The Bishop, the Young Lion and the Two-headed Dragon: The Burghersh Memorial in Lincoln Cathedral

  • Anne M. Morganstern
Chapter

Abstract

Following a challenge to the usual interpretation of many Gothic tombs with “weepers” or “pleurants” as mere abbreviated versions of the fully developed funeral ceremony or procession, three tombs for members of the Burghersh Family are related to the chantry established in Lincoln Cathedral by Bishop Henry Burghersh in 1332 and expanded by his brother, Sir Bartholomew, in 1345. The heraldry represented on the Burghersh tombs is identified and correlated with commendations of family members and benefactors in the chantry prayers. While ten clerks participating in the celebration of the Mass seem to be represented in the arcade decorating the bishop’s tomb chest, family members and associates occupy a comparable position on the tomb chests of his brother, Sir Bartholomew, and their father, Sir Robert Burghersh. The choice of the persons represented on the tombs is shown to have been conditioned by political concerns, and to reflect the Burghersh’s involvement in the tumultuous events leading to the ruin of King Edward II, and the restitution effected by his son and successor, Edward III.

Keywords

Royal Family Funeral Ceremony Funeral Procession Archivo General Crown Prince 
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Notes

  1. 1.
    Anne McGee Morganstern, “The Genealogical Tomb: Thirteenth to Fifteenth Century”, Center 3. Research Reports and Records of Activities, Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (1983), pp. 65–66.Google Scholar
  2. 3.
    The French historian, Michel Bur, has led this research with “Les Comtes de Champagne et la ‘Normanitas’: Sémiologie d’un tombeau”, Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies, vol. 3, 1980, pp. 22–32; “L≐image de la parenté chez les comtes de Champagne”, Annales, vol. 38, 1983, pp. 1016–39; and “Une célébration sélective de la parentèle. Le tombeau de Marie de Dreux à Saint-Yved de Braine (XIIIè s.)”, Comptes Rendus de l’Académie d’Inscriptions (1991), pp. 301–18. My own investigations have run parallel to Professor Bur’s, as announced in “Art in the Service of Diplomacy: Some aspects of the Patronage of Philip the Good, Duke of Bur-gundy”, at the conference Court Patronage and the Arts, Eleventh Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, The Ohio State University 1980.Google Scholar
  3. 5.
    Dictionary of National Biography from the earliest times to 1900, 22 vols., London 1950 (DNB), vol. 3, pp. 335–336. According to the Vita Edwardi Secundi, trans. N. Denholm-Young, London 1957, p. 105, he was not yet 25.Google Scholar
  4. 6.
    Lincolnshire Arch., Bishop’s Reg. IV, fol. 39-40v; trans. in C.W. Foster and A. Hamilton Thompson, “The Chantry Certificates for Lincoln and Lincolnshire...”, Lincolnshire Architectural and Archeological Society Reports and Papers, vol. 36, 1922, pp. 207–210.Google Scholar
  5. 7.
    “...domini Roberti de Burghersch patris dictorum dominorum Henrici et Bartholomei ad pedes dicti domini Henrici in capella beate Katerine predicte tumulati... set missa in dicta capella sancte Katerine iuxcta funus suum cantabitur pro anima sua...”, Lincolnshire Arch., Bishop’s Reg. VI, fols. 147-147v.; Foster and Thompson 1922, p. 213. Since the date of this document is instructive in dating the tombs, it is important to note that it is dated 28 April 1345, following the appearance of Sir Bartholomew before the cathedral chapter on the Feast of St. George (23 April) (Lincolnshire Arch., Bishop’s Reg. VI, fols. 145 and 148), rather than on the Feast of St. Gregory (12 March), as read by Foster and Thompson (1922, p. 210), which would place the document one year later.Google Scholar
  6. 9.
    They seem to be the secular counterparts of the monks seated around the bier and hearse in the illustration of the Office of the Dead in the Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame (Paris, Bibl. Nat., nouv. acq. lat. 3093, p. 104) illuminated for Jean de Berry ca. 1384 (Millard Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry. The Late XIV Century and the Patronage of the Duke, London 1969 2nd edn, II, PL 14). See also the funeral of a king in the English Coronation Order of ca. 1380–1390 (Pamplona, Archivo General de Navarra, MS 197, fol. 22v), reproduced in Lucy Freeman Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285–1385, London 1986, I, fig. 418; II, pp. 179–80. Bishop Henry had ordered that the clerks participate daily in the celebration of the Mass, vested in their habits, especially helping with the singing (Lincolnshire Arch., Bishop’s Reg. IV, fol. 40; Foster and Thompson 1922, p. 109).Google Scholar
