What is the best postgraduate diploma course and college in Canada for a BE electrical degree holder?
From Thomas Tyrwhitt, Esq. to Mr. James Perry, Morning Chronicle office, Strand.“Carlton House, Feb. 12th, 1805. “Dear Sir,—Do pray at your convenience inform me of the address of Mr. Porson, as some papers have been found in the collection of the late Sir William Hamilton respecting the Papiri, which are very interesting; and several MSS so clearly written out, as to be ready for the opinion of Mr. Porson, the only person in my opinion fit to inspect them in the whole kingdom.
Your very faithful and obedient servant,
THOMAS TYRWHITT.
HISTORY OF SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS.
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 Old St. 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 could 299then 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.
All then above 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 of 300the 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.
CROSS-LEGGED MONUMENTS.
The first species of monument, of which I propose to give the history, is that denominated cross-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 monument 301grew 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. 3) 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 of 302Lincoln, was represented thus on his fine tomb, which was in St. 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, yet 303all 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 of 304Henry 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.
The Rev. 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 of 305knights templars followed the rule of the canons regular of St. 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 be 306erected 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.”
THE FOLLOWING RULES WERE OBSERVED BY ANCIENT SCULPTORS IN ERECTING SEPULCHRAL MONUMENTS.[62]
Kings and princes, in what part, or by what means soever, they died, were represented upon 307their tombs clothed with their coats of arms, their shield, bourlet or pad, crown, crest, supporters, lambrequins or mantlings, 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.
308Those 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 archbishops 309were 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 would 310chuse 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 as prior to 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.”
CROSS-LEGGED MONUMENTS IN THE TEMPLE CHURCH.[63]
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 on 311the 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, or and vert, 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 the 28th of 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 most 312intimate 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 surnamed Fursan, 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 the 313order 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 of 314more 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 old St. 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.
315
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 lies 316on 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 bishops St. Oswald and St. 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.
GRAVE STONES.
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. 317Earlier 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 in St. 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 phrase Orate pro anima universally 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 in St. Martin’s in the Vintry, dated 1310, and 1311.
318The 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 this 319assertion 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.
HERALDIC SYMBOLS.
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.
320Armorial 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, namely gules, 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 bore gules, three lions passant guardant, or.[67] According to the opinion of modern genealogists, king Henry the second, who 321bore two lions for his arms, in the manner before mentioned, added, on his marriage with Eleanor of Aquitaine, the arms of that dutchy, namely gules, 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 arms dimidiated with her husband’s in one escutcheon, that is, both escutcheons being parted by a perpendicular line, or per 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, in 322marshalling 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, 323his 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 Old St. 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 in St. 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]
324Henry 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.
325The 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 of 326John, 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.
MONUMENTS FOR ECCLESIASTICS.
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 of 327the 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.
THE SKELETON MONUMENT.
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.
328One 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 Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, Bart.—The additions, within brackets, are by the Editor.
2. Probably the fruit of Cornus Mascula, commonly called Cornelian Cherry.
3. Hurtleberries, the fruit of Vaccinium 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. The Yellow 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 ancestors Melicoton.
5. By Raisins it is probable that Currants are meant; the imported fruit of that name of which we make puddings and pies was called by our ancestors Raisin de Corance.—In the Percy Household Book it is said that 200 pounds of Raisins de Corance should 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, called Badonicus, because said to be born at Bath, was, for his singular prudence and the severity of his morals, surnamed the WISE; 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.
10. Strutt, in his “Chronicle of England” has given a plate representing a page of this manuscript, and in Astle’s “History of Writing,” there is a plate of the same page, coloured, in imitation of the original.
