Early Incised Slabs and Brasses

Early Incised Slabs and Brasses from the London Marblers

Sally Badham FSA and Dr Malcolm Norris FSA

Early Incised Slabs and Brasses from the London MarblersMonumental brasses and incised stone slabs have been the subject of scholarly interest since the eighteenth century, but research into these two distinctive forms of memorial has followed separate lines, usually to the neglect of incised slabs. There is, however, increasing evidence that, across Europe, the two were often produced in the same workshops.

This book discusses the origins and development of effigial incised slabs in medieval England, focusing particularly on the London–based marblers before the Black Death.

As a result of their detailed study of surviving brasses and slabs as well as old rubbings and antiquarian drawings, the authors suggest that production of incised slabs in the late thirteenth century was on a larger scale than previously believed. The authors’ careful analysis of the stylistic characteristics of these monuments also throws fresh light upon the dating of early brasses and monuments of the Decorated period in general.

Fully illustrated with photographs and rubbings of brasses and slabs, this book will appeal to both general and specialist readers interested in the social and economic history of the Middle Ages as well as all those concerned with medieval church archaeology, art history, genealogy and heraldry.

Sally Badham FSA, a civil servant, is the author of many publications on medieval brasses and incised slabs. Her main areas of research are typological analysis and epigraphy. Dr Malcolm Norris FSA, formerly Associate Director of the Department of Development Administration at Birmingham University and President of the Monumental Brass Society, was the foremost authority on European brasses and a keen scholar of incised slabs. His Monumental Brasses, published in 1977–8, remains the standard work on the subject. He died in 1995.

  • Reports of the Research Committee of the Society of Antiquaries of London, No. 60
  • ISBN 0 85431 272 2 243mm x 173mm 190pp 32 black and white photographs and 82 line drawings
  • £27.50 hardback Published May 1999
  • Available from Oxbow Books

Jacket illustration: a detail from an early fourteenth-century manuscript, depicting craftsmen incising Lombardic lettering similar to that used on many of the slabs discussed in this book (reproduced by permission of The British Library, MS Royal.14.E iii, folio 66v).