  7. 10.
    Charges on the shields are fortunately in relief, since they have recently been repainted. The charges on all three tombs match those recorded by Dugdale in his Book of Monuments in 1641 (London, Brit. Lib., Add. Ms. 71474, fols. 97v.-98). With a few exceptions, our identifications of the coats-of-arms, which have been verified in coeval sources, agree with those proposed by Richard Gough, Sepulchral Monuments in Great Britain, London 1786–1796, I, pp. 96–97, 108-113.Google Scholar
  8. 11.
    Of Maud Ros to John Welles. According to G.E. Colcayne, The Complete Peerage, new edn, rev. V, Gibbs et al., 13 vols., London 1910–1959 (CP) vol. 12, pt. 2, p. 441, John Lord Welles married Maud, probably the daughter of William de Ros by Margery, sister and co-heir of Giles de Badlesmere, in 1344/45. The heraldry on this tomb confirms this hypothesis.Google Scholar
  9. 12.
    In her discussion of the shrine base adjoining the tombs, Nicola Coldstream suggested a date in the 1330s for all three monuments (“English decorated shrine bases”, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 3rd ser., vol. 129, 1976, p. 19), but she did not take the chantry ordinance or the heraldry into consideration.Google Scholar
  10. 13.
    See Normanitas’: Sémiologie d’un tombeau”, Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies, vol. 3, 1980, pp. 22–32 note 4 above.Google Scholar
  11. 15.
    For a lucid account of the complex struggle between Edward II, his favourites, and a few loyal magnates on the one hand, and Lancaster and the Marcher rebels on the other, see J. R. S. Phillips, Aymer de Valence Earl of Pembroke 1307–1324, Oxford 1972, esp. pp. 100–239; for a coeval account, Vita Edwardi Secundi, pp. 116–26.Google Scholar
  12. 16.
    DNB (see n. 5), vol. 3, p. 333; K. Edwards, “The Political Importance of the English Bishops during the Reign of Edward II”, English Historical Review, vol. 59, 1944, pp. 335–6. His inclusion among those who fought at Borough-bridge in the Boroughbridge Roll of Arms (CP (see note 11), vol. 2, pp. 426 and 598) is apparently in error.Google Scholar
  13. 17.
    CP (see note 11), vol. 1, p. 372.Google Scholar
  14. 18.
    DNB (see note 5), vol. 3, p. 336; Edwards 1944, pp. 335–36.Google Scholar
  15. 19.
    CP (see note 11), vol. 6, pp. 469–70.Google Scholar
  16. 20.
    Vita Edwardi Secundi, p. 53. The chronicler earlier recounts that the king had spurned Gloucester’s advice to rest rather than fight that day, thus predisposing him to rashness (Ibid., p. 52).Google Scholar
  17. 21.
    Geoffrey le Baker (d. 1356). See Edwards 1944, p. 343; and May McKisack, The Fourteenth Century 1307–1399, Oxford 1959, pp. 80 and 547.Google Scholar
  18. 23.
    McKisack 1959 (see note 21), pp. 79–81.Google Scholar
  19. 24.
    Ibid., pp. 82–83; CP (see note 11), vol. 8, pp. 436–37.Google Scholar
  20. 25.
    CP (see note 11), vol. 8, pp. 437–441; McKisack 1959, pp. 81–95; W. M. Ormrod, The Reign of Edward III. Crown and Political Society in England 1327–1377, New Haven and London 1990, pp. 3–7.Google Scholar
  21. 26.
    McKisack 1959 (see note 21), pp. 100–101; CP (see note 11), vol. 8, pp. 440–441. For the Bohuns’ involvement, CP (see note 11), vol. 9, p. 665.Google Scholar
  22. 27.
    For a summary of the early years of Edward Ill’s reign, see Ormrod 1990 (see note 25), pp. 7–20.Google Scholar
  23. 28.
    CP (see note 11), vol. 1, p. 372.Google Scholar
  24. 30.
    CP (see note 11), vol. 9, p. 284.Google Scholar
  25. 31.
    CP (see note 11), vol. 9, p. 665, no. a.Google Scholar
  26. 32.
    G.E. Colcayne, The Complete Peerage, new edn, rev. V, Gibbs et al., 13 vols., London 1910–1959 (CP) CP (see note 11 ), vol. 9, pp. 665–666.Google Scholar
  27. 33.
    CP (see note 11), vol. 8, pp. 442–445.Google Scholar
  28. 35.
    McKisack 1959 (see note 21), p. 148.Google Scholar
  29. 36.
    William de Bohun, Earl of Northampton (Niche 1), Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who was joint commander of the division (Niche 2), Ralph Stafford (Niche 4) and Reginald Cobham (Niche 6). See CP (see note 11), vol. 9, p. 667 (for Bohun); vol. 12, p. 373 (for Warwick); DNB (see note 5), vol. 18, p. 865 (for Stafford); and J. Froissart, Chroniques, S. Luce, G. Raynaud, L. Mirot and A. Mirot (eds.), Paris, Société de l’histoire de France 1869–1931, vol. 3, p. 169 (for Cobham).Google Scholar
  30. 37.
    CP (see note 11), vol. 2, p. 426; Ormrod 1990 (see note 25), p. 108.Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 1999

Authors and Affiliations

  • Anne M. Morganstern
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of History of ArtThe Ohio State UniversityUSA

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