented in the same manner, and some of these figures may be found in every age between.

These skeleton monuments represent the figure of a man emaciated by extreme sickness, or taken immediately after death; they are usually of ecclesiastics, and placed with another figure of the same prelate, as a contrast to his pride, in pontificals. The art of the sculptor is more apparent in the first mentioned, because much anatomical accuracy was required.

One of the earliest monuments of a warrior so contrasted is that of John de Arundel, slain in the French wars, under the Duke of Bedford. It remains in the sepulchral chapel of that noble family at Arundel, and is finely sculptured in white marble. The dead figure, is indeed a masterly performance, and has every appearance of having been originally modelled from nature.

In Exeter Cathedral there is an altar tomb, upon which lies the effigy of bishop Marshall, who died in 1203, dressed in his episcopal robes, with a mitre on his head, his right hand lying upon his breast, with the palm upwards, the fore finger, ring finger, and thumb extended, and the other fingers closed. Near this monument in a low niche, lies the figure of a skeleton, cut in free stone, with the following inscription over it:—“Ista figura docet nos omnes premeditari qualiter ipsa nocet mors quando venit dominari.”

The tomb of bishop Beckington in Wells Cathedral, who died in 1464, has his effigy in alabaster, habited in his episcopal robes; and underneath is a representation of his skeleton.

FINIS.

Footnotes

1.This article is taken from the first volume of the Transactions of the Horticultural Society, and was communicated by the RightHon.Sir Joseph Banks, Bart.—The additions, within brackets, are by the Editor.

2.Probably the fruit ofCornus Mascula, commonly called Cornelian Cherry.

3.Hurtleberries, the fruit ofVaccinium vitis idea, though no longer cultivated in our gardens, are still esteemed and served up at the tables of opulent people in the counties that produce them naturally. They are every year brought to London from the rocky country, near Leath Tower in Surrey, where they meet with so ready a sale among the middle classes of the people, that the richer classes scarcely know that they are to be bought.—They also grow very plentifully on some of the hills and heaths in the counties of Somerset and Devon.

4.TheYellow fleshed Peach, now uncommon in our gardens, but which was frequent 40 years ago, under the name of the Orange Peach, was called by our ancestorsMelicoton.

5.ByRaisinsit is probable that Currants are meant; the imported fruit of that name of which we make puddings and pies was called by our ancestorsRaisin de Corance.—In the Percy Household Book it is said that 200 poundsof Raisins de Coranceshould be purchased for the use of the Earl of Northumberland’s family, which were to serve one year.

6.There is a portrait of this lady among the Holbein Heads, published by Mr. Chamberlaine.

7.Pliny, Hist. Nat.xii.18.

8.Shakespeare, occasionally, in his plays, uses couplets.

9.Gildas, calledBadonicus, because said to be born at Bath, was, for his singular prudence and the severity of his morals, surnamed theWISE; he was a monk of Bangor, and his “Description of the state of Britain,” above alluded to, is the only one of his writings extant, as we are assured by Archbishop Usher. Gildas wrote this work in Latin, in a style, according to that age, harsh and perplexed enough. The first printed edition of it was published by Polydore Virgil, in octavo, London, 1525, and dedicated to Cuthbert Tunstal, Bishop of Durham, which, however, was from an incorrect copy. It was reprinted at Basil, in 12mo, in 1541; and at London, 1548, though Bishop Nicolson says 1568. It was again printed at London, in 12mo, in 1638, translated by Thomas Habingdon, of Henlip, in Worcestershire. John Josseline, secretary to Archbishop Parker, reprinted Gildas more correctly from two new manuscripts, Basil, 1568, 12mo; and Paris 1576; but these are little more perfect than the first.—The latest and best copy of Gildas is in Dr. Gale’s collection of Ancient English Historians, 2 vols. folio, Oxford, 1687 and 1691; who had the advantage of a more ancient and better copy, as Bishop Nicolson observes. Besides Habingdons’s translation above mentioned, there was another printed during the Cromwell rebellion, in 1652, for the mere purpose, it has been said, of retailing Gildas’s sharp reproofs of Kings and Priests.—For an account of this edition, see Oldys’s British Librarian, and Savage’s Librarian,vol.1.p.117.

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