A Lost Carved Cadaver Monument to a Member of the Norton Family at St Peter’s, Bristol

Abstract

The first English carved stone cadaver or transi monuments appear in the early 15th century. A subset were located on double-decker tombs, many still complete with biers displaying on the top level the recumbent effigy of the commemorated au vif and on the bottom level an effigy au mort. Forty-nine complete or partial carved transi effigies survive in England from the period to 1558, twenty-one of them part of double-decker monuments. To this corpus can now be added a lost carved double-decker example from St Peter’s church in Bristol, which was gutted by bombing in the Second World War.

Old photographs, drawings and church notes establish that the person commemorated by the cadaver tomb was an armigerous member of the Norton family of upwardly mobile merchants who occupied the Great House by St Peter’s church. From 1435 they had an established tradition of burial within the church, with four generations buried here during the period when the double-decker tomb was likely to have been commissioned. Stylistic comparisons with other cadaver monuments suggest that the effigy formerly at St Peter’s church most likely commemorates Thomas I (d. 1435) or Thomas II (d. 1449), probably the latter. This is early for such a cutting-edge monument, especially to a layman.

Keywords:

• Bristol
• monument
• merchant
• cadaver
• transi
• effigy
• double-decker

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Researching sources has been a great challenge during the lockdowns of 2020–21, as has restricted access to churches and archive centres. Bristol Archives staff, especially Mary Milton, have nonetheless been of huge help in providing references and documents remotely. I have also been greatly assisted with sources for this article by Jon Bayliss, Sarah Blick, Brian and Moira Gittos, Helen Gittos, Andrew Sargent and Philip Whittemore. Cameron Newham has been generous in the provision of illustrations. Finally, I am grateful to the two anonymous referees and the editor, all of whom made valuable suggestions for revisions to my text.

Notes

1 The terms ‘transi’ and ‘cadaver’ tomb are here used interchangeably. The standard published work remains K. Cohen, Metamorphosis of a Death Symbol: The Transi Tomb in the Late Middle Ages and the Renaissance (Berkeley 1973). Although sadly never published, an invaluable source is P. M. King, ‘Contexts of the Cadaver Tomb in Fifteenth-Century England’ (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, University of York, 1987), https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/4274/ (accessed 25 January 2021). Other useful sources include P. M. King, ‘The cadaver tomb in England: novel manifestation of an old idea’, Church Monuments, 5 (1990), 26–38; N. Saul, English Church Monuments in the Middle Ages. History and Representation (Oxford 2009), 311–34, and S. Oosterwijk, ‘Food for Worms — Food for Thought. The Appearance and Interpretation of the “Verminous” Cadaver in Britain and Europe’, Church Monuments, 20 (2005), 40–80, 133–40. Leaving aside many valuable articles on individual examples, recent important additions to the literature include A. Kinch, Imago Mortis: Mediating Images of Death in Late Medieval Culture, Visualising the Middle Ages, 9 (Leiden 2013); T. Tomani ed., Dealing with the Dead; Mortality and Community in Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Leiden 2018); and S. Perkinson and N. Turel ed., Picturing Death 1200–1600 (Leiden 2020).

2 Oosterwijk, ‘Food for Worms — Food for Thought’.

3 Saul, English Church Monuments, 314.

4 C. Welch, ‘Late Medieval Carved Cadaver Memorials in England and Wales’, in Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Time. The Material and Spiritual Conditions of the Culture of Death, ed. A. Classen (Berlin and Boston 2016), 373–410, at 398–400; C. Welch, ‘Exploring Late-Medieval Effigial Corpse, Carved Cadaver Sculptures’, in Dealing with the Dead, 331–65, at 357.

5 S. Badham, ‘Monumental Brasses and the Black Death — a Reappraisal’, Antiquaries Journal, 80 (2000), 207–47, at 225–26. See also S. Badham, “A Stone Carved with the Dead and Pitiable Body of my Crpse’: the Iconography and Meaning of Cadaver Monuments in Medieval Britain’, in Mors Incipit. The Genesis and Dissemination of the Danse Macabre in Medieval Europe. ed. S. Oosterwijk, C. Leglu and L. Ungeheuer (Brill, forthcoming). Although the inscription plate is intact, all that survives of the figure is the very faint indent of a shrouded demi-effigy with a plug for a fixing rivet, which proves that it too once contained brass inlay. The inscription has been translated by John Blair (pers. comm.) as ‘Man, come and see how all shall be dead: when you come corrupted and naked. Nothing [we] have when we go away: All is other mens’ that we care for; except what we do for God’s love, we have nothing there [i.e. in the next world]. Under this grave lies John the Smith May God grant his soul heaven’s peace’.

6 S. Badham, ‘Heart Imagery on Medieval English Brasses’, Monumental Brass Society Bulletin, 144 (2020), 867–69.

7 P. King, ‘The Treasurer’s Cadaver in York Minster Reconsidered’, in The Church and Learning in Later Medieval Society: Essays in Honour of R.B. Dobson, ed. C. M. Barron and J. Stratford, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 11 (Donington 2002), 196–209. However, this is disputed by S. Brown, ‘The Mystery of Neuton’s Tomb’, in 1414: John Neuton and the Re-Foundation of York Minster Library, ed. H. Vorholt and P. Young, June 2014, http://hoaportal.york.ac.uk/hoaportal/yml1414essay.jsp?id=10 (accessed 25 January 2021).

