A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE would however be difficult to identify the effigy because the members of this ancient house who were connected with Braunston at this period are known to have been buried elsewhere. It can hardly be supposed that a portrait is intended. . . . DeBernack, about 1300. Barnacle. This effigy lies under a coeval arch in the wall of the north aisle, and is excellently sculptured in Barnack rag. A lady is repre- sented habited in a long gown with rather loose sleeves. Over this is the supertunic without sleeves, gathered up in full folds in the front, and fastened at will by a button on either side just below the neck ; above this garment is worn a mantle looped across the breast with a cord, which has been held in the right hand after the common fashion with effigies of ladies of this period. The mantle is caught up under each arm, and falls in a multitude of graceful folds. The head is covered with a crespine or net with a deep scalloped edging, bound round the head and fastened by a band under the chin. The hair appears in wavy plaits under the caul, and a short veil falling from it completes a very picturesque head-dress. Both hands are broken (died 1272). That it is a portrait is proved by the countenance of the king as exhibited at differ- ent periods from youth to age on his Great Seals. The brow of the effigy with so marked a frown of triple creases, indicative of the feverish and anxious life that was led, can hardly be taken as an im.ig- inary creation of Torel. But even in the highest quarters there was no fixed rule, for the latten effigy of Queen Eleanor at Westminster (died I 290), also by Torel, is a purely conventional figure. At the time of her death the queen had reached mature years, and had borne many children. Torel's masterpiece represents a woman of about twenty-six, and it has been considered that the four graceful figures by William of Ireland on Queen's Cross, Northampton, were inspired by it. This is possible, but it must be borne in mind that countless effigies throughout the country are represented in much the same conventional atti- tude as that shown in the queen's statue at Westminster, though far from approaching it in its singular and dignified beauty. Exceptional examples of portraiture are fur- nished by some of the abbatical figures at Peter- borough, doubtless executed from the life in the monastery, or elsewhere, from careful clerical instructions. And it is evident that in a few cases in the county, which will be duly signalized, some endeavour was made to give a degree of resem- blance to the individual commemorated before 'lively effigies,' casts and painted portraits became successively available to sculptors. It must always be remembered that the carvers of the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, accurately as they repre- sented the armour and military attributes (imitating of course only up to the point that was consistent with the nature and capabilities of the material under their hand) could have had, even under the most favourable circumstances, very little to aid them in attempting a portrait beyond a chance suggestion given by relatives or friends of the dead man or the artist's own recollection of particular characteristics of countenance. Doubtless the armour and its general details were as familiar to the sculptor as the form of his own hosen, hood and leather coat. These remarks .apply more to the productions of schools of sculpture such as existed, as Purbeck, Doulting and Barnack, than to the humble workshops of stonemasons in villages, where the subjects of the effigies had been personally known. Allusion must be made to the ' lively effigies * carried in ancient funeral processions. These were crude portrait statues which, although hastily made, not only could have served subsequently as full- sized models for sculptors, but were often so far ' monumental effigies,' inasmuch as many great personages had no other memorials. Towards the end of the fourteenth century it became the practice to bear a hastily-made ' lively effigy ' of the dead man ' in his very robes of estate ' in the funeral procession, and finally, when the obsequies were finished, to place it temporarily in the church, under or associated with its ' hcrse,' where it be- came a source of great attraction to the vulgar, supplying the place of the permanent effigy until that was set up. The ' lively figures ' did away with the exposure of the actual dead body at the funeral, a practice which was attended with much inconvenience. They were closely allied to wooden effigies proper — of which there are ten in Northamptonshire — and were perhaps first sug- gested by them, inasmuch as their foundation was a more or less rude wooden block, like a great jointed doll. They were padded and made up to the proper form, just as monstrous figures are con- structed in the opera of a theatre for pantomimes at the present day. The faces and hands alone were treated with wax, or fine plaster {gesso), laid over the roughly covered blocks, and fashioned and tinted to the life. The figures were then dressed in fair array with tinsel crowns, coronets and further insignia of greatness, and must have presented a somewhat barbaric spectacle. No doubt there were many ' lively figures ' with their ' herses ' in Northamptonshire churches. As time went on so many of these tawdry structures, stand- ing in different parts of a great church like that of Peterborough, or Higham Ferrers, must have added greatly to its picturesqueness and interest, possibly not always conducing to reverence. Figures from these sources in different stages of dilapidation — not less valuable on that account — from the rude wooden effigies of Plantagenet times to the examples of the beginning of the present century, still remain in the Abbey, remnants of the once popular ' Waxworks,' under the name of ' the Ragged Regiment.' 398
