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All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
Effigy in Whitworth Church, Durham is in Monumental Effigies of Great Britain.
THIS remarkable sculptured stone is about six feet in length. On the head of the figure is a cylindrical helmet: the apertures for the sight, and the weldings, or joints, are so arranged as to form a cross. This species of defence for the head was continued in use, with a slight variation in the form, until a much later period than that of the present subjecta. This effigy is in an attitude of defence: the shield is borne before the body, and in the right hand is the sword naked and erect. The surcoat extends only to the knee. The mails of the hauberk have either not been expressed, or are obliterated. The legs are crossed, designating a Crusader, and they appear to trample on a prostrate figure, intended, perhaps, for an infidel. At the right side is a couchant hound. The bearing on the shield is, barry, a bordure charged with bezants. These bearings do not belong to any family which are known to have existed in the North; the figure can therefore only be conjectured to represent one of the Lords of Whitworth. In one or two other places in the County are effigies sculptured in exactly similar costume, the work probably of the same handb.
Details. Profile. Plate 11. The top of the helmet.
Note a. See the real specimens extant. That of Edward the Black Prince in Canterbury Cathedral, delineated in this work. Two belonging to the Lords of Cobham are in the chancel of Cobham Church, Kent.
Note b. See Surtees's Durham, vol. III. p. 293, and the illustrative plates of that work.
