Notes and Queries, Number 229, March 18, 1854 (Paperback)

Excerpt: ... Sparrow Simpson. It is usually asserted that the dog appears at the feet of the lady in monumental brasses as a symbol of fidelity; while the lion accompanies her lord as the emblem of strength and courage. These distinctions, however, do not appear to have been much attended to. The dog, in most cases a greyhound, very frequently appears at the feet of a knight or civilian, as on the brasses of the Earl of Warwick, 1401, Sir John Falstolf at Oulton, 1445, Sir John Leventhorpe at Sawbridgeworth, 1433, Sir Reginald de Cobham at Lingfield, 1403, Richard Purdaunce, Mayor of Norwich, 1436, and Peter Halle, Esquire, at Herne, Kent, 1420. Sir John Botiler, at St. Bride's, Glamorganshire, 1285, has a dragon; and on the brass of Alan Fleming, at Newark, 1361, appears a lion with a human face seizing a smaller lion. On a very late brass of Sir Edward Warner, at Little Plumstead, Norfolk, 1565, appears a greyhound, a full century after the date assigned by B. H. Alford for the cessation of these symbolical figures. Sometimes the lady has two little dogs, as Lady Bagot, at Baginton, Warwickshire, 1407; and in one instance, that of Lady Peryent, at Digswell, Herts, 1415, there is a hedgehog, the meaning of which is sufficiently obvious. B. H. Alford, in noticing the omission of the dog in the brass of Lady Camoys at Trotton, 1424, has not mentioned a singular substitute which is found for it, namely, the figure of a boy or young man, standing by the lady's right foot: but what this means I cannot attempt to determine; perhaps her only son. It may be interesting to add that some brasses of ecclesiastics exhibit strange figures, not easy to interpret, if meant as symbolical. The brass at 250 Oulton, of the priest