128 NOTES ON FENNY BENTLEY CHURCH. 



modern and evil times, a fatal treatment of woodwork, old or 

 modern. 



The next object in importance is the alabaster altar tomb of 

 Thomas Beresford and his wife, who died respectively in 1473 

 and 1467. This is a remarkable memorial in more ways than 

 one. It commemorates a distinguished warrior, who fought at 

 Agincourt, and rendered much service to Henry VI. during his 

 wars in France, and for whom he is said to have raised a troop of 

 horse from his own and his sons' retainers, which he mustered at 

 Chesterfield. He was the first of the Beresfords who settled at 

 Bentley, and either he or his immediate successor built the 

 ancient hall, part of which is still standing, in the form of a low 

 castellated tower, now incorporated with later buildings, and 

 occupied as a farm house. This is seen on the right hand, below 

 the church, on the road from Ashbourne to Bentley. 



It was not an unusual thing for a monument to be set up 

 during the lifetime of the person commemorated, but it is very 

 unusual that such a record should be made so many years after 

 his death. It was impossible for the sculptor to give, from 

 personal knowledge, a likeness of the deceased soldier and his wife, 

 his armour, or her costume, and from the state of the arts at the 

 time there would have been no portrait to follow, save such as 

 might have been introduced into a specially illuminated book, 

 not perhaps available. So the " marbler " very wisely chose to 

 represent his subjects in habits which he well knew they must 

 have worn, their last earthly garb — their shrouds. In the Middle 

 Ages the common people were buried without coffins, and only in 

 their shrouds drawn together and tied above the head and below 

 the feet. The higher classes were buried in coffins of stone or 

 wood, the bodies in earlier times being salted and wrapped in 

 leather ; later, the dead carcass was embalmed and covered witli 

 cere cloth — " cered, and chested." The simple fashion of burying 

 in a shroud only, tied like the Bentley examples, was continued 

 for the lower orders until the time of Charles 11., when the 

 enactments concerning burial in woollen cloth somewhat altered 

 the mode of la)ing out. These unchested bodies necessitated 



