Page images
PDF
EPUB

we are disposed to think that our Haverford pilgrim wore short boots, like his brother at Ashby-de-la-Zouche. The pera, or scrip, is suspended by a strap, which probably passed over the right shoulder: the scrip is adorned with three objects resembling pilgrim flasks, one of which clearly exhibits a handle at the side. Mr. Bloxam, in his paper, gives a representation of a pilgrim's sign from Compostella, found at Dunwich; and we append a drawing of a somewhat similar badge, discovered among the ruins at Wroxeter, now in the Shrewsbury Museum. These little objects, usually termed "scallop-shells," were a sign that the wearer

[graphic][ocr errors][merged small]

had made a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James of Compostella, in Galicia, on the N.W. of Spain, and represent the shells that earlier and more unsophisticated devotees picked up on the sea-shore of that place.

The bourdon, pyk, or pilgrim's staff, can now be very faintly traced passing under the right elbow and down the right side; in Dinely's time it was complete, and had a round knob at the top.

Some object was enclosed between the uplifted hands, the remains, perhaps, indicating part of a chalice or other sacred vessel. Dinely shows a girdle round the waist; this has disappeared. There are remains of a beast under the place where the feet were. Dinely

gives us a picture of some creature in this position, but what he intended to suggest it is quite impossible to imagine; probably there was a dog.

To conclude, our effigy seems to be of early fifteenthcentury character, and no doubt represents an ecclesiastic who had undertaken the pilgrimage to Compostella. Whether he was a native of Haverfordwest, or had started from some other place to make a second pilgrimage to the shrine of St. David's, there is nothing to show, but our pilgrim must have been a man of some importance, otherwise he would not have been commemorated by an effigy. In St. Thomas's Church, Haverfordwest, will be found an effigiated slab inscribed :

F. RICARD LE PAVMER GIT: ICI DEV :

DE SA ALME EIT. MERCI AMEN.

This slab is decorated with a palm branch, and is a thirteenth-century monument.

No. 29. Effigy of Thomas White, 1482, St. Anne's Chapel, St. Mary's Church, Tenby-Under the southeast chancel arch, with their backs to the altar steps, are two tombs commemorative of the White family. Charles Norris, writing of these monuments in 1812, says:" About ten years ago the whole inscription. was easily legible; rain has since been suffered to drip during a whole winter upon the soft and melting stone of which the facing is composed, part of the legend is thus much defaced." More of it has disappeared since the days of Norris.

The eastern of these tombs covers the remains of Thomas White; his effigy, carved in stone, lies thereon:

1 Previous mention: Owen's Pembrokeshire, p. 262; Lord's Ichnography of Tenby Church in Browne Willis' Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford; Fenton's Pembrokeshire, p. 450; Norris' Etchings of Tenby, p. 39; Mason's Guide to Tenby, Seventh Edition, article by Rev. H. Haines, author of " Monumental Brasses," Arch. Camb., 1880, p. 130; Church Book of St. Mary's, Tenby, pp. 13 and 71.

[graphic][merged small]
« PreviousContinue »