Events

• Joint CMS/MBS Conference

  Friday, 2nd September 2022

  Status and Display

  Although much has changed for the better with regard to the Covid-19 pandemic, considerable uncertainty remains about the extent of the easing of lockdown over the summer, too much to enable sufficient planning to take place and to ensure viable levels of attendance. Reluctantly we have decided to postpone the conference for a second time, to September 2022.

  The conference has been rescheduled to the weekend of 2nd-4th September 2022 at the same venue, the Duke’s Head hotel, King’s Lynn, with a very similar programme.

  Full details will be announced next spring. In the meantime all queries about bookings should be addressed to the CMS President, Mark Downing at markdowning1@talktalk.net.

• General Meeting

  Saturday, 11th September 2021

  Virtual meeting via Zoom video conferencing platform

  Paul Cockerham, the Society's senior Vice-President, will speak on Contrasting Styles in French Incised Slabs: Gothic splendour at the abbey of Villeneuve – Renaissance opulence at La Chapelle-Rainsouin.

  The incised slabs of France are a little-known or appreciated primary source of information about material commemoration in that country, yet they are particularly valuable as they form an unbroken chronological series from the late 12th to the mid 17th century.

  Effigial slabs in particular demonstrate how the deceased wished to be remembered – as the military figure of a seigneur or knight, or a lawyer and officer of the court, a widow, or one of the religious – as one might expect, together with text, architecture, heraldry and other symbolism.

  However, the ways in which slabs discoursed these elements modulated with time, reflecting contemporaneous artistic genres, and to illustrate this I will examine a series of slabs from the 13th and 14th centuries at the abbey of Villeneuve (Loire-Atlantique), and in contrast, two 16th-century examples from the parish church at La Chapelle-Rainsouin (Mayenne). In addition, contextualising the locations of these slabs in both abbatial and parochial churches is most important in understanding how they articulated with their surroundings, so that the ultimate meaning of these two-dimensional funeral monuments becomes more apparent.

  The meeting will commence at 2.00p.m. 

  Members will be sent a link to the General Meeting. Visitors are welcome and should contact the Hon. Secretary, Penny Williams at penny7441@hotmail.com.