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Grave stuff: Litigation with a London tomb-maker in 1421
Abstract
The recent A.H.R.C.-funded project on ‘Londoners and the law’ has brought to light a case in the court of common pleas in which the executors of Sir John Dallingridge of Bodiam (d. 1408) sued a London mason, John Petit, for failure to deliver to their satisfaction a tomb monument commemorating the deceased knight. The greater part of the contract for the monument was rehearsed in the pleadings, and as a result valuable light is shed on the expectations of patrons and the workings of the market in tomb monuments. Today, at Bodiam castle there survives a mutilated fragment of an alabaster torso which, on the evidence of the heraldry, must have formed part of a tomb monument to Sir John Dallingridge. It is suggested that this alabaster effigy is the product of a different commission from the one given to Petit, and that after Petit's dismissal Dallingridge's executors went to a Midlands firm in search of a suitable replacement.
THE AIM OF THIS ARTICLE is to explore some of the biographical, material and ideological intersections between two of the most important cultural productions of late 14th-century England. The first is a monument in its landscape, the castle of Bodiam in East Sussex, and the second is a text, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. My analysis will begin with traditional biography: the historical exploration of links and intersections between the lives and experiences of the ‘builder’ and owner of Bodiam, Sir Edward Dallingridge, and those of Geoffrey Chaucer. It will move on to a more theoretically informed engagement with the meanings and values that lie, I argue, behind both text and monument — the way they converge as ideological constructions. I excavate the anxieties, tensions, gaps, silences and contradictions that lie below the surface of the formal, normative values they apparently proclaim so stridently. Ultimately, I argue that both text and monument are deeply implicated in different registers, levels and scales of violence.
This paper has been submitted to Medieval Archaeology; currently at 'revise and resubmit' stage. This version prior to working through reviewer's comments. Comments/criticisms welcome as I revise over this summer. Abstract follows:
The aim of this paper is to explore some of the biographical, material and ideological intersections between two of the most important cultural productions of late 14 th century England. The first is a text, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and the second is a monument in its landscape, the castle of Bodiam in East Sussex. My analysis will begin with traditional biography: the historical exploration of links and intersections between the lives and experiences of Geoffrey Chaucer and the builder and owner of Bodiam, Sir Edward Dallingridge. It will move on to a more theoretically informed engagement with the meanings and values that lie, I argue, behind both text and monument, the way text and monument converge as ideological constructions. I will go on to explore the anxieties, tensions, gaps, silences, contradictions in both text and monument, that lie below the formal, normative values they apparently proclaim so stridently.
This book offers a survey of English church monuments from the pre-Conquest period to the early 16th century. It explores medieval monuments from the twin angles of their social meaning and the role which they played in the religious strategies of the commemorated. Attention is given to the production of monuments, the pattern of their geographical distribution, the evolution of monument types, and the role of design in communicating the monument's message. A major theme is the self-representation of the commemorated as reflected in the main classes of effigy - those of the clergy, the knights and esquires, and the lesser landowner and burgess class, while the effigial monuments of women are examined from the perspective of the construction of gender. While using monuments as windows onto the experiences and lives of the commemorated, the book also exploits documentary sources for the commemorated for what they can tell us about the influences which helped shape the monuments. One chapter looks at the construction of identity in inscriptions, showing how the liturgical role of the monument limited the opportunities for expressions of selfhood.
Litigation with a London tomb-maker in 1421 585
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Et' interlineated. Litigation with a London tomb-maker in 1421 585 Historical Research, vol. 84, no. 226 (November 2011) Copyright © 2010 Institute of Historical Research