In that year Magna Charta being confirmed, and every man’s security better established, property became more dispersed, manors were in more divided hands, and the lords of them began to settle on their possessions in the country. In that age many parish churches were built, and it is not improbable that the care of a resting-place for their bodies, and monuments to preserve their memories, became more general and diffused.
In country parish churches, the ancient monuments are usually found either in the chancel, or in small chapels, or side aisles, which have been built by the lords of manors, and patrons of the churches, (which for the most part went together,) and being designed for burying places for their families, were frequently endowed with chantries, in which priests officiated, and offered up prayers for the souls of their founder and his progenitors.
The tracing out, therefore, of such founders, will frequently help us to the knowledge of an ancient tomb which is found placed near the altar of such chantries. If there are more than one, they are, probably, for succeeding lords, and where there have been found ancient monuments in the church, also, besides what are in such chapels or aisles, they may be supposed to have been erected in memory of lords, prior to the foundation of the buildings.
CROSS-LEGGED MONUMENTS.
The first species of monument, of which I propose to give the history, is that denominated cross-legged, from its having the recumbent effigy of the deceased upon it, represented in armour, with the legs crossed. During the Norman period of our history, the holy war, and vows of pilgrimage to Palestine, were esteemed highly meritorious. The religious order of laymen, the knights templars, were received, cherished, and enriched throughout Europe, and the individuals of that community, after death, being usually buried cross-legged, in token of the banner under which they fought, and completely armed in regard to their being soldiers, this sort of monument grew much in fashion, and though all the effigies with which we meet in that shape are commonly called knights templars, yet it is certain that many of them do not represent persons of that order; and Mr. Lethieullier says (Archæologia, vol. 2. p. 292) that he had rarely found any of these monuments which he could with certainty say had been erected to the memory of persons who had belonged to that community.
The order of knights templars had its rise but in the year 1118, and in 1134, we find Robert duke of Normandy, son of William the conqueror, represented in this manner on his tomb in Gloucester cathedral.[[60]]—Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, was represented thus on his fine tomb, which was in St. Paul’s cathedral, before the fire of London. And in the Temple church there still remain the cross-legged effigies of William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke, who died in 1219; William his son, who died in 1231; and Gilbert, another son, who died in 1241; none of whom it is believed were of the order of Templars.
If these monuments were designed to denote at least, that the persons, to whose memory they were erected, had been in the Holy Land, yet all who had been there did not follow this fashion, for Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster, second son of king Henry the third, had been there, and yet, as appears by his monument, still in being in Westminster-abbey, he is not represented cross-legged.[[61]] However, it seems to have been a prevailing fashion till the sixth year of Edward the second, 1312, when the order of Templars coming to destruction, and into the highest contempt, their fashions of all kinds seem to have been totally abolished.
By this it may be determined that all those effigies, either of wood or stone, which we find in country churches, whether in niches in the walls or on table tombs, and represented in complete armour, with a shield on the left arm, and the right hand grasping the sword, cross-legged, and a lion, talbot, or some animal couchant at the feet, have been set up between the ninth of Henry the third, 1224, and the seventh of Edward the second, 1313, and what corroborates this opinion is, that whenever any such figures are certainly known, either by the arms on the shield, or by uninterrupted tradition, they have always been found to fall within that period, and whenever, says Mr. Lethieullier in the before mentioned paper, I have met with such monument, totally forgotten, I have, on searching for the owners of the church and manor, found some person or other, of especial note, who lived in that age, and left little room to doubt but it was his memory which was intended to be preserved.
It must, however, be acknowledged that this sort of monument did not entirely cease after the year 1312, for there is one in the church of Leekhampton, in Gloucestershire, which, by tradition, is said to be for Sir John Gifford, who died possessed of that manor, in the third of king Edward the third, 1328.
The Rev. Dr. Nash, in his History of Worcester, has the following observations on this sort of monument:—“It is an opinion which universally prevails, with regard to the cross-legged monuments, that they were all erected to the memory of knights templars; now, to me, it is very evident that not one of them belonged to that order, but as Mr. Habingdon, in describing those at Alvechurch, hath justly expressed it, to ‘Knights of the Holy Voyage,’ for the order of knights templars followed the rule of the canons regular of St. Augustin, and as such were under a vow of celibacy. Now there is scarcely any one of these monuments which is certainly known for whom it was erected, but it is as certain that the person it represents was a married man.