6 - Afterlife

Summary

Damaged, fragmentary and lost monuments have featured in discussions throughout this book where we know enough about them to make valid comments, and in chapter one it was noted that we can never be sure how many monuments have been lost without a trace. It is the purpose of this chapter to attempt to build a picture of those losses and attacks, when they occurred, and under what circumstances. But this is not only a tale of destruction. It is also one of survival, and many of our remaining monuments have gone through periods of neglect or removal, followed by restoration and protection, or have simply been left where they are since the original reason for their existence was partially invalidated at the Reformation. They have been studied for different purposes, and successive generations, forgetting how to interpret them through medieval eyes, have spun tales about them and their subjects which in some cases have passed into local lore. These different forms of ‘afterlife’ are the subject of this chapter.

Loss of and damage to tomb monuments have traditionally been ascribed to two bouts of iconoclasm: the first in the mid sixteenth century during the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the Edwardian Reformation, and the second during the civil wars of the seventeenth century. Phillip Lindley has outlined the process by which medieval monuments became the targets of iconoclastic fury, and has written extensively about the destruction of the tombs at Abergavenny, an account which will not therefore need to be repeated here. The attacks occasioned by the Dissolution of the Monasteries from 1536 to 1539 had a disproportionate effect on the memorials of the clergy and since, at this stage, it was the material value rather than the spiritual sensibilities of the monuments that sealed their fate, those of the laity that had received monastic burial were also plundered. The denial of the doctrine of purgatory in 1547 and the subsequent banning of prayers for the dead did away with the need for chantries, colleges and other intercessory institutions and introduced a doctrinal element into the onslaught on Catholic institutions.