In this volume

Oliver D. Harris 'Une tresriche sepulture' The tomb and chantry of John of Gaunt and Blanche of Lancaster in Old St Paul's Cathedral, London
This paper examines the history and design of the lost tomb and chantry chapel of John of Gaunt (d. 1399) and his first wife Blanche of Lancaster (d. 1368) in St Paul's Cathedral, London. The tomb was erected between 1374 and 1380 to the design of Henry Yevele, and the separate chapel added between 1399 and 1403. Both were destroyed in or shortly before 1666, but they are documented in records relating to their commissioning, construction and devotional setting, and in a succession of antiquarian notices of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A feature of the two effigies was that they were portrayed joining hands: the monument's place in the dissemination of this pose and theories of its meaning are considered in an appendix.

Christian Steer 'better in remembrance’ Medieval commemoration at the Crutched Friars, London.    This essay is intended to fill a gap in the study of medieval church monuments in the city of London and in particular those from a former religious house, the Crutched Friars. The foundation of this house, and its appeal to particular social groups, will be discussed and compared with the foundation of the other four orders of friars in the city. Comparisons will be made to examine how, and why, the Crutched Friars appealed to Londoners and non-Londoners, and why they wanted to be buried and commemorated there. The popularity of this convent as a place of burial is also discussed, particularly the years leading up to its dissolution in 1538. Written records and testamentary instructions will be used to discussed the types of monuments that were requested and eventually commissioned. From these, suggestions are made on how the commemorative landscape' at the Crutched Friars may have looked and how the deceased, their families and executors influenced this. This 'landscape' is also reflected in the decisions made to exhume a number of the dead from the Crutched Friars and removal of their monuments.

Mark Duffy Two fifteenth-century effigies in Burghfield church and the Montagu mausoleum at Bisham (Berkshire)
Bisham Priory (Berkshire) was one of many English aristocratic mausolea destroyed after the Dissolution. At its height it housed the remains of seven earls, six countesses and a marquis; the males were almost without exception leading political and military figures, most notably Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, 'The Kingmaker'. Examination of the effigies of Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury (d. 1460) and an unidentified female aristocrat in Burghfield church  (Berkshire) is the starting-point for a reconstruction of the mausoleum and its monuments; a task made possible by an exceptional number of contemporary monuments, including two of the handful of surviving English medieval tomb contracts and an image of the church. The concluding impression is of a mausoleum which must have rivalled the finest in England outside London, and in which at least two monuments appear to have had almost regal aspects.

Kelcey Wilson-Lee Dynasty and strategies of commemoration: knightly families in late-medieval and early modern Derbyshire, part 1
An unusually complete mausoleum of late-medieval and early modern monuments to members of the Cokayne family survives at Ashbourne (Derbyshire). This article examines those monuments and supplementary commemorative features such as stained glass, alongside documentary sources related to the family, to demonstrate how successive generations of Cokaynes constructed an elaborate advertisement of dynastic authority within the public sphere of the parish church. While the prestige associated with individual monuments varied according to the situation of the family, the consistent pattern of burial location and the creation of posthumous monuments suggest a conscious association between public perception of dynastic stability and cohesive sepulchral programmes.

Katharine Eustace Before of after? A model of the monument to Mary Thornhurst (1549-1609) in St Michael's Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral
The recent appearance on the London art market of a small model of an early-seventeenth-century church monument has raised considerable interest. The model, identified by the present author as related to one of the group of Thornhurst monuments in Canterbury Cathedral, is a rare survival. If it was made for the patron or client in the process of commission, and dates from the time of the commission, c. 1609-16, it is an extraordinary and – as far as is known – unique survival, and adds a piece to the jigsaw of what we know of the practice of seventeenth-century sculpture. If, as is also possible, it is a model made subsequent to the commissioning and erection of the monument, it remains unique and of antiquarian and socio-historical interest. This article addresses the many questions raised by this curious object and considers the motives in its making.

