MONUMENTAL 

 EFFIGIES 



THE monumental effigies of Northamptonshire are conspicuous 

 and worthy items in the history of a well-favoured and historic 

 county. They comprise a remarkable collection of memorials, 

 not only of knights who took part in stirring times of English 

 medieval history, but of men who were conspicuous politically, legally 

 and socially in the spacious days of Elizabeth. In addition to these are 

 the striking abbatical figures at Peterborough, and the large proportion 

 of forty-four effigies of ladies out of a total of a hundred and eighteen 

 monumental effigies to be found in the county. 



It may be premised that the figures of knights, civilians and ladies 

 exhibit as good consecutive examples of changes in armour, habits and 

 dress as may be expected from the materials used by the sculptors ; that 

 as much attention was paid to detail as the nature of the different stones 

 employed allowed ; and that the likenesses were as good as the occasion 

 of the production of the different memorials would permit. 



The effigies, exclusive of two early abbots at Peterborough, run 

 with a fairly even average intervention of only a few years between each 

 example, from the middle of the thirteenth to about the end of the 

 seventeenth century, and it will be convenient to consider each example 

 with reference to the armour or costume exhibited, the public or 

 personal history of each individual being naturally dealt with in another 

 section of the history. These memorials are divided into two parts and 

 taken in chronological order, and it should be stated that their dates 

 have been considered as coinciding with the deaths of the individuals 

 commemorated unless otherwise expressed. 



Part I. comprises the monuments of the Gothic period proper. In 

 Part II., after treating of certain memorials of the time of the Early 

 Renaissance, and touching upon the effigies in legal costume, the 

 remaining figures in the county are dealt with in the more or less 

 modified manner that their gradually waning artistic or antiquarian 

 interest and other considerations suggest. 



393 



