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Abstract
Wooden tomb effigies are now rare in England and Wales, although it is likely that they were once relatively common. Of the total of 120 known examples, only ninety-three survive. The other twenty-seven documented figures have been lost or destroyed owing to woodworm, fire, iconoclasm, theft and the general misuse that has beset this monumental type. Most remaining examples are mere skeletons of their original state, with any surface decoration worn away or cleaned off over the centuries, leaving only bare wood with perhaps traces of polychromy in crevices. A minority are now painted, but most do not display the original surface finish.
The effigies at Goudhurst (Kent) to Sir Alexander Culpepper (d. 1541) and his second wife were thought to have been similarly overpainted, but new evidence from recent pigment analysis using polarized light microscopy shows that this was probably only partial. Physical and documentary evidence throw much light on the dating of the monument, the two effigies of which were produced at different times, the older parts dating to 1537. A detailed assessment of the memorial and its comparanda underlines the unique nature of the pair.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am grateful to Jon Bayliss, François-Xavier Bon, David Carrington, Derrick Chivers, Alan Gilchrist, Philip Lankester, Becky Loughead (Librarian, Society of Antiquaries), Valentine Walsh and Brigitte Webster for providing invaluable help and advice. Mark Downing, Brian and Moira Gittos and Cameron Newham have kindly provided excellent photographs. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions for improvements to the text.
Notes
1 For Constance’s natal family of Chamberlain of Barnham Broom, Norfolk.
2 The Culpepper family had Hadreshull ancestors. Their arms were formerly also shown in the window in which the tomb is set (see below).
3 Lisle of Rougemont’s arms are or a fess between two chevrons sable: S. Flower ed., Dictionary of British Arms: Medieval Ordinary, III (London 2009), 385–86). I am at a loss to explain why these arms should appear associated with Sir Alexander. However, the field may be incorrectly painted or re-painted. Dictionary of British Arms, III, 381–86, provides other possibilities with different tinctures but none are of families known to be connected with Culpepper. As noted below (note 5), no Inquisition Post Mortem survives for him, possibly because he did not hold any lands in chief. Might he instead have held his manors from Lord Lisle?
4 E. Hasted, ‘The Hundred of West or Little Barnefield: The parish of Goudhurst (part)’, in The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 7 (Canterbury 1798), 73–88, British History Online, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol7/pp73-88; Col F. W. T. Attree and the Revd J. H. L. Booker, ‘The Sussex Colepepers’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 47 (1904), 47–81, at 57–60.
5 The Inquisitions Post Mortem for Henry VII’s reign have not yet been published. However, Olivia Gecseg, Remote Enquiries Duty Officer, National Archives, undertook a search of the full catalogue on my behalf. The only entry for a Sir Alexander Culpepper based in Kent recorded, C 142/262/108, is dated 1599–1600 and evidently concerns a descendant of the man commemorated by the monument under discussion. One possible explanation for the absence of one for Sir Alexander (d. 1541) is that he did not hold in chief, a problem common with Kent landowners. There are, however, lands in the Midlands, which came to him through the Hadreshull line of descent.
6 For the display of achievements near monuments after an heraldic funeral, see S. Badham, ‘Heraldic Funerals’, Last Rites: Ecclesiology Today (2023, forthcoming).
7 London, The National Archives (TNA), PROB 11/28/527.
8 TNA, PROB 11/29/217.
9 P. Lindley, Tomb Destruction and Scholarship. Medieval Monuments in Early Modern England (Donington 2007), 4–52.
10 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Aubrey 4, fol. 40 (rubbing of lost brass).
11 R. Emmerson, ‘Margaret Paston’s Brass’, Monumental Brass Society Bulletin, 17 (February 1978), 13–14.
12 P. Northeast, Wills of the Archdeaconry of Sudbury 1439–1471: I, Suffolk Record Society, 44 (Woodbridge 2001), 309.
13 W. D. Belcher, Kentish Brasses, 2 vols (London 1888 and 1905), II, 57–59.
14 A transcription of the inscription is in Society of Antiquaries of London, MS 497A, Church Notes with Drawings, East Kent, by Sir Edward Dering of Surrenden (d. 1644), fol. 97. The composition also included two shields with the arms three martletts on a bend. I am grateful to Derrick Chivers for checking the manuscript on my behalf.
