‘Grey Dolphin’ and The Horse Church, Minster in Sheppey: the construction of a legend

oliver d. harris

This paper explores the origins and development of the Isle of Sheppey legend of ‘Grey Dolphin’, the horse that helped save its master’s life only to be slain. Associated with the monument of Sir Robert de Shirland (d. 1324) in Minster Abbey church, the tale is first recorded in the mid-seventeenth century, and was greatly popularised by Richard Barham (‘Thomas Ingoldsby’) in 1837. It is argued that the story was probably assembled in recognisable form in the aftermath of the Reformation, with elements drawn from Italian, Slavic and Scandinavian folklore, and the central episode inspired by a misreading of the horse’s head on the monument.

In the former abbey church of St Mary and St Sexburga at Minster in Sheppey, set against the south wall of the chancel, is the early fourteenth-century effigial monument identified as that of Sir Robert de Shirland (d.1324) (Fig. 1). It is, opined William Bramston (vicar 1878-1925), ‘so well known that it is not necessary to give a very full account of it ... For wherever the English language is spoken something about it is known’. A bold claim to make of any church monument, but Bramston goes on to explain that he is thinking less of the monument than of the tale attached to it. ‘The legend of the Grey Dolphin, which is the legend of Sheppey, has been read by multitudes’.1 Although no longer quite so ubiquitous, the story endures as a popular and intriguing piece of local folklore. The present study is mainly concerned with the origins and development of this legend – or rather, legends, for as we shall see there is more than one.

The monument

To begin with a description of the monument:2 it takes the form of a French-influenced ‘ciborium’ tomb – a recumbent effigy on a low tomb chest beneath an elaborate gabled and pinnacled canopy.3 The canopy is now somewhat mutilated, but recess, chest and effigy all survive. Although occasional doubts have been raised, it seems likely that all these elements date from about the 1320s, and that the recess is the effigy’s original location.4 The figure, wearing mail beneath a padded aketon (tunic) and surcoat, lies on his side with legs crossed. His head rests on his great helm, and his body partially on his face-down shield and sword. His lance with pennon lies beneath the shield. At his feet, serving as a footrest, is the smaller figure of a retainer or squire. And behind his legs, at a scale relatively larger than that of the retainer, but not quite the life size of the main effigy, is the mailed head of a horse (Fig. 2).

The damage to the canopy had occurred by the 1780s, and perhaps rather earlier (Fig. 3). In the 1790s, both Samuel Ireland and Zechariah Cozens emphasised the monument’s decay.5 David Thomas Powell explained in 1805 that above the recess ‘was once a lofty pyramid finishd with a large finial as plainly appears by what is still left tho the far greater part is demolishd & the finial stuck upon the plaister with which they have patchd it up’.6 Francis Grose, who visited in 1759, commented that the effigy had ‘suffered much from a custom the country people have been indulged in, of cutting on it the initials of their names, by which the figure of the Knight is much defaced’; while another visitor of 1786 found the retainer ‘much broken’ and ‘loose’.7 Nevertheless, there remained much to be admired.

The monument was repaired during the church’s restoration of 1879-81, supervised by the architect Ewan Christian. The work was well-intentioned, and much was sensitively executed. However, the results were not to everyone’s taste: soon afterwards, one correspondent looked back nostalgically to a lost era of ‘crumbling tombs’.8 More specifically, in the name of restoration the effigy was stripped of the polychromy that had still been visible to Powell in 1805, to Charles Stothard in 1819, and – at least in residual form – to John Hewitt in 1876.9 Charles Harper in 1904 remarked sardonically that the tomb was now ‘rubbed down in a cleanly and housewifely manner quite destructive of any appearance of antiquity’.10

Since the seventeenth century the individual commemorated has been identified as Sir Robert de Shirland, a prominent Kentish knight in the reigns of Edward I and Edward II, whose byname derives from the local manor of Shurland or Shirland. John Weever in 1631 briefly noted ‘some antique monuments of the Shurlands’ at Minster; and Richard Kilburne in 1659 similarly reported a monument ‘of Shurland ... (very antient)’.11 Thomas Philipot – also writing in 1659, but drawing on materials assembled a generation earlier by his father, John Philipot, Somerset Herald – stated explicitly that ‘Sir Robert de Shurland ... lies entombed under an Arch in the Southwall, with his portraicture insculped in a Marble’.12

Sir Robert saw military service in Gascony in 1294-95, and later in the Scottish wars: at the sieges of Caerlaverock (1300), Stirling (1304) and Berwick (1319), and at the battle of Bannockburn (1314).13 At Caerlaverock he was knighted.14 In October 1320 he attended Parliament as a knight of the shire for Kent.15 However, in March 1322 he fought on the rebel baronial side against the forces of Edward II at the battle of Boroughbridge. He was captured, and held for over a year in the Tower of London. Released in April 1323, he was bound by an indenture of retainer to Hugh Despenser the Younger, probably as a guarantee of good behaviour.16 Three months later, he was despatched overseas to serve as mayor of the volatile city of Bordeaux and (briefly in early 1324) acting seneschal of the Duchy of Aquitaine.17 He was still mayor in July 1324, but by the beginning of September had died.18 He left no sons, and his estates passed to his only daughter, Margaret, who married Sir William Cheyne.

Heraldry supplies a degree of corroboration to tie the monument to Sir Robert, but is not conclusive. The Shirland arms were Azure, six lions rampant argent, a canton ermine – these being a differenced version of the arms (Azure, six lions rampant argent) borne by the Leybourne or Leyburn family, with whom Sir Robert’s father, Sir Roger de Shirland, had been closely associated.19 When Powell inspected the effigy’s costume in 1805, he was able to report that ‘much remains of the original painting thereon azure of the finest ultramarine & several lions rampant argent both before & behind’ (Fig. 4).20 Stothard in 1819 similarly noted the blue ground and white lions (Fig. 5);21 and even today, despite the cleaning, a few residual flecks of blue pigment can still be discerned. What is unclear, however, is whether the ermine canton (a square panel at the upper left of the arms) ever featured. Powell searched, but ‘could not discover anything of the canton ermine so effaced it is about that part of his breast’; nor was it seen by Stothard.22 If present, it would strongly support the identification of the effigy as Sir Robert; but if absent, it might indicate – as speculated by Richard Marks – that a Leybourne is represented, perhaps Sir William de Leybourne (d.1309).23 However, Nigel Saul is sceptical of this last suggestion, observing that the Leybournes had no connection with Minster; and that Sir William, a banneret, would have borne on his lance a square banner rather than an elongated pennon.24

There must remain a margin of doubt, but for the present the traditional attribution to Sir Robert de Shirland may be accepted. The grandeur of the work may well reflect the sense of crisis that accompanied the lack of a male heir to the Shirland line.25 It is quite possible that Sir Robert himself commissioned the monument in his lifetime; but if he died overseas in Gascony, as the evidence would suggest, it is also likely that it became not his tomb but his cenotaph.

The most distinctive sculptural element is the horse’s head. Along with the accompanying retainer, this should almost certainly be read as an evocation of Sir Robert’s knightly status. It may allude specifically to the custom of a horse being included in a knight’s funeral procession, perhaps being brought into church, and sometimes bequeathed as a mortuary offering.26 Sir Robert was ensconced in chivalric equestrianism, and we even have descriptions of two of his mounts ridden in the Scottish wars: in 1303 a ‘brown bay piebald horse with two white hind feet’, valued at the considerable sum of £40; and in 1315 a ‘dark bay horse with a round star on its forehead’, valued at 50 marks (£٣٣ ٦s. 8d.).27

The grouping of knight, retainer and warhorse is one that is found in medieval iconography in various media elsewhere.28 Two near-contemporary effigial monuments offer close parallels to Shirland’s, depicting squires holding the reins of their masters’ horses: that of a member of the Sleyt family at Old Somerby, Lincolnshire (c.1325-30), and that of Sir Richard de Stapeldon (d.1332) in Exeter Cathedral (Figs 6 and 7).29 Another two cases of interest, both in the North Riding of Yorkshire, are a cross-slab at Gilling East, on which a horse’s head takes its place alongside the deceased’s shield and sword (Fig. 8);30 and what may be a similar composition at Barningham (Fig. 9).31 Given its centrality to chivalric culture, there can be little doubt that on most of these monuments, including Minster, the horse appears as a marker of rank and status.

