5 - Secular Concerns

Summary

Commemorative monuments are, by their very nature, explicit about the status and general social identity of the people who commissioned or are represented by them. But whoever the patron might be, whether the deceased, family members or executors, the extent of his or her creative involvement must be a matter of conjecture in the absence of documentation. To what extent did patrons expect to be able to influence or direct the final appearance of the monument in order to obtain a bespoke memorial, or were they happy to have an ‘off-the-peg’ product that merely complied with the general requirements of gender, vocation and social status? There is evidence for both extremes of creative input in south Wales, and for a range of attitudes in between.

PATRONAL INVOLVEMENT, STATUS, IDENTITY AND CHOICE

PATRONAL INVOLVEMENT

There are some well-known examples of English patrons exhibiting a high degree of interest in monument design, indicating that they had fairly precise requirements for how the finished article should look. About a dozen contracts between patron and craftsman have survived from the late fourteenth century to the early sixteenth. One of these, an indenture concluded in 1421 between Richard Hertcombe and the alabastermen Thomas Prentys and Robert Sutton for the tomb of the earl and countess of Salisbury at Bisham (Berkshire), lays down the look of the monument in some detail. A ‘patron’, or pattern, had already been drawn up on which the finished product was to be based. Its dimensions, the form of the head- and foot-rests, canopies and angels were all specified, as was the price (forty-three marks), method of payment and date for completion. Such plans presuppose a certain degree of intended involvement in, or even control over, the look of the finished monument on the part of the commissioners. Other monuments, for which no contract or will survives, sometimes point to specific criteria having been insisted upon by the patron. The rather unusual features of the tomb of Oliver, Lord Ingham (d.1344), at Ingham (Norfolk), including his twisting pose, bed of stones and angels supporting the great helm, have been seen as being ‘specially chosen to reflect Oliver's sense of how he wanted to be remembered’.