Church Monuments Society

A one day colloquium will take place at the Guildhall, Leicester, on Saturday 21st October in honour of Mark Downing who steps down as President of the Church Monuments Society in the summer of 2023. This special event is being held to thank Mark for his tireless work on behalf of the CMS with a series of lectures devoted to ‘Monuments of the Wars of the Roses’.

Speakers will consider different types of church monuments, both extant and lost, and focus on particular case-studies in the late fifteenth century. The lectures will focus on how tomb patrons chose to be commemorated (and where), stylistic changes to emerge and change during the period and to reflect on what was so special about in tomb production during one of the most turbulent periods in late medieval history.

Programme

9.45                 Arrival and registration (tea and coffee available)

10.25               Welcome by the President of the Church Monuments Society

10.30 – 11.30  Session 1: Image

Tobias Capwell, Carnage and Commemoration: Relating the Monuments of Late Medieval England to the Military History of the Wars of the Roses

Challe Hudson, Tires, Turrets, Butterflies, or Partlets, What Will the Ladies Put on Next?

11.30 – 12.00  Tea / coffee break

12.00 – 1.00    Session 2: Monuments in Yorkist London

Richard Asquith, Commemorating the King’s Men: Knightly Londoners in the Wars of the Roses

Christian Steer, Dead Yorkists in Late Medieval London

1.00 – 2.15      Lunch (own arrangements)

2.15 – 3.15      Session 3: Status and splendour

Madeleine Gray, The Herbert tombs in Tintern Abbey: fact, fiction or creative reconstruction?

John Lee, ‘They supported the dignity of their house, and lived in a manner suitable to their splendid descent’: the brass of William (d. 1474) and Elizabeth Fitzwilliam of Sprotbrough (Yorkshire)

3.15 – 3.45      Tea / coffee break

3.45 – 4.45      Session 4: Burial and commemoration

David Lepine, Chantry Chapel as Tomb: The Commemoration of Hugh Sugar (d. 1489) at Wells Cathedral

Nicholas Flory, ‘soror, uxor’: The burials of Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy

4.45     Final remarks by Mark Downing

The cost of the event will be £15.00 for members of the Church Monuments Society and £20.00 for non-members. Click below for abstracts, brief biographies of speakers and a booking form.