La représentation des liens personnels sur les tombeaux anglais du xvie siècle

The practice of representing personal relationships on the tombs of the English aristocracy, in the shape of small sculptures or heraldic shields, became relatively widespread from the late thirteenth-century onwards. In addition to familial relationships, the links created through shared political or military expériences are also represented on some tombs. It is even possible to identify, during the reign of Edward III (1327-1377), a network of war captains, whose mutual relationships were expressed on their tombs. This may be linked to the appearance, within the aristocracy, of a lower nobility whose social status relied to a large extent upon their military activity. This network may have existed mainly, however, in an eschatological dimension, displacing the hierarchy that existed within the aristocracy in favour of the memory of military expérience. In addition, the representation of friendship, whether as brothers-in-arms or in groups, continued to give a significant place to familial relationships, which were still the model for the representation of such links