The legend

We may turn now to the legend associated with the monument. Although told as a single story, it falls into three distinct episodes, which it will be helpful to separate at the outset. In essence, it runs as follows:

1) Sir Robert encounters a priest who has refused to bury a corpse for want of payment. Outraged by this act of inhumanity, he has the priest buried alive in the open grave.

2) Mounted on his steed, he swims out to the Nore (some two miles north of Sheppey) to beg the King, who is on board a ship at anchor, to pardon him for the murder.

3) Horse and rider return to shore, where an old woman predicts that the horse that has helped save the knight’s life will bring about his death. To thwart her prophecy, Sir Robert beheads the horse. Some time later, he encounters its bones, kicks the skull, injures his foot, and contracts an infection from which he dies.

Weever in 1631 may have encountered versions of these stories, but was dismissive of them, remarking merely that ‘the inhabitants have many strange relations not worth remembring’ about the Shirland monuments.32 Philipot in 1659, although equally sceptical, was willing to go into more detail, and establishes that by this date most elements of the legend were in place. Sir Robert’s tomb, he wrote,

is become the scene of much Falshood and popular errour; the vulgar having digged out of his Vault, many wild Legends and Romances, as namely that he buryed a Priest alive, that he swam on his horse two miles thorough the Sea to the King, who was then neer this Island on Shipboard, to purchase his pardon; and having obtained it, swam back to the Shore: where being arrived, he cut off the head of his said Horse, because it was affirmed, he had acted this by Magick: and that riding on hunting a twelvemoneth after, his horse stumbled and threw him on the Scull of his former Horse, which blow so bruised him, that from that Contusion he contracted an inward impostumation, of which he dyed; and in memory of which, an Horse Head is placed at his Feet.33

Another version was reported in 1719 by John Harris, who wrote that ‘the People tell you very strange Stories, and will take it amiss if you don’t believe them’. He elaborates on Sir Robert’s reasons for killing the priest. ‘[R]iding by the Church one Day, he saw a poor Man going to be buried, but the Priest refused to say the Office over him, because they were not able to pay him his Fees; this enraged Shurland so, that he killed the covetous Priest; or as some say, threw him into the Grave, and so the People buried him Alive with the Man’. Harris also introduces the prophetess, ‘a Witch no doubt’, and her prophecy. He concludes that this ‘good round Story ... looks very much like an Invention of the Priests’.34

Others preferred to set the tale in the Elizabethan era. In 1711, a ‘Kentish parson’ – almost certainly John Goodyer, vicar of Minster – dined at the London home of Sarah, Lady Cowper. He told his hostess the story of how his predecessor ‘in the Reign of Q: Bess’ had refused to bury a man without payment, leading an indignant nobleman, ‘Lord Dor’, to have the cleric buried alive in the grave; ‘for which Fact the Earl was Try’d and Condemnd to dy. But the Queen pardon’d Him’.35 The concluding episode seems on this occasion to have been omitted. It lay at the heart, however, of the version related to a convivial party of five friends, including the artist William Hogarth, who visited Minster in 1732. The monarch was again Elizabeth, who had sailed to the Nore to ‘take a Veiw of her Fleet Design’d to oppose the Spanish Armada’, and the tale proceeded in all its details to the prophecy, its fulfilment, and the horse’s head on ‘Lord Shorland’s’ tomb. ‘Wee were so Well Satisfied of the Peoples Beleif that all they told us was true,’ wrote the attorney Ebenezer Forrest, ‘that wee did not Dare to Declare our Disbeleif of one Tittle of the Story’.36 Shortly afterwards, another friend of the group, the Canterbury antiquary William Gostling, recast Forrest’s prose account in doggerel verse. His version concludes with ‘the hag’s prophecy fulfill’d’, and a mention of the monument – but he also recognises the obvious anachronism:

The tomb is of too old a fashion

To tally well with this narration.37

It is clear that the legend was thoroughly embedded in local oral culture. In 1747, following a visit to Minster, Elizabeth Papillon mentioned the monument and horse’s head in a letter to her brother, but felt it unnecessary to elaborate, commenting merely, ‘I suppose you may have heard the story’.38 Later in the century, it was increasingly disseminated in print. In 1774 the relevant portion of Gostling’s verse was published by Grose; in 1781 the full poem by John Nichols; in 1782 Forrest’s prose narrative; also in 1782 a version based on Philipot in Edward Hasted’s county history; and in 1784 another retelling by George Augustus Walpoole, this time based on Forrest.39 Later renditions included, in 1824, Gostling’s verse by way of Grose in a folk-collection entitled Relics for the Curious.40

In 1837, the tale received its greatest boost of all. Writing under the pseudonym ‘Thomas Ingoldsby’, Richard Barham published a burlesque reworking, entitled ‘Grey Dolphin’, in the journal Bentley’s Miscellany (edited by Charles Dickens).41 Three years later, this reappeared in the first volume of Barham’s collected stories, under the overarching title of The Ingoldsby Legends.42 Barham’s protagonist is named Ralph de Shurland, the monarch is Edward I, and the horse the eponymous ‘Grey Dolphin’. The story is embroidered with much colourful detail – from the ‘bull-necked and bandy-legged’ Sir Ralph to the ‘all blood and bone’ Grey Dolphin – to draw it out to over 7,000 words. But the core elements remain: the killing of the priest; the horseback swim to procure a royal pardon; the prophecy; the beheading; and retribution when Sir Ralph contemptuously kicks Grey Dolphin’s skull, only for a tooth to pierce his toe.

In his fictive persona of Ingoldsby, Barham describes the legend as ‘an established favourite with all of us’, and even goes so far as to claim descent from Shirland, and a right to bear the Shirland arms alongside his own.43 Elsewhere, writing in his own voice, he characterised his story as ‘a real Kentish legend, or rather the amalgamation of two into one’ – the second being that of a drowned mariner buried but then exhumed at Chatham, which he weaves into the episode of the unburied pauper.44 Barham ends his narrative with a description of the monument, and of the ‘respectable elderly lady’ who recounts the tale to visitors. A note added in 1840 reports that the tomb has been opened, and that ‘Mr Simpkinson’, a parody of the antiquary John Britton, ‘says the bones of one of the great toes were wanting’ – but this, it need hardly be added, is fantasy.45

The Ingoldsby Legends proved to be a bestseller, running through multiple editions over succeeding decades. But it was not alone in spreading awareness of the Minster legend. Also in 1840, the antiquary and poet John Brent published his own ballad version as one of his Lays and Legends of Kent.46 Thirty years later the relevant portion of Gostling’s verse was said still to be ‘popularly sung’.47 This unbridled nineteenth-century enthusiasm for the tale is the basis for Bramston’s claim that the Shirland monument was known ‘wherever the English language is spoken’.

