John Lowe

Date of Brass:

1426

Place:

Battle

County:

Sussex

Country:

Number:

I

Style:

London E

Description

July 2025

There is still much to be discovered about the men who made monumental brasses. By the late fifteenth century they had their own London company, the Marblers, but quite how individual marblers worked is unclear. By 1585, when their company was absorbed into the larger Masons' Company, their number was seemingly small, but still outnumbered the styles into which brasses at the time can be divided.

The divorce of figure and inscription styles from each other during the sixteenth century suggests increased specialisation, and also a fair degree of literacy of those cutting inscriptions. There may have been further division between those engraving the brasses, those setting the brasses into their slabs and those polishing the slabs. What seems to be beyond doubt is that there were relatively few men designing brasses and marking the lines to be engraved onto the metal.

The work of these designers was addressed in J P C Kent’s seminal paper, ‘Monumental Brasses - A New Classification of Military Effigies’, published in The Journal of the British Archaeological Association in 1949. He divided the military brasses of c.1360-c.1485 into those made in London, Yorkshire and Norwich, sub-dividing the London examples into six series, A-F. Series A and B dominated the earlier part of the period, B and D the latter. C and E produced smaller numbers of brasses, and F came in towards the end and continued past the author's chosen end point.

Robin Emmerson expanded Kent’s work to civilian and priestly brasses in the 1978 volume of the same journal, further interpreting and defining these series.

Series E, thought by Kent to have produced brasses only over a short time, with old stock being gradually used up thereafter, was reinterpreted by Emmerson to have existed for more than thirty years. This was perhaps the remaining working life of an individual originally trained in a workshop producing Series B or D brasses, after he had set up on his own. Emmerson also noted that the series had a clientele based mainly in the south-east and that, despite its low production, particular churches could contain several examples. One of these churches is St Mary’s at Battle, Sussex, where there are three Series E brasses.

The earliest of these commemorates John Lowe, esquire, who died in 1426. He is in armour with a foot inscription of twelve Latin verses. Other components, namely another small inscription and two shields, are now lost. The inscription and translation below are those published by Mrs C E D Davidson-Houston in Sussex Archaeological Collections, volume 76 (1935), 75.

 

Hoc latet in lapide caro q(uo)nd(am) lowe Joh(ann)is

Voluit(ur) in cin(er)e volui solitus bene pan(n)is

Alloq(ui)tur gentes sic p(er) bustu(m) venientes

Ne nimis ignore(n)t pro d(e)functis set ut orent.

Quisq(ui)s ad(e)s bustu(m) q(u)e vides sta p(er)lege plora

Judicii memor esto mei tua na(m) venit hora

Su(m) q(uo)d eris fuera(m) q(u)e q(uo)d es tua postiora

Commemora(n)s miseris misera(n)s p(ro) me p(re)cor ora

Annus erat semel m°c q(ua)ter sext(us) que vigen(us)

Cu(m) S(u)biit mortem fidei vir num(in)e plenus

Transiit a tenebris q(ui)ndena luce noue(m)bris.

Pro q(u)e fide grata consistat sede beata.

 

Translation:

‘Here lies entombed the corpse of one John Lowe.

He’s wrapped in dust, in fine robes wrapped of yore,

Thus through his tomb he accosts the coming race

Lest they forget to pray for those no more.

Thou whoe’re com’st and see’st this tomb, stop, read, and weep

Be mindful of my doom, for thine hour comes to thee.

I’m what thou’It be, and what thou art I was; thy latter day

Remembering, my plight pitying, pray I beseech for me.

’Twas one thousand, hundreds four, six and a score

When he suffered death, a man full of faith and grace.

He passed from gloom November’s fifteenth morn

And for his well-pleasing faith may rest in blessed place.’

 

Lowe was surveyor of all the manors of Battle Abbey. Some archival records of him in this role survive. He left money to be used after his death and that of his wife for completing the abbey’s new cloister. The shields on his brass both bore the same arms, On a chief indented three mullets.

 

Copyright (text and photo): Jon Bayliss