page_title: St Mary's Church, Fairford
section_title: Monument to John Tame
hierarchical_section_title: St Mary's Church, Fairford / Monument to John Tame
caption_attribution_description: English: St Mary's parish church, Fairford, Gloucestershire: monumental brass to John Tame (died 1500) and his wife Alice Twynyho
context_page_description: St Mary's Church is a Church of England church in Fairford, Gloucestershire, England. It is notable for its complete set of 28 medieval stained-glass windows, one of the best-preserved in England. Part of the tower dates from the early 15th century. The church was rebuilt at the end of the 15th century by John Tame, a wealthy local wool merchant. It is a Grade I listed building in the Perpendicular style.
context_section_description: The monument to John Tame consists of a chest tomb on the north side of the chancel (the most usual burial-place for a founder), under the arch which opens into the north aisle or Tame Chapel. Over the chest tomb is an elaborately carved wooden parclose screen in the form of a Tudor arch, spanning the length of the monument, and supported by corbels in the form of angels bearing open books. The length of 
  the Purbeck Marble slab on top is six feet nine inches; the breadth, three feet seven inches; and the height, three feet six inches. The north and south, the longer, sides have each three heraldic shields, in circular panels; on both, from east to west, the shields display the following arms: (1) Twynihoe, (2) Tame, (3) Tame impaling Twynihoe. The west displays the arms of Tame. On the ledger stone on top of the chest tomb are various monumental brasses, set into the slab, the main ones showing John Tame and his wife standing facing each other. Above John Tame are sculpted in relief into the marble the arms of Tame:  Argent, a dragon vert, a lion azure crowned gules, combatant. The shields were originally enamelled in colours, but few traces remain: the dragon, however, is clearly vert, and his tongue gules. 
  Above the figure of his wife Alice Twynyho are sculpted the arms of Twynyho: Argent, a chevron between three lapwings sable.  The two arms are impaled in the two similarly sculpted shields, one at the feet of each brass figure. It is remarkable that the wife should be represented with so old a face, since her death preceded her husband's by nearly thirty years. Her dress is peculiarly simple and elegant, with the exception of the wired head-dress, which is "of an early and unpleasing form". The ledger line is inscribed in Latin and English, unusually with lettering designed to be read from the outside instead of in the usual way, as follows:
   
  Orate pro animabus Joh(an)is Tame Armigeri et Aliciae uxoris eius quidem Joh(an)es obiit octavo die mensis Maii anno D(o)m(ini) millensimo quingentensimo et anno regum regis Henrici Sept(im)i sextodecimo et predicta Alicia obiit vicesimo die mensis Decembris anno Domini mill(ens)imo CCCC septuagesimo primo quorum a(n)i(m)abus propicietur Deus. Ffor Jh(es)us love pray for me I may not pray nowe pray ye with a Pater Noster & an Ave that my paynes releisid may be (which may be translated as: ""Pray for the souls of John Tame Esquire and Alice his wife, which John died on the eighth day of the month of May in the year of our Lord the 1500th and in the year of the reign of King Henry the seventh the 16th, and the aforesaid Alice died on the twentieth day of the month of December in the year of our Lorde the 1471th on the souls of whom may God look on with favour")
  Below the two figures is repeated in verse the words almost identical to the final inscription on the ledger line:
  "Ffor Jh(es)us love pray for me,
  I may not pray nowe pray ye,
  With a Pater Noster & an Ave,
  That my paynys releisyd may be".
caption: Photograph of ledger stone of John Tame
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