A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



would however be difficult to identify the 

 effigy because the members of this ancient 

 house who were connected with Braunston 

 at this period are known to have been buried 

 elsewhere. It can hardly be supposed that a 

 portrait is intended. 



. . . DeBernack, about 1300. Barnacle. 



This effigy lies under a coeval arch in the 

 wall of the north aisle, and is excellently 

 sculptured in Barnack rag. A lady is repre- 

 sented habited in a long gown with rather 

 loose sleeves. Over this is the supertunic 

 without sleeves, gathered up in full folds in 



the front, and fastened at will by a button on 

 either side just below the neck ; above this 

 garment is worn a mantle looped across the 

 breast with a cord, which has been held in 

 the right hand after the common fashion with 

 effigies of ladies of this period. The mantle 

 is caught up under each arm, and falls in a 

 multitude of graceful folds. The head is 

 covered with a crespine or net with a deep 

 scalloped edging, bound round the head and 

 fastened by a band under the chin. The hair 

 appears in wavy plaits under the caul, and a 

 short veil falling from it completes a very 

 picturesque head-dress. Both hands are broken 



(died 1272). That it is a portrait is proved by 

 the countenance of the king as exhibited at differ- 

 ent periods from youth to age on his Great Seals. 

 The brow of the effigy with so marked a frown of 

 triple creases, indicative of the feverish and anxious 

 life that was led, can hardly be taken as an im.ig- 

 inary creation of Torel. But even in the highest 

 quarters there was no fixed rule, for the latten 

 effigy of Queen Eleanor at Westminster (died I 290), 

 also by Torel, is a purely conventional figure. At 

 the time of her death the queen had reached 

 mature years, and had borne many children. 

 Torel's masterpiece represents a woman of about 

 twenty-six, and it has been considered that the 

 four graceful figures by William of Ireland on 

 Queen's Cross, Northampton, were inspired by it. 

 This is possible, but it must be borne in mind 

 that countless effigies throughout the country are 

 represented in much the same conventional atti- 

 tude as that shown in the queen's statue at 

 Westminster, though far from approaching it in 

 its singular and dignified beauty. 



Exceptional examples of portraiture are fur- 

 nished by some of the abbatical figures at Peter- 

 borough, doubtless executed from the life in the 

 monastery, or elsewhere, from careful clerical 

 instructions. And it is evident that in a few cases 

 in the county, which will be duly signalized, some 

 endeavour was made to give a degree of resem- 

 blance to the individual commemorated before 

 'lively effigies,' casts and painted portraits became 

 successively available to sculptors. It must always be 

 remembered that the carvers of the late thirteenth 

 and fourteenth centuries, accurately as they repre- 

 sented the armour and military attributes (imitating 

 of course only up to the point that was consistent 

 with the nature and capabilities of the material 

 under their hand) could have had, even under the 

 most favourable circumstances, very little to aid 

 them in attempting a portrait beyond a chance 

 suggestion given by relatives or friends of the dead 

 man or the artist's own recollection of particular 

 characteristics of countenance. Doubtless the 

 armour and its general details were as familiar to 

 the sculptor as the form of his own hosen, hood 

 and leather coat. These remarks .apply more to 

 the productions of schools of sculpture such as 

 existed, as Purbeck, Doulting and Barnack, than 

 to the humble workshops of stonemasons in 



villages, where the subjects of the effigies had been 

 personally known. 



Allusion must be made to the ' lively effigies * 

 carried in ancient funeral processions. These were 

 crude portrait statues which, although hastily made, 

 not only could have served subsequently as full- 

 sized models for sculptors, but were often so far 

 ' monumental effigies,' inasmuch as many great 

 personages had no other memorials. Towards the 

 end of the fourteenth century it became the practice 

 to bear a hastily-made ' lively effigy ' of the dead 

 man ' in his very robes of estate ' in the funeral 

 procession, and finally, when the obsequies were 

 finished, to place it temporarily in the church, 

 under or associated with its ' hcrse,' where it be- 

 came a source of great attraction to the vulgar, 

 supplying the place of the permanent effigy until 

 that was set up. The ' lively figures ' did away 

 with the exposure of the actual dead body at 

 the funeral, a practice which was attended with 

 much inconvenience. They were closely allied to 

 wooden effigies proper — of which there are ten 

 in Northamptonshire — and were perhaps first sug- 

 gested by them, inasmuch as their foundation was 

 a more or less rude wooden block, like a great 

 jointed doll. They were padded and made up to 

 the proper form, just as monstrous figures are con- 

 structed in the opera of a theatre for pantomimes 

 at the present day. The faces and hands alone 

 were treated with wax, or fine plaster {gesso), laid 

 over the roughly covered blocks, and fashioned 

 and tinted to the life. The figures were then 

 dressed in fair array with tinsel crowns, coronets 

 and further insignia of greatness, and must have 

 presented a somewhat barbaric spectacle. No 

 doubt there were many ' lively figures ' with their 

 ' herses ' in Northamptonshire churches. As time 

 went on so many of these tawdry structures, stand- 

 ing in different parts of a great church like that 

 of Peterborough, or Higham Ferrers, must have 

 added greatly to its picturesqueness and interest, 

 possibly not always conducing to reverence. 

 Figures from these sources in different stages of 

 dilapidation — not less valuable on that account — 

 from the rude wooden effigies of Plantagenet times 

 to the examples of the beginning of the present 

 century, still remain in the Abbey, remnants of 

 the once popular ' Waxworks,' under the name of 

 ' the Ragged Regiment.' 



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