MONUMENTAL EFFIGIES THE monumental effigies of Northamptonshire are conspicuous and worthy items in the history of a well-favoured and historic county. They comprise a remarkable collection of memorials, not only of knights who took part in stirring times of English medieval history, but of men who were conspicuous politically, legally and socially in the spacious days of Elizabeth. In addition to these are the striking abbatical figures at Peterborough, and the large proportion of forty-four effigies of ladies out of a total of a hundred and eighteen monumental effigies to be found in the county. It may be premised that the figures of knights, civilians and ladies exhibit as good consecutive examples of changes in armour, habits and dress as may be expected from the materials used by the sculptors ; that as much attention was paid to detail as the nature of the different stones employed allowed ; and that the likenesses were as good as the occasion of the production of the different memorials would permit. The effigies, exclusive of two early abbots at Peterborough, run with a fairly even average intervention of only a few years between each example, from the middle of the thirteenth to about the end of the seventeenth century, and it will be convenient to consider each example with reference to the armour or costume exhibited, the public or personal history of each individual being naturally dealt with in another section of the history. These memorials are divided into two parts and taken in chronological order, and it should be stated that their dates have been considered as coinciding with the deaths of the individuals commemorated unless otherwise expressed. Part I. comprises the monuments of the Gothic period proper. In Part II., after treating of certain memorials of the time of the Early Renaissance, and touching upon the effigies in legal costume, the remaining figures in the county are dealt with in the more or less modified manner that their gradually waning artistic or antiquarian interest and other considerations suggest. 393
