282
No.
III .
CATHOLIC MEMORIAL
INSCRIPTIONS.
CONTRIBUTED BY JOHN HOBSON MATTHEWS .
In view of the necessity for rescuing, before it is too late, the rapidly perishing memorials of the dead which can still be deciphered in churches, churchyards and cemeteries , there is perhaps no call for an apology on behalf of these notes of Catholic tombstone inscriptions . Societies have been formed for the preservation of all records of this nature , in England and Ireland , and the importance and urgency of such work is recognised on all hands. Time and weather, and the hands of that still more destructive agency, the ignorant Vandal, are causing the steady disappearance of old sepulchral memorials, especially those exposed to the open air. must not be said that Catholics are backward in placing the graven records of their co- religionists in the security of print, and a first instalment of such Catholic inscriptions is here presented to the public . It is hoped to add further examples from time to time. to preface this first contribution with a few remarks on It is necessary the whole subject, and as to the methods which have been followed in publishing these epitaphs. In the first place must explain how the sepulchral monuments of Catholics are identified , how they are distinguished from those of their Protestant brethren who lie around them. On medieval tombs there is often no inscription ; or when there is one , of little more than the name of the deceased, the date of his death, itandconsists a brief prayer for the repose of his soul. The tomb was almost always marked by a long cross , its arms terminating in ornamental forms which varied according to the period. After the Reformation , the cross was ousted in favour of fat cherubs , arabesques , urns, inverted torches , and other Pagan emblems ; the prayer for the dead was discontinued, and the epitaph expanded into an enumeration of the virtues of the deceased until at length , at the beginning of the 19th century, it had grown into a prosy, ridiculous and irreverent panegyric, or a morbid , moralizing and often doggrel rhyme . The instinct of the Faith preserved Catholic tombs from these repellent absurdities ; but the dominant Protestantism forbade the inscription of the ancient prayer for the departed, and even the cross, on sepulchral monuments. The irrepressible desire of the Catholic mind to distinguish, among the memorials of the dead , the resting -places of those who have gone before us with the sign of the Faith and sleep in the slumber of peace " * soon led our persecutedforefathers to substitute a symbol which served their purpose. This was the sacred monogram IHS, the middle letter being surmounted by a cross indeed, but one of such insignificant dimensions as to escape the censure of the Puritan. This is in some cases accompanied by the three nails and surrounded by rays ( as in the badge of the Society of Jesus) ; sometimes it is engraven within the outline of a heart in allusion to the Sacred Heart of Our Lord . When the times improved , the monogram was incised in bolder letters , and the cross became larger ; until at length , soon after Catholic Emancipation , the cross alone ( usually in relief ) began to figure on our gravestones . Recently, the introduction of certain Catholic practices within the Established Church has brought both the cross and imthe monogram into use on Protestant tombs ; and so would render
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* Canon of the Mass.