Approximately 8,000 brasses have survived - a small fraction of what once existed and now mainly concentrated in the southern and eastern counties of England where wool and trade with the continent created the considerable wealth required to have a brass made between the 13th and 15th centuries.

Walk through a cathedral now, and you will notice almost complete pavements of empty indented slabs where brasses would have once been. Lincoln, for example, has over two hundred empty slabs - not one brass survives. Brasses were victims of iconoclasm down the centuries but particularly during the English reformation and Cromwellian eras when cartloads of brasses were ripped up and melted down. Further neglect in the eighteenth century and ill-advised renovations in the nineteenth century accounted for even more losses

However, those brasses that remain date mainly from the late 13th to the mid-17th century and depict a great cross-section of the community that came to afford them.

Whilst very large and elaborate brasses commemorate the nobility, knights, church dignatories and successful merchants, many smaller brasses mark people of whom we would otherwise known nothing such as parish priests, monks, tradesmen and even Oxford students.

Brasses also chronicle the changes in costume, armour and weapons whilst the accompanying inscriptions provide insights into language, family life and social history.

Rememberance in perpetuity was important for the wealthy and powerful and many churches simply became crowded with sculpted stone effiges, some of which, survive today. Incised stone slabs set into the floor also became quickly worn. Brasses proved to be a solution as they were durable, elegant and very costly.

The earliest surviving brass can be found in Germany at the church of St Andrew, Verden. It commemorates Bishop Ysowilpe and dates from 1231. In contrast to the Flemish plate picture brasses to be found on the continent, a style of figure brass comprising separate components evolved in England. Sir John D'Aubernoun, located at Stoke D'Abernon, Surrey, is the earliest surviving brass in England and laid down in 1277.