11. Bede, commonly called the Venerable Bede, was the most learned man of the age in which he lived; he was born at Weremouth, in Northumberland, in the year 672. Both ancient and modern authors have bestowed the highest encomiums upon the learning of this extraordinary man. His works are many, making eight large volumes, in folio, the principal of which is his Ecclesiastical History of the Anglo-Saxons, consisting of five books, from whence the more perfect part of our early history is formed; his other works are the Lives of Saints, Treatises on the Holy Scriptures, and Philosophical Tracts. This great man died at his cell at Jarrow, in the year 735, aged 63.
12. Lydgate was commonly called the Monk of Bury, because born at that place, about the year 1380. After some time spent in the English Universities, he travelled through France and Italy, in which countries he greatly improved himself. In addition to his poetical talents, he is described as being an eloquent rhetorician, an expert mathematician, an acute philosopher, and no mean divine. He is said to have been so much admired by his contemporaries, that they said of him, that his wit was fashioned by the Muses themselves. After his return from France and Italy, he became tutor to the sons of several of the nobility, and for his excellent endowments, was much esteemed and reverenced by them. He wrote a poem, called The Life and Death of Hector, some satires, eulogies, and odes, and other learned works in prose. He died in 1440, aged sixty, and was buried in his own convent at Bury. Lydgate is said to have been a disciple of Chaucer.
13. Leonard Aretin, the disciple of Chrysoloras, was a linguist, an orator, and an historian; the secretary of four successive Popes; and Chancellor of the Republic of Florence, where he died in 1444, aged seventy-five. He added a Supplement to Livy on the Punic War, and wrote the History of Italy, with other valuable works.
14. Emanuel Chrysoloras was one of the envoys sent by the Greek Emperor Manuel, at the end of the fourteenth century, to implore the compassion of the Western Princes. He was not only conspicuous for the nobleness of his birth but also for the extent of his learning. After visiting the courts of France and England, in furtherance of his mission, he was invited to assume the office of a Professor, and Florence had the honour of this invitation, as it had had a few years previously that of the first Greek Professor Leo Pilatus, whose mind was stored with a treasure of Greek learning, with whom history and fable, philosophy and grammar, were alike familiar, and who first read the Poems of Homer in the Schools of Florence. Chrysoloras may be considered as the founder of the Greek language in Italy, and his knowledge not only of the Greek, but of the Latin tongue, surpassed the expectation of the Florentine republic. At the same time and place, the Latin classics were explained by John of Ravenna, the domestic pupil of the celebrated Petrarch. The Italians, who illustrated their age and country, were formed in this double school, and Florence became the fruitful seminary of Greek and Roman erudition. Chrysoloras was recalled by the Emperor from the college to the court, but he afterwards taught at Pavia and Rome with equal industry and applause. He died at Constance on a public mission from the Emperor to the council. Gibbon’s Hist. vol. 12. p. 126.
15. Laurentius Valla, was a native of Placenza, where he was born in 1415; he revived the Latin language from gothic barbarity, but he was a rigorous critic. He fell under the displeasure of the Church of Rome, for the freedom with which he hazarded his opinions respecting some of its doctrines, and he was condemned to be burnt, but was saved by Alphonsus, king of Naples. Pope Nicholas the fifth, who was himself one of the greatest encouragers of learning of his time, and who highly respected the talents of Valla, invited him to Rome, and gave him a pension.—This Pope, whose pursuits were in direct association with our present subject, from a plebeian origin, raised himself by his virtue and his learning to the highest honours of the Church. The character of the man prevailed over the interest of the Pontiff, and he sharpened those weapons which were soon pointed against the religion of Rome. He had been the friend of the most eminent scholars of the age, and after his elevation to the chair of St. Peter, he became their patron. Under Pope Nicholas, the influence of the Holy See pervaded Christendom, and he exerted that influence in the search, not of benefices, but of books. From the ruins of the Byzantine libraries, from the darkest monasteries of Germany and Britain, he collected the dusty manuscripts of the writers of antiquity; and whenever the original could not be removed, a faithful copy was transcribed and transmitted for his use. The Vatican was daily replenished with precious furniture, and such was his industry, that in a reign of eight years, he formed a library of five thousand volumes. To his munificence the Latin world was indebted for the versions of Xenophon, Diodorus, Polybius, Thucydides, Herodotus, and Appian; of Strabo’s Geography, of the Iliad, of the more valuable works of Plato and Aristotle, of Ptolemy, and Theophrastus, and of the Fathers of the Greek Church.
