This important monograph is the culmination of the authors’ enduring interest in Yorkshire’s medieval monuments and a fresh comprehensive survey carried out between 2010 and 2017. The richly illustrated printed text is accompanied by 251 pages of appendices accessible online, including a 209-page illustrated catalogue (https://books.casematepublishers.com/Interpreting_Medieval_Effigies_Online_Appendices.pdf). This clever solution allows readers to study all effigies individually, for many are just mentioned in passing in the main text.

Following an explanation of the conventions used, the main text is divided into six sections, including a short introduction explaining the authors’ methodology. Yorkshire is a large county that offers not just many surviving examples, but also great variety in style and iconography. The total number is 231, of which seven are located elsewhere although produced in Yorkshire; this is nearly 13 per cent of the estimated 1800 medieval effigies still found across the country from this period. Effigies in armour predominate, with ninety-one in total, but some examples are difficult to date precisely or too fragmentary to identify even as military, ecclesiastic or civilian.

Section 2 gives an overview of the types of effigies, including semi-effigial monuments and double effigies, an uncommon form that merits nationwide research, as illustrated by the curious truncated example at Ampleforth (fig 45). Sub-sections on lost effigies and the afterlife of monuments, including reuse, appropriation and recutting, provide fascinating case studies and insights.

Section 3 is on monuments in context, from church interiors and chapels to the churchyard. It demonstrates the authors’ careful scrutiny of the available evidence, but also strongly held opinions. For example, they reject Sally Badham’s convincing argument that William of Hatfield’s effigy in York Minster dates from shortly after his death in 1337 in favour of its being a retrospective monument of the 1370s that was subsequently given a new setting around 1400 (pp 73–4). Yet the angel carrying the prince’s soul to heaven in a boss above the tomb (pl 23) is a wonderful discovery that underlines the importance of context for the understanding of monuments and their makers. Perhaps also worth considering is a hitherto unrecognised connection between the sculpted half-length figure of the blessing Christ among the simple head stops on the east wall of the south transept clerestory and the monument of Walter de Gray on the floor below, for the archbishop was responsible for the creation of the south transept.

More case studies underpin section 4 on makers and making, which discusses materials and techniques. Seminal is the authors’ distinction of specific groups of effigies (Series A–E and Wolds) and their attribution to particular workshops, such as the unknown mason identified as responsible for their Series A/B effigies and for some architectural sculpture at York Minster. A recurring if debatable aspect is that of portraiture (eg p 128 and pl 41). Section 5 on patrons and patronage considers the economic and family backgrounds as well as the occurrence and meaning of such symbols as chalices, books, scrolls, hearts and souls. The complexity of some monuments and their settings is highlighted in the concluding section 5, which comprises a fascinating case study of the fourteenth-century priest’s tomb at Welwick. Identifying it as William de la Mare’s, the authors provide a masterful reconstruction of this partly dismantled monument that once apparently featured an ingenious use of light.

The book includes an index and a helpful endpaper map of the county indicating the locations of the effigies discussed. It is richly illustrated and well written, although the wealth of factual information does not always make easy reading and more cross-referencing might have been helpful. It is regrettable that the authors often do not mince words criticising other writers, although they admit to having sometimes revised their own earlier findings (eg pp 138, 144–5). Their descriptions of later repairs and recuttings, such as the seventeenth-century appropriation of a military effigy of c1300 at Scarborough (figs 95 and 183), should serve as a warning to the unwary. In 2010 I myself hesitantly proposed a thirteenth-century date for the monument to Constantia and her son John in Scarcliffe (Derbyshire), which the authors cite in their comparison with Muriel FitzAlan’s effigy in Bedale (pp 173–7), omitting that I have since argued the Scarcliffe effigy to be a post-medieval forgery. Dating and stylistic analysis are often a matter of opinion, of course, and few studies can ever be definitive. However, this survey is an impressive achievement that will inspire and assist present and future researchers of medieval monuments.