The wreck of the sea theory

In 1659, having dismissed the Shirland legend as a ‘fictitious Story, ... rent into the disunion of so many absurd circumstances’, Philipot proposed a more rational interpretation of both the horse’s head and the lance on the monument. Sir Robert, he argued,

being Lord Warden of the Cinque-ports, and a man of eminent Authority under Edward the first, obtained Grant of priviledge by Charter, to have wrack of Sea upon his Lands confining on the Sea Shore, neere Shurland: now the extent of this Royaltie is evermore esteemed to reach as far into the Water, upon a low ebb, as a man can ride in, and touch any thing with the point of his Launce, and so you have the explication of this marvel.48

While some of these details are muddled – Sir Robert was never Warden of the Cinque Ports, and there was no charter – the allusion to ‘wreck of the sea’ is sound.49 The term denotes the right to claim anything washed up on the foreshore, including seaweed, ‘great fish’, and the cargo and debris of wrecked ships.50 An inquisition of 1283 found that Sir Roger de Shirland (Sir Robert’s father) and his ancestors had held the franchise within the manor of Shirland from time immemorial; and Sir Robert twice had it confirmed at quo warranto hearings in 1293 and 1313.51 The records of one or more of these proceedings must have been known to Philipot.52 In certain jurisdictions – notably Normandy, and perhaps the Cinque Ports – such rights were said to extend as far into the sea as a horseman at low water could reach with his lance.53 This provision too had evidently attracted Philipot’s attention.

Local folklore now embellished the theory by borrowing from the older legend the notion of the swimming horse. In 1774, Grose noted that ‘Some pretend, [the horse’s head] was to mark an excellency [Sir Robert] possessed in the art of training horses to swim’;54 and by 1785 was reporting that this proposition had been woven into the wreck theory.

Sir Robert Shurland was, it is said, famous for the art of teaching horses to swim; and having obtained the grant of wreck of the sea, which privilege is always esteemed to reach as far from the shore into the water, as, upon the lowest ebb, a man on horseback can ride in and touch with the point of his lance, he by swimming his horse extended that right beyond the usual limits; which being contested by law, he obtained a decision in his favour, in memory of which the swimming horse was placed on his monument.55

Grose himself was deeply sceptical, deeming the idea ‘scarcely more probable’ than that of the fatal skull: had the monument been designed to symbolise the franchise, Sir Robert would ‘probably have been represented on horseback with his lance in his hand’.56 Richard Gough agreed, thinking the theory ‘as little capable of support as the vulgar tradition’.57 Hasted, by contrast, allowed it ‘more probability’ than the traditional story; and it continues to feature in modern commentary.58 But the truth is that the notion of the horse and lance symbolising claims to wreck of the sea is a fanciful hypothesis erected on the flimsiest of empirical foundations.

Variations on a theme

In its various retellings, the story often incorporated the claim that the effigy’s crossed legs indicated that he had been either a crusader or, specifically, a Knight Templar. This conceit was not local to Sheppey, having its roots in antiquarian speculation of the 1590s surrounding the cross-legged military effigies in the Temple Church, London, which was subsequently extended to similar figures elsewhere.59 The generic crusading association remained unchallenged for many years (and survives as a popular belief to the present day), but by the mid-eighteenth century antiquaries were beginning to question the specific Templar connection. Gough in 1786 denounced this as a ‘vulgar error’, arguing rather that the attitude was ‘a badge of a croisader, and not of either of the military orders’.60 At Minster, however, the Templar theory proved particularly resilient. Antiquaries continued to characterise the Shirland effigy either as a Templar, or at least as resembling a Templar, well into the nineteenth century.61 Barham in 1837 described its legs as ‘crossed in that position so prized by Templars in ancient, and tailors in modern, days’; and as late as 1897 the figure was still ‘commonly called “The Templar”’.62

For Walpoole in 1784 the fact that the effigy lay ‘in the habit [sic] of a knight templar’ undermined any notion of Elizabethan origins.

Oral tradition generally preserves the memory of facts, but almost always disguises the circumstances, and misplaces the time. It is well known that the knights templars were utterly abolished all over Europe, above two hundred years before the birth of queen Elizabeth; and as the person buried here must have been of that order, we suppose that he had been one of those romantic heroes, who went, during the crusades, to Palestine, and on some emergent occasion the horse might have saved his life, a thing common in every age, and in memory of that event he might order that the head of the animal might be carved on the tomb.63

A variant legend, which drew on these crusading associations, was told locally in the 1860s. The protagonist, identified only as ‘a knight of Sheppey’, is about to embark on the Third Crusade, setting the action a century earlier than the life of Robert de Shirland. In preparation for his departure he has, ‘according to the judicious practice of the age, made away with an inconvenient young woman’. On ‘the flat seashore between Sheerness and the Sheppey Cliffs’, the victim’s mother, a ‘wise woman’, predicts that the knight’s favourite war-horse will avenge her daughter’s death. The rest follows: the knight slaughters the horse, but, years later, pierces his foot on its skullbones, and perishes.64

In another variant recounted by the ‘village Cicerone’ at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a marauding ‘freebooter’ based on Sheppey carries out predatory raids on the Kentish mainland, evading detection and capture through the swiftness of his horse and the subterfuge of reversing his horseshoes. Eventually forced to surrender, he seeks a pardon from Queen Elizabeth – who grants it on condition that he first swims three times on horseback around her flagship. The task is accomplished, but is followed by the prophecy and its fulfilment.65 A later writer speculated that this tale of a ‘robber-chief of Sheppey’ might have pre-Conquest roots.66

Other commentators were prepared to accept the idea of the swimming horse, but sought to play down the legends’ more sensational elements. A correspondent of 1786 suggested that the head might commemorate merely ‘an exceeding fine horse, who was very dextrous in swimming’; Ireland in 1793 thought that the horse might have been ‘the means of saving [Sir Robert’s] life, by swimming with him across the Swale’; while John Cave-Browne in 1897 reported a claim that the swim had been undertaken to fulfil a wager.67 Charles Seymour in 1776 proposed that, in gratitude for his life being saved, Shirland had given the church a votive offering of ‘the figure of a horse in wax’ (its translation into stone being left unexplained).68 Gough in 1786 thought the head might be heraldic.69 None of these suggestions had the appeal of the traditional legend, and none has ever threatened to supplant it.

Precursor legends

Having reviewed the documented development of the legends, their earlier origins may now be investigated – elements of which can be traced to times and places far distant from early modern Sheppey. The first episode, that of the dead pauper or traveller, the priest who withholds burial rites for want of payment, and the lord who exacts punishment by having the priest buried alive with the corpse, is of Italian origin. The earliest known version, which survives only in fragmentary form, was recounted by Franco Sacchetti in the late fourteenth century. Its protagonist is a signore – unnamed, but possibly intended for Bernarbò Visconti, joint or sole lord of Milan from 1354 to 1385 – and the dead man a pilgrim. Both the priest and a clerk are buried alive.70 Just over a century later, in 1503, Bernardino Corio included another version in his published history of Milan: the incident was now set in the year 1409, and the lord identified as Bernarbò’s great-nephew, Giovanni Maria Visconti, second Duke of Milan.71 Corio’s book was republished in Venice in 1554; and in the same year a more elaborate retelling by the celebrated novellatore Matteo Bandello appeared in print in Lucca.72 With further embellishment, a French version of Bandello’s narrative was published by François de Belleforest in Paris in 1565; and thence an English translation by R. Smythe in London in 1577.73 The protagonist remains the Duke of Milan, but the parallels with the Minster legend are so close as to leave little room for doubt that a connection existed.

The third episode of the legend, that of the fatal horse’s skull, finds similarly exotic antecedents in Slavic and Norse legend.74 In the Slavic version, the protagonist is Oleg ‘the Seer’, the Varangian (Viking) prince of the Rus’, who ruled from 879 in Novgorod and from 882 in Kyiv. The Russian Primary Chronicle – with roots in the late eleventh or early twelfth centuries, though surviving texts are later – tells how a soothsayer predicts that Oleg will meet his death from his beloved steed. To safeguard himself, Oleg has the horse banished from his presence; but in the year 912, on being told that it has died, goes to view its bones. He sneers at the prophecy and stamps on the skull, only for a snake to emerge and bite him fatally on the foot.75 Like the tale of Robert de Shirland, that of Oleg enjoyed a popular revival in the nineteenth century through a literary reworking – in this case by Alexander Pushkin, in his 1822 lyric ballad, ‘The Lay of Oleg the Wise’.76

A similar narrative frames the thirteenth-century Icelandic Ǫrvar-Odds saga, set in a remote and mythical past. The protagonist is Ǫrvar-Oddr, and the setting Berurjod in western Norway. A witch predicts that the skull of Oddr’s horse, Faxi, will bring about his death. To defy the prophecy, Oddr kills Faxi, buries the carcase in a pit, and sets off to wander the earth. Three hundred years later he returns, discovers Faxi’s skull, and prods it with his spear. He is bitten on the ankle by a concealed snake, and dies.77 The story is unlikely to be native to Iceland, where there are no snakes, and was probably carried there from Scandinavia.

