The Art and Architecture of the Cistercians in Northern England c 1300–1540. By Michael Carter. 234mm. Pp xlvii + 328, 8 col plates, 103 figs, 2 maps. Brepols Publishers, Turnhout, 2019. isbn: 9782503581934. €100 (hbk).

Abstract

and meaning of such symbols as chalices, books, scrolls, hearts and souls. The complexity of some monuments and their settings is highlighted in the concluding section , which comprises a fascinating case study of the fourteenth-century priest’s tomb at Welwick. Identifying it as William de la Mare’s, the authors provide a masterful reconstruction of this partly dismantled monument that once apparently featured an ingenious use of light. The book includes an index and a helpful endpaper map of the county indicating the locations of the effigies discussed. It is richly illustrated and well written, although the wealth of factual information does not always make easy reading and more cross-referencing might have been helpful. It is regrettable that the authors often do not mince words criticising other writers, although they admit to having sometimes revised their own earlier findings (eg pp , –). Their descriptions of later repairs and recuttings, such as the seventeenth-century appropriation of a military effigy of c at Scarborough (figs  and ), should serve as a warning to the unwary. In  I myself hesitantly proposed a thirteenth-century date for the monument to Constantia and her son John in Scarcliffe (Derbyshire), which the authors cite in their comparison with Muriel FitzAlan’s effigy in Bedale (pp –), omitting that I have since argued the Scarcliffe effigy to be a post-medieval forgery. Dating and stylistic analysis are often a matter of opinion, of course, and few studies can ever be definitive. However, this survey is an impressive achievement that will inspire and assist present and future researchers of medieval monuments.