16. For an account of the following Manuscript Libraries in England, see Savage’s Librarian, 3 vols. London, 1808-1810—namely, that of the British Museum, in vol. 1. p. 26; of the Royal Society, p. 71; of the Heralds Office, p. 73; of the Society of Antiquaries, p. 129; of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s at Lambeth Palace, p. 133; of Lincoln’s Inn, p. 183, 225; of the Middle Temple, p. 273; of the Inner Temple, vol. 2. p. 131; of the Lansdown Collection of Manuscripts, vol. 1. p. 34, and vol. 3. p. 27, and of the Cottonian Manuscripts, vol. 3. p. 31.
The curious reader who is interested in the history of the public records of his country, will find in the same volumes, the Report of the Committee of the House of Commons on the State of the Records, in vol. 1. p. 17, &c.—an account of the Records in the Tower of London, vol. 2. p. 34, &c. of those in the Rolls Chapel, ibid. p. 185, &c. and of those in the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, vol. 3. p. 41, &c.
17. Vide Serjeant Heywood’s Vindication of Mr. Fox’s History of James the Second, p. 397.
18. Fuller’s Worthies, p. 317.
19. There is a small book, printed in black letter, containing an account of the treatment and trial of Anne Askew, which contains many curious particulars.—She was the daughter of Sir William Askew, of Kelsay, in the county of Lincoln, where she was born about 1520. She had a learned education, and while young was married to a person of the name of Kyme, much against her inclination. On account of some harsh treatment from her husband, she went to the Court of Henry the Eighth to sue for a separation, where she was greatly taken notice of by those ladies who were attached to the Reformation; in consequence of which, she was arrested, and having confessed her religious principles, was committed to Newgate. She was first racked with savage cruelty in the Tower, and then burnt in Smithfield, in 1546, in company with her tutor, and two other persons of the same faith. From her letters and other pieces in Fox and Strype, it appears she was an accomplished, as well as a pious, woman.
20. Burnet’s Reformation, vol. 1. p. 325; vol. 2. p. 382.
21. Collier’s Eccl. Hist. vol. 2. p. 591.—Murden’s State Papers, p. 9, 101.
22. Collier’s Eccl. Hist. vol. 2. p. 139.—Murden’s State Papers, p. 452.
23. Observations on Ancient Statutes, p. 496, note.
24. State Trials, vol. 1. p. 199.
25. Observations on Statutes, p. 495.
26. State Trials, vol. 1. p. 221.
27. Observations on Statutes, p. 92.
28. State Trials, vol. 3. p. 99.
29. The Pandects (1. xlviii. tit. xviii.) contain the sentiments of the most celebrated civilians on the subject of torture. They strictly confine it to slaves.
30. The Citizens of Athens could not be put to the rack, unless it was for high treason. The torture was used within thirty days after condemnation. There was no preparatory torture. In regard to the Romans, the third and fourth law de Majestate, by Julius Cæsar, shews that birth, dignity, and the military profession exempted people from the rack, except in cases of high treason.—Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws, vol. 1. p. 132.
31. Archadius Charisius is the oldest lawyer quoted in the Pandects to justify the universal practice of torture in all cases of treason; but this maxim of tyranny, which is admitted by Ammianus with the most respectful terror, is enforced by several laws of the successors of Constantine.—Gibbon’s Rom. Hist. vol. 3. p. 81.
