NOTES ON FENNY BENTLEY CHURCH. 129 



the use of a bier for carrying the body to the grave's actual side, 

 and the early interment after death of uncofifined corpses. The 

 gradual growth of a tomb, from the stone coffin level with the 

 pavement and the effigy carved on the lid, to the high altar tomb 

 with, or without an effigy, is very interesting. Up to the end of the 

 fifteenth century, the bodies of important persons were laid above 

 ground, within the altar tomb, but it was a practice that was 

 attended with much inconvenience, and was entirely abandoned 

 before the middle of the sixteenth century. 



The altar-tomb now became a cenotaph, and it is a cenotaph 

 and not a tomb which forms the monument of Thomas Beresford 

 and his wife. If the tomb stands in its original place, it is most 

 likely immediately over the grave, and no doubt Thomas Beres- 

 ford and his wife were tied up just as the effigies represent them, 

 and placed in the earth in stone coffins, or, as was sometimes the 

 case, in tombs built up with sides of stone, with a bed of sand 

 beneath, for the more rapid consumption of the remains. 



As to the effigies themselves, they are carved in alabaster, and 

 the human form is well expressed beneath the shroud, and 

 showing the — 



" Hands in resignation pressed, 

 Palm to palm on the tranquil breast." 



They are probably the work of an Italian. 



Along the verge of the upper slab is a very interesting series 

 of military trophies, which sufficiently give the date of the erection 

 of the monument, and which, from these evidences, must be 

 about 1550. Taking them in their order from the north-west 

 corner, we have in succession : — Cross trumpets, a standard, a 

 combed morion, a drum, cross partizans, a targe, an armet, cross 

 gauntlets, cross batons, a cabasset, a back piece, a breast piece, a 

 shield, a sword crossed with a falchion, and a casque. These 

 are strung or carried on a flat cord or band, with ties or bows at 

 intervals, and are all forms of military equipment well known to 

 antiquaries who are acquainted with Burgmaier's "Triumph of 

 Maximilian," or who have paid attention to the armour of the 

 time of Henry VIII. The series of twenty-one children, all clad 

 9 



