BRASSES. SEPULCHRAL. Flat tombstones of metal used generally during the Thirteenth and following centuries. They were set in the pave ments of churches. and were made of brass nr of a mixed metal called bitten (Fr. btifon), the design being marked by incised lines in the metal, filled in with a black or dark resinous enamel. The brilliancy of the metal was some times enhanced by gilding and damascening. These sepulchral slabs were of two classes: 111 Marble or stone slabs to which the brass orna mentation was attached as to a ground, the brass forming the figure of the deceased in the centre of the slab, as well as the ornaments, framework, armorial bearings. and inscription, each inserted as a separate piece of metal into cuts (or casements) made in the stone ground. (2) Slabs entirely of metal, which appear to be of a single piece, but are really composed of sev eral sheets carefully joined, and decorated in the same style as the first class. Such brasses were used almost exclusively in England and Flanders, very seldom in Germany and northern France, not at all in Italy. Those of the first class alone were common in England ; those of the second, which were far rarer, more artistic and expensive, are found inandy in Flanders, \N here they were produced as late as the Seven teenth Century, and they alone have the rich, detailed ornamentation in damascened work.
The works of this sort in France have been bar barously destroyed. In England many remain. There the earliest are among the most artistic; those of Sir John trAubernoun, at Stoke Daher non (1277) ; of Sir Roger de Trumpington. at Trumpington (1289) ; and of Sir Richard de Bnslingthorpe, at Buslingthorpe (1290), all eery similar in style. More advanced Gothic is the 1325 slab of Sir John de Creke. at Westley Waterless. England probably owed most of such works to artists from Flanders, the north of France, and Burgundy. Among the fine sepul chral brasses in the Cathedral of Bruges, that of Sire Martin de la Chapelle (1452) is a beau tiful example of the damascened work. There is a close relation between the sepulchral brasses and other and earlier kinds of work, especially the bronze church doors of Byzantine art in which the design was made out in the same way by incised lines filled with enamel (see DOOR), and also the plain marble -funeral slabs, com mon throughout Europe, especially Italy, where the design was similarly outlined. (See Twin.) In a few cases the brasses were not set flush with the pavement., lint were either set tip ver tically against the wall or raised on a basement like a simple cenotaph. They must not, then, be confounded with sepulchral monuments in cast bronze.