32. There is an engraving of Sir Thomas in the collection of Holbein Heads, published by Mr. Chamberlaine.
An original picture of him, which has been frequently copied, is in the collection of the Earl of Romney. It is nearly a profile, and bears a strong resemblance to Holbein’s drawing.
There is a print of Sir Thomas Wyat, from an engraving on wood, after a painting by Holbein; it is the frontispiece to the book of verses, written on his death, by Leland, entitled “Næniæ in Mortem Thomæ Viati Equitis incomparabilis,” an Elegy on the death of Sir Thomas Wyat, Knt. London, 1542, quarto. This book was reprinted by Hearne, at the beginning of the second volume of Leland’s Itinerary. Under the head is the following inscription:—
“Holbenus nitida pingendi maximus arte,
”Effigiem expressit graphice, sed nullus Apelles
“Exprimet ingenium felix, animumque Viati.”
This print has been copied by Michael Burghers and Mr. Tyson. Granger i. 110.
33. The first printed Poetical Miscellany, in the English language, is the Collection of Poems, edited and published by Tottel, entitled “Songes and Sonnettes of Surrey, Wyat, and of uncertain Auctors, London, 1557.”—Another edition, 1565—others in 1574, 1585, 1587. The last edition was edited by Dr. George Sewell, in 1717.—This Dr. Sewell was a physician in London; he received his early education at Eton, which he afterwards completed at Cambridge, where he took the degree of Bachelor of Physic in 1709. From thence he went to Leyden, where he studied under the celebrated Boerhaave. Not being successful in the metropolis, he removed to Hampstead, where he died on the 8th of February, 1726. As an author he possessed a considerable share of genius, and wrote in concert with several of his contemporaries, particularly in the Spectator and Tatler; he was principally concerned in the ninth volume of the former, and in the fifth of the latter, as he was also in a translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and an edition of Shakespeare’s Poems. He was the author of a Tragedy, entitled “Sir Walter Raleigh,” published at London in 1719, and also of another, which he left unfinished, entitled “King Richard the First,” the fragments of which were printed in 1728.
34. Melancthon was born at Brette, a village of the Palatinate, on the 16th of February, 1497. In his childhood he made an astonishing progress in the acquisition of languages. Luther, and his doctrines, appeared about this time, and Melancthon stood forward as one of their most strenuous supporters; indeed the Lutheran system was in a great measure planned by him, and the famous instrument by which it was publicly declared, called the Confession of Augsburg, was the production of his pen. Melancthon was the intimate friend of Erasmus, and Erasmus the patron of Holbein. This connection will account for his appearance in a Collection of Portraits, drawn by Holbein, of the principal personages in the Court of Henry the Eighth, though Melancthon never was in this country. An engraving of him is among the Holbein Heads, published by Mr. Chamberlaine, and there is a full-length portrait of this great Reformer, with a fac-simile of his writing, in his Life, published by the Rev. F. A. Cox, London, 1815, 8vo.
35. Several of these were men remarkable for their talents and learning: among whom were Petyt, Tyrrel, Sir Robert Filmer, Dr. Brady, Prynne, Rymer, &c. &c.
Petyt and Prynne were keepers of the Records in the Tower; and Rymer, who was the king’s Historiographer, had a warrant not only to search the Records in every office in the kingdom, but to make copies of such as he should select for publication. How diligent he was in using this authority is evident from the invaluable collection of Records, &c. published by him, and from a large collection of others in manuscript, now in the Museum.
Petyt makes a direct charge, and not unfounded, against Prynne, for an intended omission of a reference to the Rolls of Parliament (2d Hen. V. p. 2. No. 10.) in the Abridgment of the Rolls made by Sir Robert Cotton, and printed by Prynne.
The same with respect to Sir John Bussey, 20 Richard II. The words in the Record are, “les Communes presenterent Mons. John Bussey pour leur Parlour.”—Page 338, a.—339, b.