Scandinavia might also plausibly have been the source of the Varangian story of Oleg.78 However, Adolf Stender-Petersen, citing an additional Serbian folktale (recorded in the nineteenth century) in which the protagonist is a ‘sultan’, posits an ultimate origin in Byzantium or Asia Minor. From there, he argues, the tale migrated north to the Slavic lands, to Scandinavia, and eventually to Iceland and Sheppey.79

Other analogous legends include two from North Wales, in which the prophesied agents of death are, respectively, a serpent and a dragon.80 Here, however, the parallels are more tenuous, and any suggestion of links with the Slavic, Norse or Kentish traditions can only be speculative.

The horse and the ‘Horse Church’

This leaves for consideration the central episode of the Minster legend, in which the horse carries his master through the sea to obtain a royal pardon. This story does not find obvious parallels elsewhere, and is probably of local origin.

An important catalyst seems to have been that the horse’s head on the monument rests on a series of carved undulations, which were interpreted as waves, so that the horse appeared to be swimming (see Fig. 2). This idea is reported uncritically in many of the antiquarian descriptions, and reflected in their illustrations.81 Grose in 1774 describes the head ‘emerging out of the waves of the sea, as in the action of swimming’;82 and Powell in 1805, with the aid of a sketch, comments that the sculpture ‘certainly is meant for a swiming horse as the waves carvd in stone are plainly visible all around the lower part of this horses head’ (Fig. 10).83 Only Hewitt in 1876 is sceptical, preferring to read the undulations as, ‘of course, the animal’s mane’ – a conclusion with which the neutral observer is bound to agree.84 Clearly there has been an element of wishful thinking; but even so, the widespread perception of waves raises the possibility that the carving might have been coloured to strengthen the impression of water and so underpin the legend.

The waves are to some extent, however, a peripheral detail. At the heart of the story lies the horse’s head itself; and its influence can be seen to have extended beyond Shirland’s monument to infuse the entire church.

In 1732, having recounted the legend, Forrest adds: ‘This Story is so Firmly beleiv’d in that parish, That a Horses head Finely Gilt is plac’d as a Weathercock on the Church Steeple & the Figure of a Horse is Stuck upon the Spindle above that Weather cock, and the Church is Commonly call’d the Horse Church’.85 His comments are echoed by later antiquaries.86 The windvane was perhaps erected at the beginning of the eighteenth century (although the horse motif would have been most unusual at that date).87 It features in general views of the church (e.g. Fig. 11), and in 1788 was sketched at a larger scale by Jacob Schnebbelie (Fig. 12).88 Exposed to the elements, it required periodic renovation: one piece is said to have borne the date 1773, and a surviving running-horse terminal is dated 1817 (Fig. 13).89 Emma Roberts in 1827 mentions a discarded piece ‘adduced as a corroboration of the story’ and displayed at the Shirland monument.90 The operational vane, in fair condition in 1904 (Fig. 14), was in disrepair by 1930, and in 1954 was replaced with a cross.91 A new vane, modelled on its predecessor, was erected in 2019 – not on the church tower but on the adjacent abbey gatehouse.

In addition, there are elusive hints that there may have existed further horses’ heads on – or added to – the other two principal effigial monuments in the church. In 1719, having reported the horse’s head on the Shirland monument, Harris adds, ‘I believe the People have removed [this head] to [the monument] of Sir Thomas Cheyney’ (d.1558), and that ‘some tell this Story [the full Shirland legend] of that Lord’.92 This association of the legend with Sir Thomas was still being made as late as 1827.93 There is in fact no evidence that the Shirland head has ever been moved – but might Sir Thomas’s monument have been augmented with its own horse’s head?94 The second case is that of the fifteenth-century effigy now convincingly identified as William Cheyne (d.1487), Sir Thomas’s father.95 Its footrest is a rather effete lion, compared by one writer to a ‘French poodle’ – but in 1732 Samuel Scott, another member of the party that included Forrest and Hogarth, seems to have drawn it as a horse (Fig. 15).96 Was this just a slip, or had the parishioners enhanced it in some way?

At this distance of time, we cannot hope to unravel the full chronology of the introduction of these several horses and horse associations to the ‘Horse Church’. What seems clear, however, is that the head on the Shirland monument was the original horse at Minster, and the progenitor and inspiration for all others.

Horses and horses’ heads played a significant role in folk belief, ritual and art in the pre-modern era.97 Inter alia, their importance finds expression in turf-cut hill figures; in various ‘hobby horse’ traditions; in the practice of depositing horses’ skulls within buildings; and in the carved horses’ heads traditionally added to houses in parts of northern Germany, northern Russia, and occasionally East Anglia.98 In the case of both the skulls and the carvings, one motivation was probably to ward off evil influences. We might therefore speculate that, at some date at which the meaning of the carving at Minster had faded into obscurity, its appearance was found to be sufficiently striking and evocative for some loosely protective significance to be assigned to it, and for it to have prompted the introduction of further horses’ heads to the church. The only surprise, perhaps, is that the church authorities were willing to tolerate such interventions.99

conclusions

The legend at Minster provides an example of a folktale that evolved to explain a monument whose original significance and intent was forgotten – what has been dubbed ‘monument lore’.100 The case is noteworthy because the legend is documented from a relatively early date, allowing us to trace its development in closer detail than elsewhere; and on account of the range of cultural influences that appear to have fed into it. But there remain, of course, substantial gaps in our knowledge.

It seems likely that the three main strands were woven together in the late sixteenth century – perhaps two generations or so before the tale enters the written record in the mid-seventeenth. In 1536, Minster Abbey was dissolved and many of its buildings secularised or demolished. In 1581, the Cheyne family mortuary chapel was demolished, and some of its monuments and coffins moved into what was now the parish church.101 At a date unknown and for reasons unknown, another fifteenth-century effigy was buried in the churchyard, to be recovered only in 1833.102 Events such as these formed watershed moments in a community’s consciousness of its past; points at which continuities of memory and tradition, anchored in visible and tangible remains, were ruptured. They left voids that, in an imperfectly literate society, could be filled only by half-recollection, fallible oral report, vague supposition, and invented tradition.

The identity of the knight on the ciborium monument appears to have been correctly if hazily remembered into the early modern era as Sir Robert de Shirland. But the significance of the horse’s head was less certain, and it became an object of curiosity, speculation, and perhaps minor veneration. Its mane was misinterpreted as waves, and so introduced the central conceit of the swimming horse. From there the tale grew, to provide tentative explanations as to why the horse might have been swimming, and why its swim might have merited memorialisation. In time the narrative was embellished with its dramatic opening and closing chapters, borrowed from further afield: the crime that inaugurates the chain of events; and the prophecy that ends in Sir Robert’s death.

While it is not impossible that the Italian story of the murdered priest crossed Europe orally, it is far more probable that the greater part of its journey was accomplished through print – meaning that its arrival in Kent can be dated with some confidence to after 1577, when Smythe’s translation was published in London. Translated Italian tales were said at this time to be ‘sold in every shop in London’, and we may readily imagine the story, whether in printed or oral form, subsequently being carried down the Thames to Sheppey.103 There is, however, one additional and intriguing local clue that may, just conceivably, help explain why it became specifically attached to the Shirland monument. In March 1322, Walter Reynolds, Archbishop of Canterbury, granted a request for a service of reconciliation to be held at Minster, where church and churchyard had been ‘polluted by blood’.104 Such a request need not have been triggered by anything as serious as a fatality, but the coincidence of date – the lifetime of Sir Robert, and the month in which he rebelled against his king – raises at least a possibility that some faint memory of this unhappy incident survived in the locality for two and a half centuries, was associated with Sir Robert and his monument, and was eventually fleshed out with details borrowed from the Italian fable.

