[MR] History Blog: Alabaster Effigy of 14th C. Priest Rediscovered

[Garth Groff and Sally Sanford]

Noble Friends,

Today the History Blog is offering a story about a funeral effigy of a 14th
century priest, John de Belton. The alabaster effigy was hidden away behind
the organ in a Derbyshire church, St. Wilfred's Barrow-on-Trent. Today the
image is thought to be one of the oldest surviving alabaster funeral pieces
in Britain.

The story has some interesting facts of interest to Scadians which were new
to me. Such funeral pieces were originally elaborately painted in natural
colors, and sometimes even gilded. This rarely survives, but the British
Museum has an interesting collection of 19th century plaster copies of
royal funeral effigies which are decorated this way. Also of interest,
there was a fad for donating churchers to the Knights Hospitaller as a way
for nobles to support the crusades, presumably without getting themselves
killed by actually going to war.

Enjoy the story at http://www.thehistoryblog.com/archives/60364 .

The church itself has a brief Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Wilfrid%27s_Church,_Barrow-upon-Trent .

Some additional photos, including a view of the effigy crammed into the
tiny void behind the organ and some period graffiti, can be found at
https://www.trentderwentparishes.org/barrow .

Yours Aye,


Lord Mungo Napier, Laird of Mallard Lodge  🦆