And finally-and a description of this matrix, taken from an article by the Rev. H. E. Field in the Transactions of the Monumental Brass Society, may well form a fitting conclusion to a volume upon the brasses of England - there is the glorious slab at Durham, which once contained the brass of Bishop Beaumont, larger and perhaps more beautiful than anything which now survives. Its size is more than 15 feet in length by nearly 10 feet in breadth, and the superb matrix, still lying in the choir of the cathedral, is in excellent preservation, and carefully protected by a thick carpet, though every fragment of the brass is gone. It is minutely described in The Rites of Durham, a book written apparently towards the end of the sixteenth century by one who had been an inmate of the monastery:

"Ludovick de Bellomonte, Bishopp of Durham, lyeth buried before the High Altar in the Quire, beneath the steppes that goe upp to the said High Altar, under a most curious and sumptuous marble storm, which hee prepared for himselfe before bee dyed, beinge adorned with most excellent workmanshipp of brasse, wherein he was most excellently and lively pictured, as bee was accustomed to singe or say masse, with his mitre on his head and his crosiers staffe in his hand, with two angells very finely pictured, one of the one side of his head and the other on the other side, with censors in theire hands sensinge him, conteining most exquisite pictures and images of the twelve Apostles devided and bordered of either side of him, and next them is bordered on either side of the twelve Apostles in another border the pictures of his ancestors in theire coat armour, beinge of the bloud royale of France and his owne armes of France, beinge a white lyon placed uppon the breast of his vestment, beneath his verses of his breast, with flower de luces about the lyon, two lyons pictured one under the one foote of him and -,mother under the other of him, supportinge and holdinge up his crosier's staffe, his feete adjoyninge and standinge uppon the said lyons, and other two lyons beneath them in the nethermost border of all, beinge most artificially wrought and sett forth all in brasse. Marveilously beautifyinge the said through of marble: wherein was engraven in brasse such divine and celestiall sayinge of the Scripture which he had peculiarly selected for his spirituall consolation, at such time as it should please God to call him out of his mortalitie."

To this description the lines on the matrix exactly correspond. Bishop Beaumont was elected in 1317 and died in 1333, leaving no trace of his episcopate in the fabric of the cathedral, other than his magnificent Brass, the loss of which we now deplore.

The brasses of England, by Herbert W. Macklin ... with eighty-five illustrations.London, Methuen & co. [1913] LC Number:
                                             NB1842 .M15 Page 315.