July 15. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



43 



volume in a Cambridge library is much to the 

 purpose : 



"Hearinge that he (Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln) was 

 dead, and his corpse then a bringeinge into the gates of 

 Lincolne, he (King John) with all the princely trayne, 

 wente forth to meet it. The three kings with theyr royal 

 alleyes, carryed the corpse on those showlders that are 

 accustomed to upphoulde the weighte of whole king- 

 domes. From whome the great peeres received the same 

 and bare it to the churche porche, whenne three arche- 

 bishoppes and the bishoppe conveyed it to the quier. 

 Lyeinge open-faced, mytered, and in all pontificall orna- 

 ments, with gloves on his handes, and a ringe on his 

 finger, (it) was interred with all solleynities answerable." — 

 ArcJuBological Journal, June, 1850, p. 178. 



The ancient episcopal monuments, it may be 

 necessary to repeat, are presumed to be a petri- 

 faction of a similar imposing scene ; an enduring 

 transcript of the venerable remains with all the 

 concomitant adornments. As before stated, images 

 were sometimes substituted for the body ; accord- 

 ingly we are informed that — 



"In 1532 the corpse of John Islip, Abbot of Westmin- 

 ster, was set up in the Abbey under a goodly herse, and 

 that after the interment underneath the herse, was made 

 a presentation of the corpse covered with a cloth of gold 

 of tyshew." — Ackerman's Westminster Abbey, Appendix. 



If life is not extinct in the mediasval effigies, 

 and all idea of sickness and languor is to be ex- 

 cluded, what alternative remains ? Can it for a 

 moment be conceived that, in what has been de- 

 signated in some quarters " the age of faith," 

 bishops in pontificals, and priests in eucharistic 

 vestments, implored divine mercy in health and 

 vigour reclining upon their beds ? When men 

 refuse to bend the knee in their addresses to the 

 Throne of Grace, we can scarcely imagine them to 

 be penetrated with a deep feeling of humility and 

 reverence. A carelessness of posture, where there 

 is no infirmity, is an act of positive disobedience. 

 Alloyed with error as their creed was, this accusa- 

 tion is unfounded and unjust. Dark indeed must 

 the ages have been when such contempt of the 

 greatness, glory, and majesty of God was prac- 

 tised, and corporeal homage denied. What a re- 

 flection on the worthies of the olden time, with all 

 their deficiencies, to fancy that they performed 

 their devotions upon their backs ! What injustice 

 to the good and great of modern days to com- 

 memorate them in marble in an attitude so false, 

 irreverent, and absurd! The signification of 

 "supine," according to Johnson, is "lying with 

 the face upward ; negligent ; careless ; indolent ; 

 drowsy; thoughtless; inattentive." 



Diminutive representations of the liberated 

 spirit (a kneeling figure) conveyed by angels to 

 the heavens, though of frequent occurrence in 

 brasses and incised slabs, are rare in monumental 

 sculpture. Bishop ISTorthwold's in Ely Cathedral 

 may be specified in addition to those previously 

 mentioned ; and in a panel on the canopy of the 



tomb of Aveline, Countess of Lancaster, in West- 

 minster Abbey, are the figures of two angels in 

 an attitude of adoration, and the lower part of an 

 upright female figure above these, intended to 

 represent the assumption of her soul. In Flemish 

 brasses the soul borne to heaven in an ample sheet 

 of drapery usually appears in the canopy work ; 

 and Abraham is often figured in these and others 

 as receiving the spirit into the abode of the blest. 

 It was considered a bold step in the Princess 

 Charlotte's monument at Windsor to sculpture 

 her soul soaring aloft from the breathless form 

 enveloped in drapery below; but a much more 

 daring achievement would it have been had symp- 

 toms of life been manifested in both. 



Many of these figures of every description 

 (two or three shrouded) clasp a heart in their 

 hands, either as indicative of their faith, for " with 

 the heart man believeth unto righteousness," or 

 rather, as has been ably argued, as the symbol of 

 a liberated soul. It is an extraordinary emblem 

 in any case, but utterly unaccountable in the 

 portraiture of animated beings. Of a sculptured 

 example we may mention that of Bishop Ethelmar 

 de Valence at Winchester ; and it may be added 

 that a singular effigy of a knight, discovered in 

 1833, in the isle of Sheppey, bears the little figure 

 of a soul in prayer carved in a mystic oval in his 

 hands, himself in an attitude of prayer. (^Archceo- 

 logical Journal, Dec. 1849, p. 351.) 



Small figures of bedemen or chantry-priests, 

 praying for the soul of the defunct, are at the feet 

 of Brian Fitzallan, 1302, Bedale, Yorkshire; and 

 also of William of Wykeham in Winchester Ca- 

 thedral. The sides of altar-tombs are often em- 

 bellished with figures of the offspring, as well as 

 with those of mourners or weepers frequently in 

 monastic habits, as whole convents have been 

 accustomed in Roman Catholic countries to form 

 a part in funeral processions. 



A pair of small angels in numerous instances 

 support the head or pillow, often bearing thuribles. 

 It is an easy task to connect these ministering 

 spirits with death, by a comparison with an old 

 miniature representing the ceremony of depositing 

 the body of Edward the Confessor in his tomb. 

 Two ecclesiastics support the head, and a bishop 

 is in the act of fumigating the corpse with censers 

 like the angels. (Shaw's Dresses, S^c. of the Middle 

 Ages.) A remarkable class of monuments not yet 

 appealed to, named semi-effigial, materially favour 

 this view of the case ; for in his work on the 

 Tombs of Elford, Staffordshire, they are thus 

 described : 



" Elford presents also an example of a' curious but un- 

 graceful fashion in monumental memorials, namely, an 

 efBgy represented as if the upper and the lower portion of 

 the coffin-lid were removed, so that the head and arms 

 are seen, and the feet below, the central part of the tomb 

 being closed over." 