36. In 1766, the late Thomas Astle, Esq. was consulted by the Sub-Committee of the House of Lords, concerning the printing of the Rolls of Parliament, and in 1768, on the death of Mr. Blyke, Mr. Astle introduced his father-in-law, the Rev. Philip Morant, author of the History of Essex, to succeed that gentleman in preparing the Rolls for the press. Mr. Morant died in November, 1770, after proceeding in them as far as the 16th of Henry the fourth, when Mr. Astle was appointed by the House of Lords to carry on the work, which he completed in 1775. They are printed in six volumes, folio.
37. Some reliance was placed by his Lordship on the Treatise “de Modo tenendi Parliamentum;” the authority of which, if not entirely destroyed by Prynne, will not at least in future have much weight.—Prynne’s Animadversions on 4 Inst. p. 1. to p. 8. and p. 331.
38. In the Parliament of the 18th of Edward the first there were no Citizens or Burgesses. There is a bundle of writs yet extant, by which this Parliament was summoned. They are directed to the sheriffs of several or most of the counties of England, by which two or three Knights were directed to be chosen for each county, and accordingly the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridge and Huntingdon, and Cumberland returned each of them three Knights, and the other counties two each. This Parliament gave the King a fifteenth of all their moveables as appears by the account of the same which is entered upon the Great Roll of the 23d of that king, in which account we have the style of this Parliament, namely, “The account of the fifteenth, granted to the king in his 18th year, by the Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Priors, Earls, Barons, and all others of the kingdom, assessed, collected, and levied,” &c.
We may here observe that the two or three Knights, chosen by the several counties, did represent those counties, and according to the form of the writ, consulted upon and consented to this grant of a fifteenth.
So also in the 22d Edward the First there were neither Citizens nor Burgesses summoned to the Parliament of that year. On the 8th of October the king issued writs directed to every sheriff in England to cause two discreet Knights to be chosen for each county, with full powers, “so that for defect of such powers, the business might not remain undone.” And on the following day the king issued other writs to the sheriffs to cause to be elected two knights more, to be added to the former two, making four for each county, and these four Knights for each county, and the Earls, Barons, and Great Men, on the day of their meeting gave the king a tenth part of all their goods.
39. This was only a grant of forty shillings for every Knight’s fee.—See Rolls of Parliament, vol. 2, p. 112, a. hereinafter referred to in 14 of Edward III.
40. Proxies in Parliament is a privilege appropriated to the Lords only; the first instance of a Proxy that occurs in the History of the English Parliament, is in the reign of Edward the first.
In a Parliament at Westminster in the reign of Edward the second, the bishops of Durham and Carlisle were allowed to send their Proxies to Parliament.
In the early period of the History of Parliament, the Lords were not obliged to make Barons only their Proxies as the custom now is; the Bishops and Parliamentary Abbots usually gave their letters of proxy to Prebendaries, Parsons, and Canons; but since the first year of king Henry the eighth, there appear in the journals no Proxies but such as were Lords of Parliament.
In the 35th of king Edward the third, 1360, the following Peeres were summoned by writ to Parliament, to appear there by their Proxies, namely, Mary, Countess of Norfolk; Eleanor, Countess of Ormond; Anna, Baroness Despenser; Philippa, Countess of March; Joanna, Baroness Fitzwalter; Agneta, Countess of Pembroke; Mary de St. Paul, Countess of Pembroke; Margaret, Baroness de Roos; Matilda, Countess of Oxford; Catherine, Countess of Athol. These ladies were called ad colloquium et tractatum by their Proxies.
41. The club was in use at the Norman Conquest, and in the succeeding ages. St. Louis had a band of Guards armed with clubs, and was himself very dextrous in the use of it.