8 N. Turel, ‘Covert Apotheoses: Archbishop Henry Chichele’s Tomb and the Vocational Logic of Early Transis’, in Picturing Death, 234–52, is the most recent account, but the most authoritative remains C. Wilson, ‘The Medieval Monuments’, in A History of Canterbury Cathedral, ed. P. Collinson, N. Ramsay and M. Sparks (Oxford 1995), 451–510, at 476–81.

9 Cohen, Metamorphosis of a Death Symbol, 68.

10 S. Badham, ‘Status and Salvation: the Design of Medieval English Brasses and Incised slabs’, Transactions of the Monumental Brass Society, 15 (1996), 413–65, at 454–65; M. Norris, ‘Later Medieval Monumental Brasses: an Urban Funerary Industry and its Representation of Death’, in Death in Towns. Urban Responses to the Dying and Dead, 100–1600, ed. S. Bassett (Leicester 1992), 184–209 and 248–51; J. Barker, ‘The Speaking Tomb: Ventriloquizing the Voices of the Dead’, in Picturing Death, 129–63; and S. Badham, ‘“A Stone Carved with the Dead and Pitiable Body of my Corpse”: the Iconography and Meaning of Cadaver Monuments in Medieval Britain’, in Mors Incipit. The Genesis and Dissemination of the Danse Macabre Medieval Europe, ed. S. Oosterwijk, C. Leglu and L. Ungeheuer (Leiden and Boston, forthcoming).

11 F. Foyle, Pevsner Architectural Guides: Bristol (London 2004), 106; A. Gomme, M. Jenner and B. Little, Bristol, An Architectural History (Bristol 1979), 59; M. Smith, The Medieval Churches of Bristol (Bristol 1970), 3.

12 C. E. Boucher, ‘St Peter’s Church, Bristol’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 32 (1909), 260–300.

13 Boucher, ‘St Peter’s Church’, 271.

14 I. M. Roper, The Monumental Effigies of Gloucestershire and Bristol (Gloucester 1931), 136–49.

15 Historic England Archive, ref. OWS01/17/189, 17 October 1942, St Peter’s Church, Castle Park, City of Bristol, interior view, looking east along the north aisle; ref. OWS01/17/190, 17 October 1942, interior view, looking east along the south aisle. I am grateful to Andrew Sargent for these references. Bristol Archives, ref. 41969/1/48, dated 1940–44, shows the area where the cadaver was located, but although the Aldworth wall monument is shown and appears not to have significant damage, the cadaver is not to be seen. See also Smith, Medieval Churches, photos on central inserted pages.

16 C. T. Davis, The Monumental Brasses of Gloucestershire, facsimile edn (Bath 1969), 58–60.

17 W. Lack, H. M. Stuchfield and P. Whittemore, The Monumental Brasses of Gloucestershire (London 2005), 81–84.

18 Roper, Monumental Effigies, 148–49; I. M. Roper, ‘Effigies of Bristol’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 27 (1904), 51–116, at 98.

19 Bristol Archives, ref. postcards/135/6.

20 See https://www.fredlittle.co.uk/introduction (accessed 31 January 2021).

21 Bristol Archives, ref. pamphlet/447.

22 S. Stoddard, Bristol before the Camera: The City in 1820–30 (Bristol 2001), 5–7.

23 City of Bristol Collection: Braikenridge Topographical Collection, object no. M2672. I am grateful to Jon Bayliss for bringing this and the other drawing of the monument to my attention.

24 Roper, Monumental Effigies, 6, n. 2; Stoddard, Bristol before the Camera, 107–08.

25 City of Bristol Collection: Braikenridge Topographical Collection, object no. M2673.

26 Roper, Monumental Effigies, 1, n. 2. He is mentioned in passing in Suffolk Artists, ‘Holmes, Marcus Henry 1875–1951’, https://suffolkartists.co.uk/index.cgi?choice=painter&pid=1101 (accessed 30 January 2021).

27 Savage MS, 1669, Ashton Court, Somerset. The archives were relocated in Bristol Archives, but the staff are unable to locate the Savage church notes there or elsewhere. They may have been sold or gifted away some time ago.

28 J. Luxford, ‘The Double Cadaver Tomb at Denston, Suffolk: A Unique Object of European Significance’, The Ricardian, 26 (2016), 99–102.

29 The National Archive (henceforth TNA): SP 46/181/5. It was mentioned in passing in Saul, English Church Monuments, 319, but could not be accessed at that time. It has recently been discussed in J. Luxford, ‘John and Johanna Ormond’s Grave’, in Tributes to Paul Binski. Medieval Gothic: Art, Architecture and Ideas, ed. J. Luxford (London and Turnhout 2021), 150–61.

