Memento Mori
Tuesday 22 February 2022
Tuesday 30 August 2011
Monday 29 August 2011
Remember Me
and here is a list of the girls I made my maidens. The middle column is the age at which they died.
1762 18 Ann STONEHOUSE
1773 20 Mercy STORM
1787 20 Ann MOOR
1772 17 Christian HUNTRODS
1802 14 Mary HUTTON
1804 16 Jane BEDLINGTON
1804 15 Ann HODGSON
1806 16 Jane GRANGER
1811 18 Jane RUSSELL
1816 17 Aly SALTON
1817 21 Grace TODD
1821 16 Hannah SAWDON
1822 11 Margaret MILBURN
1823 21 Nancy TODD
1825 17 Isabella DOBSON
1828 13 Ann MARLEY
1830 18 Hannah BAIKIE
1830 19 Sarah STUBBS
1831 12 Esther BURN
1837 21 Elizabeth MAW
1839 19 Jane KELD
1842 18 Alice BREWSTER
1842 17 Mary Ann PLUNKET
1845 12 Hannah BULMAN
1845 21 Ann HARRISON
1847 13 Sarah Ann MOLLON
1848 20 Elizabeth HARLAND
1853 21 Jane AVERY
1860 20 Janey LEVITT
1862 17 Maey HODGSON
1866 19 Ann DIXON
1866 15 Eliza HARRISON
1870 18 Henrietta BEDLINGTON
1870 14 Fanny COGGIN
1872 17 Mary SPENCE
1881 21 Martha Ann SKELTON
1883 12 Laura MOUG
1883 19 Mary Ann PEACOCK
1883 17 Hannah BARNARD
1883 18 Hannah Jane HUTTON
1890 21 Isabel PEACOCK
1891 21 Elizabeth BULMER
1894 14 Sarah STUBBS
1900 17 Annie KNAGGS
1900 19 Edith HUTTON
Tuesday 23 August 2011
White Gloves
Tuesday 26 July 2011
The Minsterley Garlands
Monday 18 July 2011
Fylingdales Maidens' Garlands
The garlands are extremely fragile and have suffered considerably from constant exposure to light dirt and to damage by moths and woodworm. Their deterioration does not in the least detract from their beauty and pathos as reminders of an old funereal custom.
About Maidens' Garlands
Maidens’ Garlands are a funerary memento for the death of a young chaste woman . They are also known as Virgin’s Crowns or Crants. The word Crant deriving from the German “ kranz”, meaning wreath, garland or chaplet.
The custom of hanging maidens’ garlands up in churches seems to have been common in the seventeenth, eighteenth and into the nineteenth centuries. It is even mentioned in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet where at the burial of Ophelia
“…. She is allowed her virgin crants, her maiden strewments”.
They were usually made on to a wicker work frame and appeared to be similar to, and reference, floral bridal wreaths. They could be decorated with gold and silver filigree work , blown birds’ eggs , shells and with ribbons,, silk and paper flowers and rosettes.. Sometimes the flowers were made from paper which might be folded and crimped and then painted. In some places circular white parchment flowers are painted with black crosses. There was usually a center piece made from paper such as a collar or handkerchief or a glove. Sometimes there is text present – an epitaph which might have been chosen by the maiden herself.
The garlands were carried before the corpses of young unmarried women at their funerals or placed on the top of the coffin. By the 17th century it was customary for the garland to be hung over the dead girl’s pew or in the chancel of the church till it disintergrated. The paper gloves which are commonly incorporated into the design of the garland are thought to represent the metaphorical gauntlet ready to be thrown down to defend the dead girl’s honour should anyone dare to question her reputation or virginity.
These lines written by the poet Anna Seward in 1792 refer to the custom;
“The gloves suspended by the garland’s side
White as its snowy flowers with ribbon tied
Dear village! Long may these wreaths funeral spread,
Simple memorials of thy early dead”