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The Roper Chantry in St. Dunstan's Church, Canterbury

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Tim Tatton-Brown
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Summary

In July 1978 the main burial vault of the Roper family in the medieval chantry chapel of St. Nicholas at St. Dunstan's church, Canterbury, was opened to enable a complete record of its contents to be made by members of the Canterbury Archaeological Trust. This marked the 500th anniversary of the birth of the martyr Sir Thomas More (related by marriage to the Roper family), whose head was believed to be contained in the vault.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 60 , Issue 2 , September 1980 , pp. 227 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1980

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References

NOTES

1 For details of foundation charter and list of known chantry priests from 1403 to 1548, see Hussey, Arthur, Kent Chantries (Kent Records, vol. xii, 1936), pp. 56–9Google Scholar.

2 As yet, I have been unable to find any documentary evidence for the early sixteenth-century rebuilding of the chapel and vault beneath.

3 Somner, William, The Antiquities of Canterbury (1703 edn.), Appendix, p. 71Google Scholar, and see Appendix 1 above for the full texts.

4 In the Gentleman's Magazine (May, 1837), 495, the monument is described as being ‘opposite’ the two tomb-chests, but where it stood in the Roper chapel is difficult to determine. It may have been fixed above the south door (though it would barely have fitted there) or perhaps on the east wall of the chapel. In Hasted's time, it stood ‘against a pillar’ in the Roper Chantry; Hasted, Edward, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, ix (1800), p. 37.Google Scholar This was perhaps the column on the north side.

5 St. Dunstan's parish magazine for August 1932.

6 See n. 3 above and Sadler, A. G., The Indents of Lost Monumental Brasses in Kent, Appendix (1980), pp. 5–9.Google Scholar There are two other relaid ledger stones in the floor of the south aisle, which just have simple rectangular indents in them.

7 See the Gentleman's Magazine (May, 1837). 494–7Google Scholar.

8 The vicar, J. G. Howe, writing in the parish magazine in April 1880, says, ‘I am truely thankful that the work on our church is now practically finished. The whole of the fabric has been thoroughly repaired, almost all the windows are new, the roof of the nave has been thrown open so that the old oak timbers are now seen. The plaster between the oak beams in the Roper Chancel has been replaced with oak: the walls inside have been plastered afresh: the whole area has been covered with concrete: and all the pews and floors are new.…’

9 John Roper's famous will is published in Archaeologia Cantiana, ii (1859), 153–74.Google Scholar This will was disputed and only settled by an Act of Parliament. It was even discussed in letters between Cardinal Wolsey and Archbishop Warham.

10 It is also odd that William Roper's will requests that his body be buried at Chelsea in the vault with the body of his wife.

11 Wood, Anthony à, Athenae Oxoniensis (Bliss's ed.), vol. i, p. 86Google Scholar.

12 Moreana, 59 (December, 1978), 5–8Google Scholar, though in this article Reynolds suggests that only William, and not Margaret Roper, was buried in the Roper vault at St. Dunstan's.

13 See, however, Rigden's, R. G.Well Hall (1970)Google Scholar, and later undated edition.

14 For example, Newman, John, Pevsner, N. (ed.), North-East and East Kent (The Buildings of England) (London, 1969, 1976)Google Scholar says that Edmund Roper died in 1533 and not 1433, hence mis-attributing the tomb-chests.

15 Philipott, T., Villare Cantianum (1659), p. 95Google Scholar; Elliston-Erwood, F. C., Well Hall, the Story of its House and Grounds (1936)Google Scholar.

16 Hasted, E., op. cit., vol. ix (1800), p. 38Google Scholar; and A.Hussey, op. cit., pp. 56–9.

17 Idem, p. 35.

18 The Registers of St. Dunstan's, Canterbury (1559–1800), ed. Cowper, J. M. (1887)Google Scholar.

19 W. Somner, op. cit. (1640 edn.), p. 342, and Appendix, p. 71 in the 1703 edition.