By contrast, the Norse/Slavic legend of the prophecy and the fatal skull did not reach print before the eighteenth century, and can only have travelled in manuscript or, more probably, orally. Stender-Petersen attributes its arrival in Sheppey to Viking influence (the island having served as an occasional base or refuge for Viking contingents); while Griselda Cann Mussett proposes a connection with the Old English poem Beowulf.105 However, given that Viking activity in Kent was largely hostile and transitory, and that the Beowulf parallels appear somewhat strained, neither of these suggestions is really convincing. It seems more likely that the story crossed from mainland Europe at a much later date, reflecting Kent’s prominence as a trading hub in the late medieval and early modern periods.

Even so, one final piece of circumstantial evidence suggests that this concluding episode may, just possibly, have been in place by the early decades of the sixteenth century, before the hiatus of the Reformation. In 1786 Gough reported a variant tale attached to the tomb of Robert de Shirland’s four-times-great-grandson, Sir John Cheyne (d.1499), in Salisbury Cathedral.

The vergers pretend that it being foretold to Sir John that his horse would be his death, he caused him to be killed, and standing by as the animal was in the agonies of death, he received from it a blow on his leg or foot, which occasioned his death; and they attempt to illustrate their error by the leaves carved under the soles of the knight’s feet.106

Cheyne’s monument was dismantled in c.1790, but its effigy survives, relocated to the cathedral nave.107 It is far from clear what the carvings on the feet represent, and still less how they might be thought to substantiate the legend (Fig. 16).108 Nor is it immediately apparent how the tale of a prophecy fulfilled might have travelled over a hundred miles to the tomb of a sixth-generation descendant. Nevertheless, it is worth considering that Sir John had been born at Shurland, and was doubtless acquainted with the family monuments at Minster; while his younger brother, Edward, served as Dean of Salisbury from 1486 until his own death in 1502. We may therefore surmise that the legend was carried from Sheppey to Salisbury by some member of the Cheyne family or household; and, given that Sir John died childless, this seems most likely to have happened within a decade or two of his death.

Be that as it may, the fabrication of the Minster legend in all its complexity provides an instructive case study in how an extraordinarily wide range and variety of sources and influences – variously rooted in oral tradition, written testimony, material remains, and imaginative speculation; with some elements of strictly local origin, and others emanating from the furthest ends of Europe – could be intertwined and used to augment one another in the construction of an elaborate if fictitious ‘memory’ of the past.109 It is impossible to conclude that ‘apart from obvious embellishments the story is fact’; but equally its various strands cannot be dismissed merely as ‘ridiculous conjectures’ or ‘idle reports’.110 Rather the legend should be valued as a reminder of the sophistication, richness and diversity of the local culture of early modern England.

acknowledgements

The author is indebted to Nestie Strauss and Anthony Platt at Minster Abbey; Ruiha Smalley at Kent Archaeological Society; Aleksandra McClain and David Moore for advice on the Barningham cross slab; Sarah Fletcher at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge; Susanna and Rosemary Forrest; Tim Cockburn for assistance at Exeter; and the diffident friend who drew my attention to the Pushkin ballad and set this investigation in motion.

endnotes

1 W. Bramston, 1901, A History of the Abbey Church of Minster, Isle of Sheppey, Kent (London), p. 33.

2 For descriptions and discussion, see R. Marks, 1993-4, ‘Sir Geoffrey Luttrell and some companions: images of chivalry c.1320–50’, Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, vol. 46/47, pp. 343-55 (343-5); N. Saul, 2013, ‘An early private indenture of retainer: the agreement between Hugh Despenser the younger and Sir Robert de Shirland’, English Historical Review, vol. 128, pp. 519-34 (530-34); M. Downing, 2010-15, Military Effigies of England and Wales, 9 vols (Shrewsbury), vol. 3, pp. 125-6.

3 Cf. L.L. Gee, 1979, ‘“Ciborium” tombs in England 1290-1330’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, vol. 132, pp. 29-41.

4 H.A. Tummers, 1980, Early Secular Effigies in England: the thirteenth century (Leiden), p. 31; Marks, ‘Geoffrey Luttrell’, pp. 344-5; and Saul, ‘Early private indenture’, pp. 530-31, are all satisfied that effigy and canopy are contemporary. For expressions of doubt, see J. Cave-Browne, 1897, ‘Minster in Sheppey’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xxii, pp. 144-68 (157); Bramston, Abbey Church, p. 34; J. Newman, 1969, North East and East Kent, The Buildings of England (Harmondsworth), p. 377.

5 S. Ireland, 1793, Picturesque Views on the River Medway, from the Nore to the vicinity of its source in Sussex (London), p. 16. ‘T. Mot’ [pseud. Z. Cozens], 1798, ‘Minster Abbey and Church – Sir Thomas Cheney, K.G.’, Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 68:2, pp. 837-8.

6 British Library [BL] Add. MS 17733, fol. 190r.

7 F. Grose, 1773-76, The Antiquities of England and Wales, 4 vols (London), vol. 2, entry for ‘The Monastery of Minster, in the Isle of Shepey, Kent’ [unpaginated]; ‘Amator Vetustatis’ [pseud.], 1786, ‘Traditional history of Sir Robert de Shurland’, Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. 56:1, pp. 453-4.

8 ‘A.J.M.’, 1888, ‘Minster Church’, Notes and Queries, 7th ser. vol. 5, p. 214.

9 BL Add. MS 17733, fols 190v, 193r, 194r; C.A. Stothard, 1832, The Monumental Effigies of Great Britain, ed. A.J. Kempe (London), p. 39, pl. 41; C.A. Stothard, 1876, The Monumental Effigies of Great Britain, ed. A.J. Kempe, rev. J. Hewitt, 2nd edn (London), p. 73. The date of Stothard’s visit is inferred from his drawing of the Northwood brasses: Monumental Effigies, pl. 54.

10 C.G. Harper, 1904, The Ingoldsby Country (London), p. 244.

11 J. Weever, 1631, Ancient Funerall Monuments (London), pp. 283-4; R. Kilburne, 1659, A Topographie or Survey of the County of Kent (London), p. 191.

12 T. Philipot, 1659, Villare Cantianum: or Kent Surveyed and Illustrated (London), p. 382.

13 Saul, ‘Early private indenture’, pp. 521-2.

14 Philipot, Villare Cantianum, pp. 121-2. Philipot cites a roll copied or compiled by his great-uncle, Robert Glover (d.1588), Somerset Herald.

15 F. Palgrave (ed.), 1827-34, The Parliamentary Writs and Writs of Military Summons, Record Commission, 2 vols in 4 parts (London), vol. 2:2, pp. 224, 229.

16 Calendar of Patent Rolls [CPR], 1321-1324, p. 276; Saul, ‘Early private indenture’, pp. 519-20, 527-30.

17 CPR, 1321-1324, p. 247. The National Archives [TNA] C61/35, mm. 9, 8d, 7; calendared at The Gascon Rolls Project (1317–1468), http://www.gasconrolls.org/index.html.

18 CPR, 1324-1327, pp. 1-2; P. Chaplais (ed.), 1954, The War of Saint-Sardos (1323-1325): Gascon correspondence and diplomatic documents, Camden 3rd ser. vol. 87 (London), pp. 46, 51. A summons to the Great Council at Westminster in May 1324, implying his presence in England, was perhaps an oversight: Palgrave, Parliamentary Writs, vol. 2:2, p. 643.

