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England's
unique heritage is distilled through its many diverse parish churches
- and indeed captured in the monumental brasses laid down between
the 13th and 18th centuries.
English
monumental brasses were a form of memorial cut from flat sheets
of latten (an alloy of copper and zinc) and set into large stone
tablets that were in turn positioned into church floors. They were
also set into the surface of chest tombs that were prominently sited
within the church. They not only depicted mortal aspects such as
social status, profession and perhaps achievements but also invited
prayers to be said for their departed souls.
As
brasses became more fashionable and brought within wider - but still
limited - financial reach, so styles changed. Consisting of one
or more individual figures, a brass could be a plain and simple
depiction or feature elaborate devices such as rich canopies overarching
the person(s), inscriptions, heraldic shields, prayer scrolls and
groups of children - according to perhaps status and historical
period. Size also varied dramatically - from less than 12 inches
high (30 Cms) to almost nine feet (274 Cms)- the height of the largest
surviving English brass. The advent of central workshop production
reduced the previous formidable cost of manufacture, enabling a
wide spectrum of English society to be commemorated over four centuries
- from powerful knights and nobles to parish priests, tradesmen
an even Oxford students. Many of the smaller brasses celebrate people
of whom we would otherwise know nothing.
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