Nigel Saul is Professor of Medieval History at Royal Holloway, University of London.This work approaches the world of the medieval gentry through the monuments they left behind. The Cobham family left a large collection of brasses in their church at Cobham, which the author uses to take the reader to the heart of the gentry.This book illuminates the world of medieval gentry families through examination of the magnificent brasses and monuments of the Cobham family. Nigel Saul's compelling study provides a window onto the social and religious culture of the middle ages and offers a new paradigm for the study of medieval church monuments."Saul's writing is extremely clear, authoritative but never uninteresting. The volume is beautifully produced in the best old-fashioned academic style, with real footnotes and many illustrations on the actual pages that discuss them. Advanced undergraduates, and certainly anyone eith a level of comprehension beyond that, have every reason to enjoy, as well as profit from, reading it."--HistoryIn this innovative and compelling book Nigel Saul approaches the world of the medieval gentry through the monuments they left behind them. The Cobham family left the largest and most spectacular collection of brasses in Britain in their church at Cobham, and other magnificent brasses in Lingfield, and elsewhere. Medieval brasses have hitherto been studied chiefly from an antiquarian or technical perspective; Nigel Saul for the first time shows how they served as a link between the living and the dead. Commemoration was inseparable from the wider dynamics of society. Through the brasses and through family history he takes us to the heart of gentry aspirations and fears, successes and disappointments. This extensively illustrated study offers a new paradigm for the study of medieval church monuments and makes a major contribution to our understanding of gentry culture.This is a timely and much needed book ... by far the most detailed treatment of the subject to have been published.This study is especially welcome not least because it takes the heritage of English funereal art seriously.In this compelling book Nigel Saul opens up the world of medieval gentry families, using the magnificent brasses and monuments of the Cobham family as a window on to the social and religious culture of the middle ages.... a beautifully produced book, particularly in terms of the number and clarity of the illustrations allowing the reader the rare treat of being able to examine the monuments alongside the text. It is an extremely well written and enjoyable vignette of one family's contribution to our medieval heritage - heritage that lies in every medieval church.An accomplished and carefully considered reflection on the historicizing possibilities of 'visual culture' which will interest all those preoccupied by the culture of death and its attendant institutions, notably chantry foundations.Judged as a history of the medium of brasses this study is extremely useful since nothing of quite this extent has ever been addressed to the medium in a single context before.Skilfully weaves together a range of disparate material into a satisfying whole ... an example of what extra can be achieved by going outside established mindsets and traditional subject boundaries.The author combines the skills of a leading medieval historian and those of a specialist in medieval brasses to telling effect ... this study offers a welcome broadening of the agenda for the study of funerary art ... An important book on an important group of brasses."In this book Nigel Saul approaches the world of the medieval gentry through the monuments they left behind them. The Cobham family left the largest and most spectacular collection of brasses in Britain in their church at Cobham, and other magnificent brasses at Lingfield, and elsewhere. Medieval brasses have hitherto been studies chiefly from an antiquarian or technical perspective. Nigel Saul for the first time shows how they served as a link between the living and the dead. Commemoration was inseparable from the wider dynamics of society. Through the brasses and through family history he takes us to the heart of gentry aspirations and fears, successes and disappointments. This extensively illustrated study offers a new paradigm for the study of medieval church monuments and makes a major contribution to our understanding of gentry culture."--BOOK JACKET. Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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