Really looking forward to speaking to Cardiff’s Continuing Education series of free lectures next week. The talk will involve telescoping two lectures into one, and as it’s part of the History programme I thought some further reading might be appropriate. To my embarrassment I find a lot is things I’ve written myself …
Some background reading on medieval cross slabs:
McClain, A. 2010. ‘Cross Slab Monuments in the late Middle Ages: patronage, production and locality in Northern England’, in S. Badham and S. Oosterwijk (eds), Monumental Industry, Shaun Tyas, Donington, 37-65.
This is a good introduction with a lot of further references to the work of Peter Ryder and Lawrence Butler – e.g.
Butler, L. A. S. 1964. ‘Minor medieval monumental sculpture in the East Midlands’, Archaeological Journal, 121, 111-53
Ryder, P. 1985. The Medieval Cross Slab Grave Cover in County Durham, Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland, Durham
On Welsh cross slabs:
Gresham, C. 1968. Medieval Stone Carving in North Wales, University of Wales Press, Cardiff
– still a useful introduction but see
GITTOS, B., and GITTOS, M. 2012. ‘Gresham revisited: a fresh look at the medieval monuments of north Wales’, Archaeologia Cambrensis, 161, 357–88
On the Llangynwyd cross slabs:
Gray, M. 2012-13. ‘Good thief, bad thief: some thoughts on the medieval cross slabs of south Wales’. Welsh Journal of Religious History 7 & 8, 24-38, and
Gray, M. 2017. ‘An unrecorded triple cross slab at St Mary Hill’. Morgannwg 61.
On the post-medieval cross slabs:
Gray, M. 2016. ‘Post-medieval cross slabs: closet Catholics or stubborn traditionalists?’ The Antiquaries’ Journal. 96, p. 207-240. Available online at https://pure.southwales.ac.uk/en/publications/postmedieval-cross-slabs(39f0b31f-d6e5-4bc6-b255-2750950fe7ee).html .
Online resources:
There are several posts on my https://welshtombs.wordpress.com/ blog – e.g. https://welshtombs.wordpress.com/2013/07/05/brecon-cathedral-history-beneath-your-feet/ , https://welshtombs.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/on-the-benefits-of-a-fresh-pair-of-eyes/ , https://welshtombs.wordpress.com/2015/11/06/abergavenny-three-more-post-reformation-cross-slabs/
and on the Tintern inscriptions, https://welshtombs.wordpress.com/2018/06/16/tintern-abbey-the-commendation-of-souls/
On the Llangynwyd cross slabs, https://churchmonumentssociety.org/monument-of-the-month/heaven-under-our-feet-the-laleston-triple-cross
and on Brecon https://churchmonumentssociety.org/monument-of-the-month/brecon-cathedral-a-post-reformation-cross-slab and https://churchmonumentssociety.org/monument-of-the-month/brecon-cross-slab-commemorating-lewis-havard-d-1569
The Church Monuments Society is for everyone who is fascinated by tomb carvings – medieval effigies, cross slabs, modern gravestones. Their web site is at https://churchmonumentssociety.org/
and the Ledgerstones Survey http://www.lsew.org.uk/ focusses on stones set in church floors – cross slabs, heraldic designs and others.
Finally, not really to do with cross slabs, but this thesis https://pure.southwales.ac.uk/en/studentthesis/death-and-commemoration-in-late-medieval-wales(7d14b42e-a69b-4968-9398-aad3b96748e0).html looks at different kinds of commemoration but also has a lot of detail on evidence for tomb carvings and burial practices.
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