Church Monuments Society News
 
The Claude Blair Memorial Conservation Fund
A fund set up in memory of Dr Claude Blaire CVO OBE MA LittD FSA, our senior Vice President who died recently for the conservation of an armoured effigy.

John Blair has requested that donations in memory of his father be given to The Church Monuments Society (Registered Charity No: 279597), not to benefit its members, but to form a fund for the conservation of a monument with an armoured effigy, a cause dear to Claude. As there will be no monument to Claude himself, it is planned to affix a plaque near the monument recording that it was conserved in Claude’s memory. John will be closely involved in choosing the conservation project that will benefit from this fund. The CMS is in the process of setting up a separate account where the money will be held.
Claude discussing one of the armed effigies at the Aldworth Study Day in 2007

 To make a donation please send a cheque to:

Mr Michael Thompson,
Hon Treasurer
CMS,
Hill Top Farm,
Lenton,
Grantham, Lincs. NG33 4HB.

e-mail: mjrthompson@googlemail.com              Phone: 01476 585012.

 If you are a UK taxpayer, it would significantly increase the value of the donation if you would kindly fill in a Gift Aid form and send it with your cheque. Click here for the Gift Aid form.

Non-UK residents can send either a sterling cheque, or pay via Paypal, as follows:

1. Log onto http://www/paypal.co.uk (or the equivalent country from which you are paying) and set up your own PayPal account if you have not already done so.

2. Click on tab ‘Send Funds’.

3.  In the ‘to’ box for recipient type ‘mthompson@richardsonsurveyors.co.uk’. 

4. In the ‘Amount’ box type ‘xx GDP’ to give the amount of your donation.

5. In the ‘Purchase’ box click on ‘Services’ and click on ‘Continue’.

6. At the bottom of the next page in the message box type ‘For the Claude Blair Memorial Conservation Fund’ and click on ‘Send money’.

7.  You will get a confirmatory e-mail as proof of your payment.


BOOK OFFER – CMS MEMBERS
Monumental Industry: The Production of Tomb Monuments in England and Wales in the Long Fourteenth Century, S. Badham & S. Oosterwijk (eds)

 This important new collection of essays focuses on the production of church monuments in the ‘long fourteenth century’, rather than on the interests of the patron that have been the primary centre of attention in most recent work. By the fourteenth century, medieval tomb production was a veritable industry in its own right. Monuments were no longer the prerogative of royalty, the higher ranking clergy, and founders of religious houses, but were accessible to a wider section of society. The contributors have adopted a variety of perspectives for their studies. Whereas some espouse an archaeological approach, other essays are art-

historical, with excerpts from literary texts providing furthercomparisons.  Several authors use the results of petrological analysis to underpin their conclusions, while drawing links between monumental sculpture and other surviving sculpture of the period, the potential of both of which have not hitherto received sufficient attention. Surface finishes are also discussed. Moreover, full transcriptions and translations are provided of all the known tomb contracts of the period, together with commentaries on the monuments, those commemorated by them, and the craftsmen who made them. Medieval commemoration and tomb monuments are attracting increased interest from scholars. This corpus of cutting-edge research will shed new light on an aspect of medieval craftsmanship which, for the most part, can be seen only through a glass darkly.
Published May 2010. 288 + xv pages with 80 pages plates, the majority in colour.

CONTENTS
Sally Badham and Sophie Oosterwijk  Introduction
Sally Badham What Constituted a ‘Workshop’ and How Did Workshops Operate? Some Problems and Questions  
Aleksandra McClain

 Cross Slab Monuments in the Late Middle Ages: Patronage, Production, and Locality in Northern England

Mark Downing

 Military Effigies in Eastern England: Evidence of a High-Status Workshop of c.1300-1350

Robin Emmerson

 The Fourteenth-Century Tomb Effigies at Aldworth, Berkshire, and their Relationship to the Figures on the West Screen of Exeter Cathedral  

Rhianydd Biebrach   Effigial Monuments in Fourteenth-Century Glamorgan: Patronage, Production and Plague
Jane Crease 

  ‘Not Commonly Reputed or Taken for a Saincte’: the Output of a Northern Workshop in the Late Fourteenth  and Early Fifteenth Centuries                          

Marie Louise Sauerberg, Ray Marchant and Lucy Wrapson

 The Tester over the Tomb of Edward, the Black Prince: the Splendour of Late-Medieval Polychromy in  England      

Sally Badham and Sophie Oosterwijk

 ‘Cest Endenture Fait Parentre’: English Tomb Contracts of the Long Fourteenth Century


Click here for order form.


LATEST JOURNALS NOT RECEIVED
March 14th 2010 It has come to our notice that several members have not yet received their latest copy of the Journal (Volume XXI, 2009) which was  posted mid February. If you have not yet received your copy please contact our Journal Editor: Dr Sophie Oosterwijk at so4oosterwijkATgooglemail.com, whose full details may be found here.
 
February 24th 2010 Shire have now republished Professor Brian Kemp's book on church monuments - but this time in colour. As we might expect both from the author and the publisher this is an excellent book and together with Sally Badham's companion volume on brasses makes an excellent and remarkably inexpensive introduction to the whole subject.
   
The minutes of the CMS 2009 AGM and the abbreviated accounts for 2008-2009 are now on line; please click here.
 

Church Monuments Society Diary

This is the Church Monuments Society Diary. Please note that this is provisional and for guidance only and that some events may change in the future

Organization

Name of event

Location of event

Event organizer

Date

Date1

Church Monuments Society

Much Marcle Study day

Much Marcle Herefordshire

Mark Downing

2010/06/12

12th June 2010

Church Monuments Society

Hertfordshire Excursion

Hertfordshire

Jane Kelsall

2010/06/26

26th June 2010

Church Monuments Society

South Yorkshire Excursion

 

Peter Hacker & Patrick Farman

2010/07/31

31st July 2010

Church Monuments Sociey

AGM

London Charter House Chapel

Simon Watney

2010/09/4

4th September 2010

Church Monuments Sociey

Winchester Symposium

Winchester

Brian & Moira Gittos

2010/09/10-12

10th-12th September 2010

Church Monuments Society

Cambridgeshire Excursion

Cambridgeshire

Julian Litten

2010/10/9

9th October 2010

Church Monuments Society

Council Meeting

London, Senate House

 

2010/11/27

27th November 2010

Church Monuments Society Council Meeting London, Senate House   2011/03/05 5th March
2011

Church Monuments Society

Victorian Monuments Day Conference

London

Jane Kelsall

2011/03/?

March 2011

Church Monuments Society

West Oxfordshire Excursion

Oxfordshire

Sally Badham

2011/04 or 05/

April or May 2011

Church Monuments Society Council Meeting London, Senate House   2011/05/21 May 21st
2011

Church Monuments Society

Lydiard Tregoze Study day

Lydiard Tregoze

Mark Downing

2011/06/11

11th June 2011

Church Monuments Society

AGM

Kensall Green cemetery

Julian Litten

2011/09/?

September 2011

Church Monuments Society Council Meeting London, Senate House   2011/11/26 November 26th 2011