54 THE CHURCH OF NORBURY. 



(An *CCCC seventy and three 



Yeres of our Lord passed in degree 



The body that beried is under this stone 



Of Nichol Fitzherbert Lord and Patrone 



Of Norbury with AUs the daughter of Henry Bothe 



Eight sonnes and five daughters he had in sothe 



Two sonnes and two daughters by Isabel his wyfe 



So seventeen Children he had in his lyfe 



This Church he made of his own expence 



In the joy of Heaven be his recompence 



And in moone (sic) of November the nineteenth dey 



He bequeathed his Soule to everlasting jey.) 



M. S. P. L."+ 

 In the chancel is an alabaster slab with the incised figure of 

 a priest under a canopy, in eucharistic vestments, and holding 

 a chalice. The stone is much worn, and only parts of the 

 marginal inscription are legible ; but sufficient remains to show 

 that Henry Prince, who was rector from 1466 to 1500, re-roofed 

 the chancel. This re-roofing and reconstruction of the western 

 end of the chancel became necessary owing to the rebuilding 

 of the nave, and a lower pitch of the chancel roof was adopted 

 to make it harmonise with the clerestoried nave. It would 

 probably be at this time that the chancel arch disappeared. 

 The absence of a chancel arch is a decidedly uncommon feature 

 of an old church in the Midlands, but the fifteenth century 

 church builders of Cornwall and North Devon usually did away 

 with this arch, and thus gave greater facilities for the erection 

 of elaborate screens and rood-lofts that were then becoming so 

 fashionable. When the chancel roof was lowered the side walls 

 were slightly raised, but the pointed edge to the battlements, 

 of peculiar and effective design, which I believe to be of four- 

 teenth century date, was happily retained and replaced. It 

 was suggested about the middle of last century, and is now 

 sometimes repeated, that the exceptional form of this parapet 

 was an imitation of the heraldic vaire, which occurs in the 

 arms of Fitzherbert of Norbury (Arg., a chief vaire, or and 

 gidcs, over all a bend sable). But irrespective of the extra- 

 vagant idea of imitating a mere fur, which was only equivalent 



* 5?V, the M being omitted. \ Harl. MSS. 3606, f. 21. 



