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Episcopal Tombs in Early Modern England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2004

PETER SHERLOCK
PETER SHERLOCK
Affiliation:
Dr Peter Sherlock, Department of History, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia; e-mail: sherlock@unimelb.edu.au
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Abstract

The Reformation simultaneously transformed the identity and role of bishops in the Church of England, and the function of monuments to the dead. This article considers the extent to which tombs of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century bishops represented a set of episcopal ideals distinct from those conveyed by the monuments of earlier bishops on the one hand and contemporary laity and clergy on the other. It argues that in death bishops were increasingly undifferentiated from other groups such as the gentry in the dress, posture, location and inscriptions of their monuments. As a result of the inherent tension between tradition and reform which surrounded both bishops and tombs, episcopal monuments were unsuccessful as a means of enhancing the status or preserving the memory and teachings of their subjects in the wake of the Reformation.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , October 2004 , pp. 654 - 680
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

PRO=Public Record Office; TNA=The National Archives
I would like to thank Craig D'Alton, Felicity Heal, Clive Holmes, Ralph Houlbrooke, Judith Maltby, Keith Thomas and the anonymous reader for this JOURNAL for their comments on this article. An earlier version of the paper was originally presented to the Institute of Historical Research seminar ‘The religious history of Britain from the 15th to the 18th centuries’ and I thank the convenors and participants for their generous invitation and responses.