Portfolio of Brasses
Each month we feature an article about a brass of particular interest.
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John Gigur
County: Lincolnshire
Date: 1504
November 2003
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November's brass of the month features a monument now in the north transept of the church of Holy Trinity, Tattershall, Lincolnshire. The brass has been relaid in a slab which has rivets of the inscription from another brass; the original slab no longer survives. All that remains of this composition is a figure of a priest, though it must originally have had at least an inscription. Many inscriptions on brasses were deliberately destroyed by iconoclasts during the Reformation, but in this case the cause was probably neglect. Eighteenth and nineteenth century accounts of the brasses at Tattershall...
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Joan, Lady Cromwell
County: Lincolnshire
Date: 1479
October 2003
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October's brass of the month commemorates Joan, Lady Cromwell, who died in 1479. It is one of three major canopied figures now in the north transept of the church of Holy Trinity, Tattershall, Lincolnshire.
Lady Cromwell is depicted in the ceremonial robes of a peeress: an ermine-trimmed sideless cote and a mantle held together by a jewelled clasp. She wears her hair loose, with a jewelled circlet, and wears an elaborate necklace. Her appearance can be compared with that of the ladies in waiting on Catherine de Valois in the scene of her marriage...
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Sir Richard Fitzlewes
County: Essex
Date: 1528
September 2003
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This month's featured brass is from Ingrave, Essex, though it was originally in the old church of West Horndon alias Thorndon. It is one of two brasses to the Lewes or FitzLewes family moved in 1731 for their better preservation.
Only the five main figures survive. Above their heads is an indent of a plate which contained religious imagery, perhaps a depiction of the Trinity. Below their feet, but not shown in the picture opposite, are two groups of children, one with 6 or 8 children and the other with 6 sons and 3 daughters. The...
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William Frith and John Bradwell
County: Berkshire
Date: 1386
August 2003
This month's featured brass is from Shottesbrooke, Berkshire in the virtually unaltered late Decorated church of St. John the Baptist, one of the finest small churches of the period in England. It was rebuilt in the 2nd quarter of the 14th century following the foundation by Sir William Trussell of a college at Shottesbrooke in 1337.
Trussell himself was buried in an eye-catching tomb with a relief effigy in the north transept. In front of it is a brass to his daughter and heiress, Margaret, wife of Sir Fulk Pembridge of Tong, Shropshire.
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John Lawe
County: Derbyshire
Date: c.1480
July 2003
This month's brass of the month feature is an incised slab, rather than a brass.
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All Saints church Derby was one of that important class of establishments known as Collegiate Churches or Secular Colleges, which in the later Middle Ages came to outnumber monasteries, and to displace them as the most common setting for religious community life. Members lived together and celebrated the eight-hour Divine Office in choir together, like monks, but unlike monks they had a pastoral and teaching role in the local community, and were permitted to own private property in moderation. The canons, fellows, chaplains or...
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Adam Ertham
County: Sussex
Date: 1382
June 2003
This brass commemorates Adam Ertham, who died in 1382. It is the earliest of a magnificent series of 17 brasses and 8 relief tombs in the Fitzalan Chapel at Arundel, Sussex. The chapel is a remarkable survival of a chantry choir attached to a parochial nave, in this case the parish church of St. Nicholas. It formed the eastern portion of the former College of the Holy Trinity, founded by Richard Earl of Arundel, in 1380, out of the confiscated lands and income of the alien Priory of St. Nicholas, a cell of the Abbey of Seez, Normandy, which...
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Richard & Margaret Torryngton
County: Hertfordshire
Date: c.1389-90
May 2003
This brass commemorates Richard Torryngton, a prosperous London wool-merchant, who exported wool with his partner, John Norborw. He died in 1356. His wife Margaret Incent died in 1349, presumably a victim of the Black Death.What survives of the brass shows the pair in civilian dress, a fragment of the marginal inscription and two shields The arms above his head are those of Torryngton, also once seen in the east window of the north transept aisle: Silver a cross fretty gules between in chief a saltire engrailed and a double cross formy azure. The arms above her head...
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Sir Thomas Stathum & wives Elizabeth and Thomasine
County: Derbyshire
Date: 1470
April 2003
This brass commemorates Sir Thomas Stathum, d. 1470, and his two wives, Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Langley esq., and Thomasine, daughter of John Curzon esq.. It is one of a series of brasses in this church to members of the Stathum family, who were Lords of the Manor of Morley, Derbyshire and most of whom recorded on their brass building works and contributions to the fabric of St Mathews church and other good works they carried out in the town.Sir Thomas had very clear ideas as to how he wished to be commemorated. In his will he...
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George Rede
County: Wiltshire
Date: 1504
This brass commemorates George Rede, who was rector of Fovant, Wiltshire from 1473 to his resignation in 1504. The inscription reads, in translation 'Pray for the soul of George Rede, formerly Rector of the Church of Fovant at the time of the building of the new tower there, AD 1492, on whose soul God have mercy Amen'. This indicates that it was not laid down by his executors after his death, as was the norm at this time, but was commissioned by Rede himself, probably around the time that the building works to the tower were completed.
The brass which Rede...
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Nicholas Gaynesford
County: Surrey
Date: 1498
This brass commemorates Nicholas Gaynesford, who died in 1498, and his wife, Margaret (nee Sidney), died 1503. Gaps are left in the inscription for the dates of death, showing that the brass was engraved in the lifetime of the pair, probably 1480-5, and so shows them as they personally wished to be represented. He is shown in armour and she in a butterfly headdress and gown with a collar of Suns and Roses, denoting allegiance to the Yorkist dynasty. The brass forms the back panel of a high tomb on the north side of the old Chancel of Carshalton church.
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