15 The copy of the inscription in Society of Antiquaries of London, MS 497A, fol. 97, records that ‘under his feete are five little figures inscribed Alexander Colepepyr, Joyse Colepepyr, Isabella Colepepyr, Margareta Colepepyr, Elizabetha Colepepyr. Three escotcheons there were, but now torne out’. The wording of the inscription was also transcribed.
16 It is mentioned in Constance’s will: TNA, PROB 11/29/217.
17 C. R. Councer, Lost Glass from Kent Churches, Kent Archaeological Society Records, 22 (Maidstone 1980), 57, citing Society of Antiquaries of London, MS 497A, fol. 93.
18 Society of Antiquaries of London, MS 497A, fol. 100.
19 Society of Antiquaries of London, MS 497A, fol. 97, merely records ‘In a particular little chappell belonging to Beggebury house two figures of wood for Sir Alexander Culpepper and …’ with the rest not elaborated upon.
20 TNA, PROB 11/28/527.
21 TNA, PROB 11/29/217.
22 S. James, Women’s Voices in Tudor Wills, 1485–1603: Authority, Influence and Material Culture (London and New York 2015), 27–28.
23 In May 2023 the wooden effigies at Wingfield, Suffolk, to Michael de la Pole, 2nd earl of Suffolk (d. 1415), and his wife Katherine, daughter of the earl of Stafford (d. 1419) underwent conservation to rid the lady’s effigy of deathwatch beetle infestation. Both effigies were removed from their stone tomb-chest and it was revealed that they were both hollowed out. I am grateful to David Carrington for this information.
24 A. Fryer, Wooden Monumental Effigies in England and Wales (London 1924), 89.
25 V. Walsh, ‘Condition Report and Analysis of Paint Samples. Recommendations for Conservation of the Culpepper Tomb Effigies, St Mary Goudhurst’ (unpublished report, July 2019). I am most grateful to the author for permitting me to cite key findings.
26 Fryer’s list requires one modification. The lady he recorded at Tawstock (Devon) is now in Barnstaple Museum (Devon) and is attributed to Lady Margaret Audley (d. 1373). I thank Brian and Moira Gittos for this information.
27 G. Marshall, ‘Wooden Monumental Effigies in Herefordshire’, Woolhope Society Transactions, no volume (1918–20), 189–95, at 193–95.
28 Ibid., 190–91 and 193–94.
29 Both are illustrated in C. B. Newham, Country Church Monuments (London 2022), 516. The will of George Oglander (TNA, PROB 11/252/347) provides an insight into the cost of this tomb type: ‘ITEM I further give towards the erecting a tombe, for my father, Sir William Oglander and my selfe my father’s to be placed on the south side of my chancell, to the east of Mr. John Oglander's tombe and my inscription of brasse in my studdy to be sett in it and the statue in my house to be placed thereon. And my owne tombe to be sett at the east end of my greate Grandfather, Oliver Oglander’s with the statue allready in my Chancell to be placed theron And an inscription of brasse to be sett on the tombe showinge when my selfe and wife dyed and the command I have had. And my sonne Georgess statue, who dyed at Cawne in Normandy to be placed in the arch I made over the place I intend to be buryed in, with the frame in my studdy to be new written I made in memory of him with an Inscription in brasse to be sett over it showing whome he was, the time and place he dyed in for all which I give the summe of twenty and five pounds. And I charge my executor not to faile in the sudden doinge of it all things beinge allmost provided by my selfe which if he performes not in two yeares then I give the twenty five pounds to my sonne John and hee to see it done within halfe a yeare’.
30 Fryer, Wooden Monumental Effigies, 82–83.
31 Ibid., 17 and 94–95.
32 Ibid., 76 and figs 50–51.
33 Ibid., 17 and 103.
34 Ibid., 17 and 97.
35 Brian and Moira Gittos, Interpreting Medieval Effigies: The Evidence from Yorkshire to 1400, 2 vols (Oxford 2021), II, Appendix, catalogue, 165.
