Christian monuments in England and Wales : an historical and descriptive sketch of the various classes of sepulchral monuments which have been in use in this country from about the era of the Norman conquest to the time of Edward the Fourth . of very early date, the surface is deco-rated with a profusion of sculpture, which sometimes also coversthe sides of the coffin itself; but more generally a cross was sculp-tured in low relief upon the stone, the ridge of the coping formingthe stem of the cross. This symbol is also found to have beenincised or engraved upon early coffin-lids, as well as e
Christian monuments in England and Wales : an historical and descriptive sketch of the various classes of sepulchral monuments which have been in use in this country from about the era of the Norman conquest to the time of Edward the Fourth . of very early date, the surface is deco-rated with a profusion of sculpture, which sometimes also coversthe sides of the coffin itself; but more generally a cross was sculp-tured in low relief upon the stone, the ridge of the coping formingthe stem of the cross. This symbol is also found to have beenincised or engraved upon early coffin-lids, as well as executed inrelief; and again, many examples occur, in the decoration of whichparts of the design are incised, while other parts are sculptured inrelief. In many slabs of this last-named description, by cuttingaway the adjoining surface of the stone, parts of the design arefound to have been produced in apparent relief, though really theyare in the same level with the face of the slab itself. quent erection: the stone coffin combined the walls of the church. Such slabs may the two purposes. now not uncommonly be found forming 1 These were evidently designed to be the sill to the church doorway,placed in immediate connexion with one of e. 10 CHRISTIAN MONUMENTS While the use of the coffin-tomb of stone was, for the mostpart, appropriated to the more costly interments of the higherclasses in society, commemorative slabs were habitually laid downin churches in the pavement, above the remains of persons whowere buried at some depth below the surface of the ground, andin most cases without any coffin whatsoever: they were also,without doubt, still more commonly placed within churches, asmemorials of those whose remains were interred in the burial-grounds adjoining the sacred edifices; or, again, these slabs wereoccasionally placed above the graves in the churchyards them-selves. It may be confidently asserted, that incised slabs of memorialwere once very common in our churches, partic
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1850, booksubjectsepulchralmonuments