19 Cf. G.J. Brault, 1997, Rolls of Arms: Edward I (1272-1307), 2 vols (London), vol. 2, pp. 255-7, 391.

20 BL Add. MS 17733, fol. 190v.

21 Stothard, Monumental Effigies, p. 39, pl. 41.

22 BL Add. MS 17733, fol. 190v.

23 Marks, ‘Geoffrey Luttrell’, p. 344.

24 Saul, ‘Early private indenture’, p. 531 n. 46. Saul’s second point is moot, as the flag lies partly beneath the shield, rendering its shape uncertain.

25 Saul ‘Early private indenture’, p. 530.

26 Stothard, Monumental Effigies, 2nd edn, pp. 73, 122; J.W. Willis Bund (ed.), 1902, Register of Bishop Godfrey Giffard, September 23rd, 1268, to August 15th, 1301, Worcestershire Historical Society, 2 vols (Oxford), vol. 2, pp. 449-50; E.G. Millar (ed.), 1932, The Luttrell Psalter (London), pp. 52, 54.

27 TNA E101/612/11, m. 2v; TNA E101/15/6, m. 2.

28 Marks, ‘Geoffrey Luttrell’.

29 Downing, Military Effigies, vol. 2, p. 15; vol. 4, p. 63. Cf. N. Saul, 2009, English Church Monuments in the Middle Ages: history and representation (Oxford), pp. 212-3.

30 Downing, Military Effigies, vol. 8, p. 19. B. and M. Gittos, 2019, Interpreting Medieval Effigies: the evidence from Yorkshire to 1400 (Oxford), pp. 183-4, and appendices (at https://books.casematepublishers.com/Interpreting_Medieval_Effigies_Online_Appendices.pdf), p. 66.

31 R.H.E[dleston], 1942, ‘Illustrations of tomb slabs: IV’, Teesdale Record Society, vol. 9; A. McClain, ‘Symbols on medieval cross-slabs: what have we learned?’, in C. Steer (ed.), 2020, The Monuments Man: essays in honour of Jerome Bertram (Donington), pp. 46-66 (57). Edleston, McClain and the Historic England listing all interpret the motif as a falconer’s glove; but McClain concedes that it may be a horse’s head (pers. comm.).

32 Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments, p. 284.

33 Philipot, Villare Cantianum, p. 382.

34 J. Harris, 1719, The History of Kent (London), p. 108.

35 Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies DE/P/F33, p. 279: diary of Sarah, Lady Cowper, 15 February 1711. John Goodyer (d.1715) may have been related to Pennington née Goodere (c.1665-1727), Lady Cowper’s daughter-in-law.

36 C. Mitchell (ed.), 1952, Hogarth’s Peregrination (Oxford), pp. 14-15.

37 Mitchell, Peregrination, pp. 41-2.

38 Kent History and Library Centre [KHLC] U1015/C60/48: Elizabeth Papillon to David Papillon, 8 September 1747.

39 Grose, Antiquities, vol. 2, ‘Minster’; J. N[ichols], 1781, Hogarth’s Tour (London), pp. 88-90; reprinted in J. Nichols, 1782, Biographical Anecdotes of William Hogarth, 2nd edn (London), pp. 421-2; [E. Forrest], 1782, An Account of What Seemed Most Remarkable in the Five Days Peregrination of the Five Following Persons, viz. Messieurs Tothall, Scott, Hogarth, Thornhill, and Forrest (London), pp. 7-8; E. Hasted, 1778-99, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, 4 vols (Canterbury), vol. 2, p. 66, n 1; G.A. Walpoole (ed.), 1784, The New British Traveller (London), p. 21. There are minor variations in Gostling’s verses as rendered by Grose and Nichols.

40 Anon., Relics for the Curious, 1824, 2 vols in 1 (London), vol. 1, pp. 4-7.

41 ‘T. Ingoldsby’ [pseud. R. Barham], 1837, ‘Family Stories No. III: Grey Dolphin’, Bentley’s Miscellany, vol. 1, pp. 341-53.

42 ‘T. Ingoldsby’ [pseud. R. Barham], 1840-47, ‘Grey Dolphin’, in The Ingoldsby Legends: or Mirth and Marvels, 3 vols (London), vol. 1, pp. 65-94.

43 ‘Ingoldsby’, Legends, vol. 1, title page and pp. 64, 93.

44 R.H.D. Barham, 1870, The Life and Letters of the Rev. Richard Harris Barham, 2 vols (London), vol. 2, p. 16: Barham to Mary Ann Hughes, 1 March 1837. For the second legend, see W. Lambarde, 1576, A Perambulation of Kent (London), pp. 286-8. An unidentified drowned mariner is buried at Chatham, only for an animate statue, Our Lady of Chatham (supplanted in Barham’s version by St Bridget) to object on account of the man’s sinfulness. The body is exhumed and returned to the river, but recovered and buried at Gillingham, where the rival Rood of Gillingham loses its miracle-working potency.

45 ‘Ingoldsby’, Legends, vol. 1, p. 94. For ‘Simpkinson’, see Harper, Ingoldsby Country, pp. 19-20.

46 [J. Brent], 1840, ‘Sir Robert de Shurland’, in Lays and Legends of Kent (London and Canterbury), pp. 1-18. A revised edition appeared in 1841.

47 J. Timbs, 1870, Abbeys, Castles, and Ancient Halls of England and Wales, 2 vols (London), vol. 2, pp. 285-6.

48 Philipot, Villare Cantianum, p. 382.

49 John Philipot had earlier named both Sir Robert and his father as Wardens, but no evidence supports either claim: W. Camden, 1636, Remaines Concerning Britaine, ed. J. Philipot (London), p. 213; F.W. Steer (ed.), 1956, John Philipot’s Roll of the Constables of Dover Castle and Lord Wardens of the Cinque Ports, 1627 (London), p. 21. Thomas Philipot lists neither name at Villare Cantianum, p. 12. Hasted, History, vol. 4, p. 70, names Sir Robert as Warden, but his cited source, Samuel Jeake, does not. Sir Robert’s grandfather, Sir Geoffrey de Shirland, served in 1225-26 as Constable of Dover Castle, an office often combined with that of Warden, which may explain the confusion.

50 F.C. Hamil, ‘Wreck of the sea in medieval England’, in A.E.R. Boak (ed.), 1937, University of Michigan Historical Essays (Ann Arbor), pp. 1-24; S. Raich, 2016, ‘Wreck of the sea in law and practice in eleventh- and twelfth-century England’, Anglo-Norman Studies, vol. 38 (Woodbridge), pp. 141-54.

51 Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous (Chancery), vol. I (London, 1916), p. 368; W. Illingworth (ed.), 1818, Placita de Quo Warranto temporibus Edw. I. II. & III. in Curia Receptae Scaccarii Westm. Asservata, Record Commission (London), pp. 315, 358. See also W.C. Bolland (ed.), 1913, Year Books of Edward II, vol. VIII: The Eyre of Kent, 6 & 7 Edward II, A.D. 1313-1314, vol. III, Selden Society vol. 29 (London), p. 181.

52 Philipot cites no sources; but Harris, History, p. 108, cites the ‘Tower Records’. The 1283 file was in the Tower of London; the quo warranto rolls in the Court of Receipt at Westminster.