36 Fryer, Wooden Monumental Effigies, 92; W. Rye, Early Recumbent Figures on Monuments in Norfolk Before 1500 (Norwich 1916), 13.
37 Fryer, Wooden Monumental Effigies, 16 and 71–72.
38 Ibid., 16 and 82.
39 Ibid., 95–96.
40 Ipswich, Suffolk Record Office (SROI), HD2418-51, fol. 296.
41 Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Gough Suffolk 7, fol. 48.
42 SROI, HD2418-51, fol. 296.
43 Fryer, Wooden Monumental Effigies, 91; Rye, Early Recumbent Figures, 2–3. Thomas Kerrich (1748–1828) drew the figure in 1779: London, British Library, Kerrich MS Collection 6730, fols 13–20.
44 Fryer, Wooden Monumental Effigies, 100.
45 Historic England listing: https://britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/101383422-church-of-st-mary-burford#.Y3KBKsvP2Uk (accessed 14 November 2022).
46 Will made 14 December 1522 but proved 4 January 1534/5: A Selection of Wills at the Registry at York, ed. J. Raine, Surtees Society, 5 (York 1884), 159–62. According to Yorkshire Church Notes 1619–1631 by Roger Dodsworth, ed. J. W. Clay, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, 31 (York 1904), 70, the inscription did not include a date of death, suggesting that Rockley may have commissioned it in his own lifetime. The armour shown is not sufficiently reliable to help dating.
47 J. Price, An Historical Account of the City of Hereford (Hereford 1795), 194–95. Marshall, ‘Wooden Monumental Effigies’, 185, n. 6, observes that ‘Blount says (MS. copy at Belmont, p. 94) “Richard Walwyn … in K. Edw. III. time married Joane, the daughter and heyr of Walter Helion, of Helion, now called Helens, which has been the inheritance of the Walwyns ever since and is now their chief seat. These Helions bore vert a bend cotised or charged with 3 stags heads proper. Sir Walter Helion of this family had been in the Holy War and lay buried crossleged in Asperton (sic) chancel, which monument was removed from thence to Helyon when the chancel some years since fell down. This Walter Helyon married Agnes, the daughter and heir of Walter Walch. If the above refers to the wooden effigy which it may well do, it is wrongly ascribed to Sir Walter Helyon, instead of to his descendant of the same name, a likely error. Further in support of the effigy not having belonged to Much Marcle Church is the fact that there is now no indication of where it could have originally been placed. There is now no other cross-legged effigies in Much Marcle Church, or at Hellens”’.
48 Fryer, Wooden Monumental Effigies, 87.
49 B. W. Spencer, ‘A fourteenth-century wooden effigy from Much Marcle’, Antiq. J., 53 (1973), 166–67.
50 S. Boldrick, D. Park and D. Williamson, Wonder. Painted Sculpture from Medieval England (Leeds 2002), 50–51.
51 C. A. Stothard, The Monumental Effigies of Great Britain (London 1817), 32 and pl. 57.
52 S. Badham, ‘The Use of Sedimentary “Marbles” for Church Monuments in Pre-Reformation England’, Church Archaeology, 11 (2009), 1–34; S. Badham and G. Blacker, Northern Rock: the Use of Egglestone Marble for Monuments in Medieval England, British Archaeological Reports, 480 (Oxford 2009).
53 Spencer, ‘Effigy from Much Marcle’, 266.
54 H. S. Cuming, ‘On Sepulchral Effigies of Wood’, JBAA, 32 (1876), 414–17, at 416.
55 S. Badham, ‘The Rise to Popularity of Alabaster for Memorialisation in England’, Church Monuments, 31 (2016), 11–67.
56 N. Ramsay, ‘Alabaster’, in English Medieval Industries. Craftsmen, Techniques, Products, ed. J. Blair and N. Ramsay (London 1991).
57 A. Brodrick and J. Darrah, ‘The Fifteenth Century Polychromed Limestone Effigies of William Fitzalan, 9th Earl of Arundel, and his wife, Joan Neville, in the Fitzalan Chapel, Arundel’, Church Monuments, 1/ii (1986), 66–94.