bent effigies. The animals at the feet of these effigies, which
frequently have an heraldic significance, enabled the sculptors, with
equal propriety and effectiveness, to overcome one of the special
difficulties inseparable from the recumbent position. In general,
monumental effigies were carved in stone or marble, or cast in bronze,
but occasionally they were of wood: such is the effigy of Robert
Curthose, son of William I. (d. 1135), whose altar tomb in Gloucester
cathedral was probably set up about 1320.

In addition to recumbent statues, upright figures must receive notice
here, especially those set in wall-monuments in churches mainly. These
usually consisted in half-length figures, seen full-face, placed in a
recess within an architectural setting more or less elaborate. They
belong mainly to the 16th and 17th centuries. Among the many examples in
old St Paul's cathedral (destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666) were those
of Dean Colet (d. 1519), William Aubrey (1595) and Alexander Nowell (d.
1601). In St Giles's, Cripplegate, is the similarly designed effigy of
John Speed (d. 1629); while that of John Stow (d. 1605) is a
full-length, seated figure. This, like the figure of Thomas Owen, is in
alabaster, but since its erection has always been described as
terra-cotta--a material which came into considerable favour for the
purpose of busts and half-lengths towards the end of the 16th century,
imported, of course, from abroad. Sometimes the stone monuments were
painted to resemble life, as in the monuments to Shakespeare and John
Combe (the latter now over-painted white), in Holy Trinity Church,
Stratford-on-Avon.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--Among the more noteworthy publications are the
following: _Monumental Effigies in Great Britain_ (Norman Conquest to
Henry VIII.), by C. A. Stothard, folio (London, 1876); _The Recumbent
Monumental Effigies in Northamptonshire_, by A. Hartshorne (4to,
London, 1867-1876); _Sepulchral Memorials_ (Northamptonshire), by W.
H. Hyett (folio, London, 1817); _Ancient Sepulchral Effigies and
Monumental Sculpture of Devon_, by W. H. H. Rogers (4to, Exeter,
1877); _The Ancient Sepulchral Monuments of Essex_, ed. by C. M.
Carlton (4to, Chelmsford, 1890); and other works dealing with the
subject according to counties. Of particular value is the _Report of
the Sepulchral Monuments Committee_ of the Society of Antiquaries,
laboriously compiled at the request of the Office of Works, a