ABSTRACT
When Joan Strode died in 1649 aged 42, her husband William erected a monumental brass in her memory at Shepton Mallett, Somersetshire. The engraving captured the precise moment of death. It depicted husband, wife and children kneeling on either side of a tombchest. Six boys knelt in order of age behind the father and three daughters behind the mother, each child identified by name. The orderly image was alarmingly interrupted by the central figure, a skeleton representing Death in a style that would not have looked out of place in a scene painted 200 years previously. With his right hand he aimed a spear at the figure of Joan and with his left he held a wreath ready to lay on her head. William’s hand rested on Death’s elbow, a futile attempt to restrain him. Across this drama were written the words ‘parum fuit diu vixit’ [it was not enough, she lived too short a time], presumably intended to represent speech by William to Death. In the foreground a series of gravestones were set into the floor, six on the dexter side with heraldic shields representing six sons who died young and two on the sinister representing the tombs of the mother and an infant daughter. At the top of the scene, in clouds above the architectural frame, a series of crowned figures represented the faithful souls of these six males and two females. Two eyes emerged from the clouds, presumably denoting the all-seeing, all-knowing God. A single vacant crown was suspended from one of the arches. From it a scroll descended towards Joan bearing the phrase ‘vincenti dabitur’ [it will be given to the one who conquers].
