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IX. Letter from Albert Way, Esq. Director, to Sir Henry Ellis, K.H., F.R.S., Sec., on Palimpsest Sepulchral Brasses; and on a remarkable instance at Hedgerley, Buckinghamshire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 June 2012

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Extract

The attention of every one who has been interested in researches into the Sepulchral Antiquities, either of the classical or the medieval period, must have been called to observe the wanton recklessness with which the memorials of one generation have been displaced to make way for those of a succeeding age, and the materials appropriated to the purposes of the occasion. Numerous are the instances that might be cited, where sepulchral brasses have thus been sacrilegiously perverted from their original purpose; indeed, among the limited number of memorials of this kind, of which, by their having been detached from the monumental slab, the reverse can be seen, the number of those which are found to be engraved on both sides is proportionally so large, that it might be assumed that the greater part of our sepulchral brasses would be found, were it possible to ascertain the fact, made up of fragments of prior memorials of the dead. In cases of this kind the term Palimpsest Brass seems to be not an inappropriate designation. An example that has recently been supplied from the church of Hedgerley, in Buckinghamshire, is so far interesting from the station of the individual, whose memorial has, after being for three centuries lost in concealment, now been brought to light, that I am inclined to think it may deserve to be brought under the notice of the Society.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1844

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