53 For the Norman customary law, codified in 1583, see Anon., 1586, Coustumes du pais de Normandie, anciens ressors, et enclaves d’iceluy (Paris), fols 80v-81r (art. 583); J. Bérault, 1612, La Coustume réformée du pays et duché de Normandie, anciens ressorts & enclaves d’iceluy (Rouen), p. 762 (art. 596). For the Cinque Ports, see S.A. Moore, 1888, A History of the Foreshore and the Law Relating Thereto, 3rd edn (London), p. 207; Journals of the House of Lords: Vol. 3 (London, 1771), p. 658. John Talbot in 1605 ascribed the custom to ‘divers [unspecified] Corporacions, and ... manors next the sea’: Moore, Foreshore, p. 246. The extramural Portsoken area of the City of London was deemed to extend into the Thames as far as a horseman could throw his lance: G.A.J. Hodgett (ed.), 1971, The Cartulary of Holy Trinity Aldgate, London Record Society vol. 7 (London), p. 167; R.R. Sharpe (ed.), 1901, Calendar of Letter-Books of the City of London: C, 1291-1309 (London), pp. 217, 225; J. Stow, 1908, A Survey of London, ed. C.L. Kingsford, 2 vols (Oxford), vol. 1, p. 121.

54 Grose, Antiquities, vol. 2, ‘Minster’.

55 F. Grose, 1785-87, The Antiquities of England and Wales, 2nd edn, 8 vols (London), vol. 3, pp. 78-9.

56 Grose, Antiquities, 2nd edn, vol. 3, p. 79.

57 R. Gough, 1786-96, Sepulchral Monuments in Great Britain, 2 vols in 5 parts (London), vol. 1:1, p. 77.

58 E. Hasted, 1797-1801, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, 2nd edn, 12 vols (Canterbury), vol. 6, p. 247.

59 O.D. Harris, 2010, ‘Antiquarian attitudes: crossed legs, crusaders and the evolution of an idea’, Antiquaries Journal, 90, pp. 401-40 (411-23).

60 Gough, Sepulchral Monuments, vol. 1:1, pp. xcv, 51.

61 Grose, Antiquities, vol. 2, ‘Minster’; C. Seymour, 1776, A New Topographical, Historical, and Commercial Survey of the Cities, Towns, and Villages, of the County of Kent (Canterbury), p. 587; Bodleian Library [Bodl.] Gough Maps 226, fol. 81r (Jacob Schnebbelie); Ireland, Views, p. 17; BL Add. MS 17733, fol. 190r (Powell); J. Britton, E.W. Brayley et al., 1808, The Beauties of England and Wales, 18 vols in 22 parts (London), vol. 8, p. 713.

62 ‘Ingoldsby’, Legends, vol. 1, p. 94; Cave-Browne, ‘Minster’, p. 156n.

63 Walpoole, Traveller, p. 21.

64 ‘A.J.M.’, ‘Minster Church’, p. 214. The author reports hearing the tale ‘twenty years ago’.

65 E. Roberts, 1827, ‘The Isle of Sheppey’, London Weekly Review, vol. 1:15 (15 Sept), pp. 236-7. Roberts (b.1791) reports hearing the tale in her youth.

66 Anon., 1879, ‘Sir Robert de Shurland’, Sheerness Times (19 July), p. 5.

67 ‘Amator Vetustatis’, ‘Traditional history’, p. 454; Ireland, Views, p. 18; Cave-Browne, ‘Minster’, p. 156n.

68 Seymour, Survey, pp. 587-8.

69 Gough, Sepulchral Monuments, vol. 1:1, p. 77.

70 F. Sacchetti, 1970, Il Trecentonovelle, ed. E. Faccioli (Turin), pp. 150-52 (novella 59).

71 B. Corio, 1503, Historia continente da lorigine di Milano tutti li gesti, fatti, e detti preclari, e le cose memorande milaneso in fino al tempo di esso autore (Milan), pt 4, sig. [C5]r.

72 B. Corio, 1554, L’Historia di Milano (Venice), fol. 303r; M. Bandello, 1910-12, Le Novelle, ed. G. Brognoligo, 5 vols (Bari), vol. 4, pp. 290-92 (III.25); translated in J. Payne (trans.), 1890, The Novels of Matteo Bandello, Bishop of Agen, 6 vols (London), vol. 5, pp. 288-90 (III.19).

73 F. de Belleforest, 1565, Le Second Tome des Histoires Tragiques, extraites de l’Italien de Bandel (Paris), fols 212r–219v (no. 29), and later editions; R. S[mythe], 1577, Straunge, Lamentable, and Tragicall Hystories (London), sigs B1r-D2v.

74 Parallels between the Kentish, Slavic, Norse and other traditions are discussed in A. Taylor, 1921, ‘The death of Ǫrvar Oddr’, Modern Philology, vol. 19, pp. 93-106; A. Stender-Petersen, 1934, ‘Die sage vom tode des helden durch sein ross’, in Die Varägersage als Quelle der altrussischen Chronik, Acta Jutlandica vol. 6 (Aarhus), pp. 176-209; A.H. Krappe, 1942, ‘Parallels and analogues to the death of Ǫrvar Odd’, Scandinavian Studies, vol. 17, pp. 20-35; and G.C. Mussett, 1998, ‘Beowulf and the Sheppey legend’, in P. Wilkinson and G.C. Mussett, Beowulf in Kent, Faversham Paper 64 (Faversham), pp. 19-38 (30-33).

75 D. Ostrowski, 2003, The Pověst’ vremennykh lět: an interlinear collation and paradosis, 3 vols (Cambridge, Mass.), vol. 1, pp. 220-25; translated in S.H. Cross and O.P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor (eds), 1953, The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian text (Cambridge, Mass.), p. 69.

76 A. Pushkin, 2000, ‘The Lay of Oleg the Wise’, trans. T.B. Shaw, in I. Sproat et al. (eds), Lyric Poems: 1820-1826, The Complete Works of Alexander Pushkin, vol. 2 (Downham Market), pp. 85-8.

77 G. Jónsson (ed.), 1954, ‘Örvar-Odds saga’, in Fornaldar Sögur Norðurlanda, 4 vols (Reykjavík), vol. 2, pp. 199-363 (207-9, 339-40, 362); translated in H. Pálsson and P. Edwards (eds), 1985, ‘Arrow-Odd’, in Seven Viking Romances (Harmondsworth), pp. 25-137 (29-31, 121, 137).

78 Taylor, ‘Death’, pp. 105-6; Krappe, ‘Parallels’, p. 34.

79 Stender-Petersen, ‘Die sage’, pp. 202-9.

80 I. Foulkes, 1862-4, ‘Cymru Fu’: yn cynwys hanesion, traddodiadau, yn nghyda chwedlau a dammegion Cymreig (Wrexham), pp. 424-5; W.J. Roberts, 1894, ‘Our traditions: Y Garrog’, Wales, vol. 1, pp. 279-80; T.G. Jones, 1930, Welsh Folklore and Folk-Custom (London), pp. 83, 85; J. Westwood, 1985, Albion: a guide to legendary Britain (London), p. 289.

81 E.g. Mitchell, Peregrination, p. 15, plate (‘Drawing the 8th’); ‘Amator Vetustatis’, ‘Traditional history’, p. 453, pl. I, fig. 1; Ireland, Views, pp. 16-17.

82 Grose, Antiquities, vol. 2, ‘Minster’.

83 BL Add. MS 17733, fols 190r-v, 194r.

84 Stothard, Monumental Effigies, 2nd edn, p. 73.

85 Mitchell, Peregrination, p. 15.

86 E.g. Grose, Antiquities, vol. 2, ‘Minster’; Seymour, Survey, p. 587; ‘Amator Vetustatis’, ‘Traditional history’, p. 453; Ireland, Views, p. 17.

87 Cf. P. and P. Mockridge, 1990, Weathervanes of Great Britain (London), pp. 166-78.

88 See also Schnebbelie’s smaller-scale sketches at Bodl. Gough Maps 226, fol. 245r.

89 1773 is reported as ‘inscribed on the horse’ (whether the horse-head tailpiece or running-horse terminal is unclear) in a printed appeal for funds of c.1930 at KHLC P254/6/25. There may be confusion with Morris’s 1773 engraving of the abbey (see Fig. 11).

