Norwich Cathedral, Norfolk, UK
Monument to Bishop Wakering †1425. Presbytery, south. Commissioned by Bishop Wakering. Tomb slab, now without brass or brass railings. Stone mourning figures (seven original) south ambulatory.
The site for the monument was close to that of the founder in the centre of the chancel. Originally a chantry little remains, except the paired mourning figures in niches between large quatrefoils framing now blank armorial shields. The strangely stocky figures are close, as Jonathan Finch noted, to those on the font at St Bartholomew, Slolely from the middle of the fifteenth century. They were restored in the nineteenth century, when the most easterly holding mitre, book and crozier was added. The attributes of the others are also now a product of that restoration.
Bishop Wakering had a distinguished career as royal administrator, beginning in 1399 when Henry Bolingbroke appointed him chancellor of the of the county palatine on his accession as Henry IV. He continued in service under Henry V, unlike many of his contemporaries and was consecrated Bishop of Norwich in 1416. The account of his will in R. G. Davies, ‘Wakering, John (d. 1425)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 10 Nov 2015 reads: ‘His will carefully remembered his earlier benefices, his family, and his servants. He had a collection of his own sermons to bequeath. There is, however, more than this to Wakering's final thoughts. Throughout the will there is persistent attention to paupers, not so much for those at his own funeral (for whom he left just 20 marks), but notably in his own properties, past benefices, and especially those in hospitals and across his diocese, these last being left no less than 1000 marks. Furthermore, the bishop recalled the celebrated aphorism of St Augustine of Hippo that funerals were more a solace for the living than help to the dead, and asked for unpompous rites on the day of his death, but 1000 masses on that same day if possible.’
Jonathan Finch, ‘The Monuments’, in Ian Atherton, Eric Fernie, Christopher Harper-Bill and Hassell Smith eds, Norwich Cathedral: Church, City and Diocese, 1096-1996, London and Rio Grande, 1996 pp. 470-472
Norwich Cathedral, Norfolk, UK
Monument to Bishop Wakering †1425. Presbytery, south. Commissioned by Bishop Wakering. Tomb slab, now without brass or brass railings. Stone mourning figures (seven original) south ambulatory.
The site for the monument was close to that of the founder in the centre of the chancel. Originally a chantry little remains, except the paired mourning figures in niches between large quatrefoils framing now blank armorial shields. The strangely stocky figures are close, as Jonathan Finch noted, to those on the font at St Bartholomew, Slolely from the middle of the fifteenth century. They were restored in the nineteenth century, when the most easterly holding mitre, book and crozier was added. The attributes of the others are also now a product of that restoration.
Bishop Wakering had a distinguished career as royal administrator, beginning in 1399 when Henry Bolingbroke appointed him chancellor of the of the county palatine on his accession as Henry IV. He continued in service under Henry V, unlike many of his contemporaries and was consecrated Bishop of Norwich in 1416. The account of his will in R. G. Davies, ‘Wakering, John (d. 1425)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 10 Nov 2015 reads: ‘His will carefully remembered his earlier benefices, his family, and his servants. He had a collection of his own sermons to bequeath. There is, however, more than this to Wakering's final thoughts. Throughout the will there is persistent attention to paupers, not so much for those at his own funeral (for whom he left just 20 marks), but notably in his own properties, past benefices, and especially those in hospitals and across his diocese, these last being left no less than 1000 marks. Furthermore, the bishop recalled the celebrated aphorism of St Augustine of Hippo that funerals were more a solace for the living than help to the dead, and asked for unpompous rites on the day of his death, but 1000 masses on that same day if possible.’
Jonathan Finch, ‘The Monuments’, in Ian Atherton, Eric Fernie, Christopher Harper-Bill and Hassell Smith eds, Norwich Cathedral: Church, City and Diocese, 1096-1996, London and Rio Grande, 1996 pp. 470-472