30 Luxford, ‘John and Johanna Ormond’s Grave’, 152.

31 W. Lack, H. M. Stuchfield and P. Whittemore, The Monumental Brasses of Derbyshire (London 1999), 1–2.

32 For example, S. Badham, ‘A tomb restoration of 1665 at Haversham (Buckinghamshire)’, Church Monuments Society Newsletter, 29/i (Autumn 2013), 17–18.

33 S. Badham, ‘A Cadaver Monument to a Member of the Leversedge Family in St John’s Church, Frome (Somerset)’, Church Monuments Society Newsletter, 37/i (Autumn 2021), 10–12; C. Welch, ‘“Chopping and Changing”; Exploring the Willoughby Carved Cadaver Monuments at St Leonard’s Church, Wollaton, Nottinghamshire’, Church Archaeology, 7 (2013), 63–78.

34 T. Woodcock, J. Grant and I. Graham, Dictionary of British Arms, Medieval Ordinary, 4 vols (London 1992–2014), II, 102.

35 L. S. Woolger, ‘Norton, Thomas (d. c. 1535) of Bristol’, in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386–1921, ed. S. Roskell, L. Clark and C. Rawcliffe, http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/norton-thomas-1435 (accessed 24 January 2021); T. P. Wadley, Notes on the Wills in the Great Orphan Book and Book of Wills, in the Council House at Bristol (Bristol 1886), 66, 87, 90, 92 and 93.

36 Wadley, Notes on the Wills, 26–28.

37 J. J. Simpson, ‘St. Peter’s Hospital’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 48 (1926), 193–226, at 193–94.

38 F. Neale ed., William Worcestre: The Topography of Medieval Bristol, Bristol Record Society, 51 (Bristol 2000), 101.

39 Woolger, ‘Norton, Thomas (d. c. 1535) of Bristol’; J. T. Driver, ‘Parliamentary Burgesses for Bristol and Gloucestershire 1422–1437’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 74 (1955), 60–127, at 99.

40 Woolger, ‘Norton, Thomas (d. c. 1535) of Bristol’.

41 Wadley, Notes on the Wills, 140; Driver, ‘Parliamentary Burgesses’, 99, citing Inquisition Post Mortem held at Wells.

42 TNA: PROB 11/17/495. See also B. Potter, ‘Norton, Thomas (fl. 1477)’, Dictionary of National Biography, 63 vols (London 1885–1900), XLI, 220–21.

43 TNA: PROB 11/22/389.

44 W. Barrett, The History and Antiquities of the City of Bristol, compiled from original records and authentic manuscripts, in public offices or private hands (Bristol 1789), 519.

45 Simpson, ‘St. Peter’s Hospital’, 207; L. H. Cust, ‘Norton, William’, Dictionary of National Biography, XLI, 225–26; TNA: PROB 11/83/1.

46 Simpson, ‘St. Peter’s Hospital’, 207; TNA: PROB 11/134/279.

47 Simpson, ‘St. Peter’s Hospital’, 207.

48 Ibid., 207.

49 M. Scott, A Visual History of Costume. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (London 1986) 77, 82, 84, 92. See also Monumental Brasses: The Portfolio Plates of the Monumental Brass Society 1894–1984 (Woodbridge 1988), passim.

50 S. Badham, ‘A Word for the Unwary: a Cadaver Monument in Southwark Cathedral’, https://churchmonumentssociety.org/monument-of-the-month/a-word-for-the-unwary-a-cadaver-monument-in-southwark-cathedral (accessed 18 May 2021); J. T. Smith, Antiquities of London and its Environs (London 1791), 55.

51 S. Tymms, Wills and Inventories from the Registers of the Commissary of Bury St Edmunds and the Archdeacon of Sudbury (London 1850), 38.

52 M. Rimmer, ‘Silver and Guilt: The Cadaver Tomb of John Baret of Bury St Edmunds’, JBAA, 172 (2019), 131–54.

53 J. Lee, ‘Tis the sheep have paid for all: Merchant Commemoration in Late Medieval Newark’, Monumental Brass Society Transactions, 19 (2017), 301–27, at 313–15.

54 J. Raine ed., Testamenta Eboracensia: A Selection of Wills From the Registry at York. Volume IV, Surtees Society, 103 (Durham 1869), 61–62: ‘Sep. in capella per me noviter in Holme constructa’.

55 Luxford, ‘Denston, Suffolk’.

56 W. Page ed., A History of the County of Suffolk, 2 vols (London 1975), II, 142, https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/suff/vol2/p142 (accessed 11 January 2022).

57 TNA, PROB 11/4/248; S. Chadbourne, ‘St Peter and St Paul, Northleach: mercantile patronage in fifteenth-century Gloucestershire’ (unpublished MA thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, 2015).

58 J. Lee, The Medieval Clothier (Woodbridge 2018), 211–14.

59 N. Saul, ‘The Wool Merchants and their Brasses’, Monumental Brass Society Transactions, 17 (2006), 315–35.

60 Saul, English Church Monuments, 374–78.