90 Roberts, ‘Sheppey’, p. 237.

91 KHLC P254/6/25, report and appeal re proposed repairs to the vane, c.1930. KHLC P254/6/B/27, architects’ report on renovation work, 22 Jan. 1954: an initial proposal for a new vane was abandoned. The nineteenth(?)-century tailpiece was recovered during building work in 1990: B. Slade, 1991, Pagan Gods in Minster Abbey (Minster) [unpaginated].

92 Harris, History, p. 108. Originally buried in the adjacent Cheyne mortuary chapel, Sir Thomas was reinterred in the main church in 1581: Cave-Browne, ‘Minster’, pp. 150-52; Bramston, Abbey Church, pp. 35-6; M. Herbert, 2011, ‘The Minster Yorkist: an armoured effigy in the Abbey Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Sexburgha, Minster, Isle of Sheppey, Kent’, The Ricardian, vol. 21, pp. 1-22 (17).

93 Roberts, ‘Sheppey’, p. 237.

94 The effigy’s footrest, probably a lion, has been headless since at least the 1780s: see drawings at Bodl. Gough Maps 226, fols 39v, 58r.

95 Herbert, ‘Minster Yorkist’; Downing, Military Effigies, vol. 3, p. 128. The effigy was identified in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as that of a Spanish ‘ambassador’ or prisoner buried in 1591: cf. Cave-Browne ‘Minster’, pp. 163-5.

96 C. Igglesden, 1900-46, A Saunter Through Kent with Pen and Pencil, 34 vols (Ashford), vol. 28, p. 60.

97 C. Fern, ‘Horses in mind’, in M. Carver, A. Sanmark and S. Semple, 2010, Signals of Belief in Anglo-Saxon England: Anglo-Saxon Paganism Revisited (Oxford), pp. 128-57; M.-A. Wagner, ‘Le cheval dans les croyances Germaniques entre paganisme et Christianisme’, in C. Steel, J. Marenbon and W. Verbeke (eds), 2012, Paganism in the Middle Ages: threat and fascination (Leuven), pp. 85-108.

98 E.C. Cawte, 1978, Ritual Animal Disguise: a historical and geographical study of animal disguise in the British Isles (Cambridge); B. Hoggard, 2019, Magical House Protection: the archaeology of counter-witchcraft (New York), pp. 55-63, 135; N.W. Thomas, 1900, ‘Horses’ heads, weathercocks, etc.’, Folk-Lore, vol. 11, pp. 322-3; G.E. Evans, 1966, The Pattern under the Plough (London), pp. 199-200; M. Matossian, 1968, ‘The peasant way of life’, in W.S. Vucinich (ed.), The Peasant in Nineteenth-Century Russia (Stanford), pp. 1-40 (4).

99 For horse skulls in ecclesiastical settings, see S. Ó Súilleabháin, 1945, ‘Foundation sacrifices’, Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, vol. 75, pp. 45-52 (49); P. Jones and N. Pennick, 1995, A History of Pagan Europe (London), p. 140; E. Wiliam, 2000, ‘Concealed horse skulls: testimony and message’, in T.M. Owen (ed.), From Corrib to Cultra: folklife essays in honour of Alan Gailey (Belfast), pp. 136-49 (136-40); Hoggard, Magical House Protection, pp. 57, 60-61, 136, 218, 228-9, 246, 290, 295.

100 J.B. Smith, 2006, ‘Monument lore’, Notes & Queries for Somerset and Dorset, vol. 36:363, pp. 37-39. For examples centred on church monuments, see Westwood, Albion, pp. 41-43, 53-54, 83-85, 94-95, 106-08, 128-30, 139-40, 164-66, 171-72, 220-23; and for an extended case-study, C. Hadley, 2019, Hollow Places: an unusual history of land and legend (London).

101 Cave-Browne, ‘Minster’, pp. 150-52.

102 H.T.A. Turmine, 1843, Rambles in the Island of Sheppy (London), p. 22; J. Hewitt, 1849, ‘Effigy of a knight of the fifteenth century’, Archaeological Journal, vol. 6, pp. 351-8; Cave-Browne, ‘Minster’, pp. 162-3; Downing, Military Effigies, vol. 3, p. 127.

103 R. Ascham, 1570, The Scholemaster (London), fol. 26v.

104 Lambeth Palace Library, Reg. Reynolds, fol. 128v: faculty for service of reconciliation, 28 March 1322; cf. Cave-Browne, ‘Minster’, p. 148. On pollution and reconciliation, see C. Daniell, 1997, Death and Burial in Medieval England, 1066–1550 (London), pp. 89-90.

105 Stender-Petersen, ‘Die sage’, p. 209; Mussett, ‘Beowulf’.

106 Gough, Sepulchral Monuments, vol. 1:1, pp. 77-8.

107 S. Brown, 1999, Sumptuous and Richly Adorn’d: the decoration of Salisbury Cathedral (London), pp. 25, 45, 127-8, 149.

108 Gough elsewhere queried ‘if the leaves be wings’: Bodl. MS Gough Misc. Antiq. 15, fol. 12r.

109 For wider consideration of these themes, cf. K. Thomas, 1983, The Perception of the Past in Early Modern England (London), pp. 2-9; A. Fox, 2000, Oral and Literate Culture in England 1500-1700 (Oxford), pp. 213-58; D. Woolf, 2003, The Social Circulation of the Past: English historical culture 1500-1730 (Oxford), pp. 300-91.

110 Quotations from B. Slade, 1987, The Legend of the Grey Dolphin becomes Fact: new evidence about Sir Robert de Shurland (Minster), preamble; Seymour, Survey, p. 587; Hasted, History, 2nd edn, vol. 6, p. 227.

Fig. 1 The monument of Sir Robert de Shirland, Minster-in-Sheppey. (Author.)

Fig. 2 The horse’s head on the Shirland monument. (Author.)

Fig. 3 View of the Shirland monument by Jacob Schnebbelie, 1788. Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford: Gough Maps 227, fol. 315r.

Fig. 4 Drawing of the effigy by David Thomas Powell, 1805. © British Library Board: Add. MS 17733, fol. 193r.

Fig. 5 Drawing of the effigy by Charles Stothard, 1819. Four lions appear on the figure’s sleeve, and a fifth on the skirt of his surcoat. © The Trustees of the British Museum, Prints and Drawings 1883,0714.528.

Fig. 6 Footrest of the effigy of a member of the Sleyt family, Old Somerby, Lincolnshire (c.1310-30). (Author.)

Fig. 7 Footrest of the effigy of Sir Richard de Stapeldon (d. 1332), Exeter Cathedral. (Author.)

Fig. 8 Relief cross-slab, Gilling East, North Riding, Yorkshire (fourteenth century). (Author.)

Fig. 9 Cross-slab, Barningham, North Riding, Yorkshire (?fifteenth-century). Motifs include a shield and sword at left; a possible horse’s head at centre; and a hawk at right. (Author.)

Fig. 10 Details of the monument, including the polychromy of the effigy’s surcoat and the horse’s head, recorded by David Thomas Powell, 1805. © British Library Board: Add. MS 17733, fol. 194r.

Fig. 11 Minster Abbey gatehouse and church, after a drawing by Francis Grose, 1759; engraved by Thomas Morris, 1773; published in Grose’s Antiquities of England and Wales, 1774. © British Library Board: 10348.g.3.

Fig. 12 Sketch of the windvane by Jacob Schnebbelie, 1788. Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford: Gough Maps 226, fol. 84r.

Fig. 13 Running-horse terminal, dated 1817. (Photo: West Sheppey Parish.)

Fig. 14 Woodcut of the windvane by C.G. Harper, from The Ingoldsby Country, 1904.

Fig. 15 Drawing of the effigy of William Cheyne (d.1487), identified as the ‘Spanish Embassador’, by Samuel Scott, 1732. © The Trustees of the British Museum, Prints and Drawings, 1847,0320.7.

Fig. 16 The feet of the effigy of Sir John Cheyne (d.1499), Salisbury Cathedral. (Author.)