medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
---- Madeleine Gray <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> 2. I think it's possible that some of the figures are bedesmen from the
> funeral procession and that one is one of the poor men given gowns to walk in
> the procession. This is of course a common feature in late medieval wills and
> funerals - but does anyone know of any specific descriptions of the kind of
> robes they were given? The figure we are looking at has quite an elaborate
> robe with buttons down the front and nice buttoned sleeves, but he's barefoot.
I think it's not so much how elaborate the robes were as the quality and quantity of the cloth.
At the funeral obsequies of the Queen of Spain [Joanna the Mad] at St Paul's in June 1555, gowns for 120 poor men cost £125 18s 4d. The official mourners were issued with their livery as cloth (and presumably had it made up themselves!): the chief mourner got 16 yards and his two pages only 4 yards between them. The total cost of 510 yards was £363 8s. (Calendar of State Papers, Mary I, pp.100-101.)
John Briggs
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