Jon Bayliss 'What stronger circle can Art-magick find?' Thomas Skippe, the seventeenth-century Skippe monuments at North Tuddenham (Norfolk), and Thomas Heywood
The identity of a bust of a man enclosed in a circle of books on a mural monument in North Tuddenham (Norfolk) with only a verse epitaph as an inscription has long been obscure. However, Thomas Heywood's publication of the same verse epitaph in 1637 reveals that it is to Thomas Skippe. Reasons for the failure to identify the monument earlier are discussed below. Before his early death, Skippe had provided monuments to his daughter Frances and to his first wife Katharine, and probably a tomb chest over the family vault. Reasons for not attributing Thomas and Katharine Skippe's monument to Heywood's collaborators of the 1630's – the Christmas family of sculptors – are examined. Thomas Heywood also provided a verse epitaph for Katharine Skippe, but it was not used on her mural monument although the verse that was substituted for it is evidently also from his hand. The latter relates not only to an elegy on Mary Littleboyes and an epitaph for an unnamed young woman, both by Heywood, but also to the verse epitaph on the brass to Alice Bateman at Kendal. However, the Bateman epitaph additionally includes adaptations of verse by other contemporary poets.

Clare Walcot 'Time ennobles, or degrades each Line' Monuments to James Craggs, father and son, c.1721-27
This article addresses one well-known early-eighteenth-century monument in conjunction with another related family commemorative commission, in order to explore what they reveal about the management of posthumous reputations in the period. It focuses on the circumstances surrounding the production of the monument to James Craggs in Westminster Abbey, and considers it in to the commemoration of his father in the parish church of St Luke's, Charlton (Kent). Although both men died within weeks of each other in 1721 while under intense government scrutiny for their involvement in the South Sea Scheme, attempts to secure their lasting posterity were entirely different. In contrast to the modest memorial to Craggs Snr in St Luke's churchyard, which was placed among other family monuments sited there, the commemoration of his son was a grand public statement invested in by many individuals, not the least the poet Alexander Pope.

Sarah Burnage A 'mere massy monument' The contested monument to John Howard (1786-96) at St Paul's Cathedral, London
This essay explores the anxiety and controversy which surrounded the commissioning of the monument to the famed philanthropist and prison reformer John Howard (1726-90). It was hoped that the monument, which had been awarded a prime location under the dome of St Paul's Cathedral, would stand for generations as a testament to Howard's heroic charitable deeds. John Bacon Snr R.A. had secured the important and lucrative commission in 1791 and accordingly designed a monument which eloquently articulated Howard's philanthropic character. However, this emotive and seemingly innocuous design received heavy criticism from contemporaries and quickly became entangled in a series of long running debates regarding the legislative reach of the Royal Academy, the aesthetic of sculptural decorum and the politicisation of monumental art.

John Richards Review Article: Ettore Napione, Le arche Scaligere di Verona
Jean Wilson Review Article: Ingrid Roscoe, Emma Hardy and M. G. Sullivan, A biographical dictionary of sculptors in Britain 1660-1851

Book Reviews

Sally Badham and Sophie Oosterwijk (eds), Monumental industry: the production of tomb monuments in England and Wales in the long fourteenth century

Kathleen Nolan, Queens in stone and silver: the creation of a visual imagery of queenship in Capetian France

Paul Binski and Ann Massing (eds) with Maries Louise Sauerberg, The Westminster Retable: history, technique, conservation.

Hadrien Kockerols, Les gisants du Brabant Wallon

Mark Downing, Medieval military monuments in Lincolnshire

Peter Coss, The foundations of gentry life. The Multons of Frampton and their world 1270-1370

Julia Boffey and Virginia Davis (eds), Recording medieval lives

Sophie Jugie, The mourners, Tomb sculptures from the court of Burgundy

Françoise Baron, Sophie Jugie and Benoî Lafay, Les tombeaux des ducs de Burgogne. Création, destruction , restauration.

Inga Brinkmann, Grabdenkmäler, Grablegen und Begräbniswesen des lutherischen Adels

Mark Girouard, Elizabethan architecture. Its rise and fall 1540-1640

Karen Hearn and Lynn Hulse (eds), Lady Anne Clifford: culture, patronage and gender in the seventeenth-century Britain

A. V. Grimstone, Building Pembroke Chapel: Wren, Pearce and Scott

Erika Naginski, Sculpture and the Enlightenment

G. Thomson, Inscribed in remembrance. Gravemarker lettering: form, function and recording

Obituary
Claude Blair CVO OBE MA LittD FSA (1922-2010)