Ingham, Norfolk, UK
Church of Holy Trinity
Tomb of Sir Roger († after 1395) and Margaret († 1350?) de Boys, Alabaster.
The monument was long problematic, since Blomefield reported a now missing inscription requesting the viewer to pray for the souls of Roger de Bois and Lady Margaret, whose death he recorded as 1300, Sir Roger, and 1315, Lady Margaret. Pevsner noted that in style the monument belonged not to the early 1300s but to the end of the century. Recent research by Sally Badham has unravelled the confusion. She used the British Library manuscript Harleian MS 906 fol. 197 verso to establish that Sir Roger was descended from John de Boys and his wife Eustace Sandbie of Coningsby and that his wife died in 1365. There is no record of his death, suggesting that he was not a landowner in East Anglia, but since he was mentioned in other records it must have been sometime after 1394. With the old dates it was unclear why they had such a prominent tomb in the nave. Sir Roger, an otherwise obscure knight, was mentioned in the document of 1355 establishing the Church of the Holy Trinity as a chantry chapel and a priory for the Trinitarian order with. Those for whose souls the priests were to pray included, King Edward III, Sir Oliver and Lady Elizabeth Ingham, the relatives and parents of Sir Miles Stapleton, including his sister, the deceased Lady Catherine Boys and her husband John de Boys, Dame Margaret Honing. Sir roger’s wife, was not included.
The now sadly worn (and vandalised) tomb chest is set at the east end of the south aisle, originally guarded by railings, set into holes drilled into the base. Its position at the head of the nave would have made it opposite the altar in the chapel of St Mary, destroyed in 1799, an extension to the south east corner of the nave. The tomb is built around a pillar, which once supported the image of a saint, to whom Sir Roger de Boys would have looked. The figures lie side by side, now without their arms and with the detail of their costumes difficult to make out. The notes in the church suggest, on the basis of an analysis of the traces of colour, that she wore a heraldic dress. From the position of the stumps of their arms it is has been argued that they were represented holding hands, rather than in prayer. Sir Roger de Boys rests his head on a Saracen’s helmet, complete with decapitated head, perhaps sign that, as suggested below, he had been a crusader. His wife’s is set on two pillows, where a faint painted pattern can still be made out. His sword is missing but there is a hole on his right side where it was probably fixed. His statue has been convincingly compared with that a distinguished warrior knight, Sir Guy de Brian †1390, in Tewkesbury Abbey. They share the detail of the moustache, fashionably poking over the chain mail of his helmet. The figures are like caricatures, with his barrel chest and her extreme height (she must be about seven foot) and thinness, a sign of breeding (then as now) for those who could, as Professor Sandy Heslop has argued, ostensibly afford expensive food.
The base is decorated with (now blank) coats of arms set in quatrefoils and flanked by niches filled with angels, whose wings can just be made out (with some traces of colour). On the north they turn slightly to the door, a movement that culminates in the wider niche facing the entrance. Here the couple’s devotion to the Trinity, the church’s dedication, is shown in the panel. Two angels hold up their souls besides the Trinity, represented by the seated God the Father. He held a now lost crucifix with the dead Christ, supported by the (also missing) Dove of the Holy Ghost. The scheme also occurred in a roundel decorating the splendid and nearly contemporary brass memorial Sir Hugh Hastings (†1347) at Elsing.
Sir Roger de Boys was granted letters of attorney when travelling abroad between 1361-67 and again in the 1370s. At least one of these trips coincided with the crusade to capture Alexandria, called by Peter de Lusignan, King of Cyprus, in 1365, and the letters granting him permission to travel mention other crusader knights. That his death was not recorded may have been because he was not a land owner, although in 1378, together with his brother, he had given the Priory property in Worstead and Scottow. The family were established in Honing and Rollesby by the early years of the fifteenth century and their involvement with the church continued, since the arms on the tower (rebuilt in the 1450s), recorded by Blomefield, included Stapleton impaled with Boys.
Francis Blomefield, ‘House of Trinitarian canons: The priory of Ingham', A History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 2 (1906), pp. 410-412 corrected by Sally Badham 'Beautiful Remains of Antiquity': The Medieval Monuments in the Former Trinitarian Priory Church at Ingham Norfolk. Part 2: the High Tombs. CHURCH MONUMENTS VOLUME XXII 2007, esp. pp. 23-43; Sir Richard Le Scrope, edited Samuel Bentley, London 1832, De Controversia in Curia Militari Inter Ricardum Le Scrope Et Robertum Grosvenor Milites: Rege Ricardo Secundo, MCCCLXXXV-MCCCXC E Recordis in Turre Londinensi Asservatis, p. 220, googlebooks, accessed 03/08/15
detail of figure on base
Ingham, Norfolk, UK
Church of Holy Trinity
Tomb of Sir Roger († after 1395) and Margaret († 1350?) de Boys, Alabaster.