Pennant, in describing the customs of the ancient Bards and Minstrels of Wales, says, that the lowest of the musical tribe was the Datceiniad pen pastwn, or he that sung to the sound of his club, being ignorant of every other kind of instrument. When he was permitted to be introduced, he was obliged to stand in the middle of the hall, and sing his cowydd or awdl, beating time, and playing the symphony with his pastwn or club; but if there was a professor of music present, his leave must be first obtained before he presumed to entertain the company with this species of melody. Wherever he came he must act as a menial servant to the bard or minstrel.
42. Among the Romans it was not infamous to be beaten with a stick.
43. They had only the club and buckler.
44. Nennius lived in the ninth century, and is said to have left behind him several treatises, of which all that has been published is the history, which was printed for the first time in Dr. Gale’s Collection of British Historians, published at Oxford in 1687 and 1691, in 2 vols. folio. Leland mentions an ancient copy of Nennius’s history, which he says he borrowed from Thomas Solme, Secretary for the French language to king Henry the eighth, in the margin of which were the additions of Sam. Beaulanius, or Britannus. He has transcribed several of these marginal annotations, which as it appears, were afterwards inserted in the body of the history, and were printed in that manner by Dr. Gale. The Doctor in his notes, mentions Beaulanius as the Scholiast on the copy which he used, but Leland has a great many other things, as extracts out of Beaulanius, which Dr.
Gale does not mention to be only in the Scholion. There is also in the Bodleian Library a manuscript of Nennius apparently nearly 600 years old, in which the prefaces and all the interpolations, which Leland says are by Beaulanius, are wanting. Professor Bertram, of Copenhagen, published in the year 1757, “Britannicarum gentium Historiæ Antiquæ Scriptores tres; Ricardus Corinensis, Gildas Badonicus, Nennius Banchorensis: recensuit, notisque et indice auxit Carolus Bertramus, S. A. Lond. Soc. &c. Havniæ, 1757.” 8vo. The Professor followed Dr. Gale’s edition of Gildas and Nennius, but in the latter he has distinguished the interpolations of Beaulanius from the genuine text. Mr. Gough, (Brit. Topogr. vol. 1. p. 15.) mentions Mr. Evan Evans having been long preparing a new edition of Nennius, from the Bodleian and other manuscripts.
46. In 1670, Milton published his History of England, comprising the whole fable of Geoffrey, and continued to the Norman Invasion. Why he should have given the first part, which he seems not to have believed, and which is universally rejected, it is difficult to conjecture. The style is harsh, but it has something of rough vigour, which perhaps may often strike, though it cannot please. On this history, the licenser fixed his claws, and before he would transmit it to the press, tore out several parts. Some censures of the Saxon Monks were taken away, lest they should be applied to the modern Clergy; and a character of the Long Parliament and Assembly of Divines, was excluded; of which the Author gave a copy to the Earl of Anglesea, and which being afterwards published, has been since inserted in its proper place.—Johnson’s Lives of the Poets, Art. Milton.
47. Parkhurst’s Heb. Lex. 271.
48. The practice of tattooing is of great antiquity, and has been common to numerous nations in Turkey, Asia, the Southern parts of Europe, and perhaps to a great portion of the inhabitants of the earth. It is still retained among some of the Moorish tribes, who are, probably, descendants of those who, formerly, were subjected to the Christians of Africa, and who to avoid paying taxes, like the Moors, thus imprinted crosses upon their skins, that they might pass for Christians. This custom, which originally might serve to distinguish tribes by their religion, or from each other, became afterwards a mode of decoration that was habitually retained, when all remembrance of its origin was effaced.
It may be inferred that the Canaanites and the other nations of the East, were in the habit of tattooing their skins, because Moses, (Levit. xix, 28.) expressly enjoins the Israelites not to imprint any marks upon their bodies, in imitation of the heathens.
The ancient inhabitants of the British Islands, painted their skins in various grotesque figures, with the juice of woad. This custom of tattooing was in use both by the Britons and their first invaders, the Belgæ, and I believe it will be found, that the warriors of all those nations which practised tattooing, invariably threw off their garments in the hour of battle.beth.
