Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index



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  • Title: Margaret Irby's Daughters
  • Creator:
  • Description: Unlike many representations of children in previous centuries, the portraits of Margaret Irby’s daughters are individualized according to size, hair, and angle of the face. According to Malcolm Norris, a scholar of brass monuments, the individualized nature of the monument reflects the early 17th century desire to create a more “personalized and humanizing” representation of the deceased. In a portion of the brass not included in this rubbing Margaret is kneeling before a large book, probably a Bible, with her daughters behind her, highlighting Margaret’s role as the first to teach her children how to read and pray. Given that all three of her daughters preceded her in death, there is a particular poignancy in this simple portrayal of family life.

    This is one of the later brass memorials and its inscription is devoid of religious sentiment (“Here under lieth the body of Margaret Irby, the daughter of Sir Edward Barkham, sometime Lord Mayor of the city of London, and late the wife of Sir Anthony Irby, of Boston, co. Lincoln by whom she had issue three daughters, Jane, Margaret, and Jane all of which died before their mother, and lie interred here.”) By 1640 the Puritan movement was in full force and contributed to the decline of what was then often viewed as a papist practice. Furthermore, changing religious beliefs and constructions of social memory provided other ways to commemorate individuals’ lives.

  • Source: Haverford College donated by David and Maxine Cook
  • Rights: Permission of Haverford College
  • Subject (See Also): Brass Rubbing Daughters Family Mothers Prayer Religion Tomb Effigies
  • Geographic Area: British Isles
  • Century: 17
  • Date: 1640
  • Related Work: Brass rubbing of Margaret Irby and her daughters in the Haverford College collection: http://library.haverford.edu/staff/mschaus/feminae/margaret_irby.jpg
  • Current Location: Haverford College
  • Original Location: Tottenham, Middlesex, England. Church of All Hallows
  • Artistic Type (Category): Brass rubbing
  • Artistic Type (Material/Technique): Heelball; Paper
  • Donor:
  • Height/Width/Length(cm): 21.59 cm/33.02 cm/
  • Inscription: Here under lieth the body of Margaret Irby, the daughter of Sir Edward Barkham, sometime Lord Mayor of the city of London, and late the wife of Sir Anthony Irby, of Boston, co. Lincoln by whom she had issue three daughters, Jane, Margaret, and Jane all of which died before their mother, and lie interred here.
  • Related Resources: Bertram, Jerome, ed. Monumental Brasses as Art and History. Alan Sutton, 1996;
    Norris, Malcolm. Monumental Brasses: The Craft. Faber and Faber, 1978.