The monument was long problematic, since Blomefield reported a now missing inscription requesting the viewer to pray for the souls of Roger de Bois and Lady Margaret, whose death he recorded as 1300, Sir Roger, and 1315, Lady Margaret. Pevsner noted that in style the monument belonged not to the early 1300s but to the end of the century. Recent research by Sally Badham has unravelled the confusion. She used the British Library manuscript Harleian MS 906 fol. 197 verso to establish that Sir Roger was descended from John de Boys and his wife Eustace Sandbie of Coningsby and that his wife died in 1365. There is no record of his death, suggesting that he was not a landowner in East Anglia, but since he was mentioned in other records it must have been sometime after 1394. With the old dates it was unclear why they had such a prominent tomb in the nave. Sir Roger, an otherwise obscure knight, was mentioned in the document of 1355 establishing the Church of the Holy Trinity as a chantry chapel and a priory for the Trinitarian order with. Those for whose souls the priests were to pray included, King Edward III, Sir Oliver and Lady Elizabeth Ingham, the relatives and parents of Sir Miles Stapleton, including his sister, the deceased Lady Catherine Boys and her husband John de Boys, Dame Margaret Honing. Sir roger’s wife, was not included.
The now sadly worn (and vandalised) tomb chest is set at the east end of the south aisle, originally guarded by railings, set into holes drilled into the base. Its position at the head of the nave would have made it opposite the altar in the chapel of St Mary, destroyed in 1799, an extension to the south east corner of the nave. The tomb is built around a pillar, which once supported the image of a saint, to whom Sir Roger de Boys would have looked. The figures lie side by side, now without their arms and with the detail of their costumes difficult to make out. The notes in the church suggest, on the basis of an analysis of the traces of colour, that she wore a heraldic dress. From the position of the stumps of their arms it is has been argued that they were represented holding hands, rather than in prayer. Sir Roger de Boys rests his head on a Saracen’s helmet, complete with decapitated head, perhaps sign that, as suggested below, he had been a crusader. His wife’s is set on two pillows, where a faint painted pattern can still be made out. His sword is missing but there is a hole on his right side where it was probably fixed. His statue has been convincingly compared with that a distinguished warrior knight, Sir Guy de Brian †1390, in Tewkesbury Abbey. They share the detail of the moustache, fashionably poking over the chain mail of his helmet. The figures are like caricatures, with his barrel chest and her extreme height (she must be about seven foot) and thinness, a sign of breeding (then as now) for those who could, as Professor Sandy Heslop has argued, ostensibly afford expensive food.
The base is decorated with (now blank) coats of arms set in quatrefoils and flanked by niches filled with angels, whose wings can just be made out (with some traces of colour). On the north they turn slightly to the door, a movement that culminates in the wider niche facing the entrance. Here the couple’s devotion to the Trinity, the church’s dedication, is shown in the panel. Two angels hold up their souls besides the Trinity, represented by the seated God the Father. He held a now lost crucifix with the dead Christ, supported by the (also missing) Dove of the Holy Ghost. The scheme also occurred in a roundel decorating the splendid and nearly contemporary brass memorial Sir Hugh Hastings (†1347) at Elsing.
Sir Roger de Boys was granted letters of attorney when travelling abroad between 1361-67 and again in the 1370s. At least one of these trips coincided with the crusade to capture Alexandria, called by Peter de Lusignan, King of Cyprus, in 1365, and the letters granting him permission to travel mention other crusader knights. That his death was not recorded may have been because he was not a land owner, although in 1378, together with his brother, he had given the Priory property in Worstead and Scottow. The family were established in Honing and Rollesby by the early years of the fifteenth century and their involvement with the church continued, since the arms on the tower (rebuilt in the 1450s), recorded by Blomefield, included Stapleton impaled with Boys.
Francis Blomefield, ‘House of Trinitarian canons: The priory of Ingham', A History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 2 (1906), pp. 410-412 corrected by Sally Badham 'Beautiful Remains of Antiquity': The Medieval Monuments in the Former Trinitarian Priory Church at Ingham Norfolk. Part 2: the High Tombs. CHURCH MONUMENTS VOLUME XXII 2007, esp. pp. 23-43; Sir Richard Le Scrope, edited Samuel Bentley, London 1832, De Controversia in Curia Militari Inter Ricardum Le Scrope Et Robertum Grosvenor Milites: Rege Ricardo Secundo, MCCCLXXXV-MCCCXC E Recordis in Turre Londinensi Asservatis, p. 220, googlebooks, accessed 03/08/15
detail of figure on base