no
brass background; and for delicacy of engraving and general appearance
the English brasses are by far the best.

The names of the makers of brasses have been almost entirely lost. Two
only bear marks which are supposed to be those of the engraver. No other
country can boast of so large a number of these memorials as England, in
spite of the hard usage they have received and their wanton destruction.
About four thousand remain; and constantly we find the matrices cut in
stone slabs, from which brasses have been torn; so that we may assume
that quite as many have been destroyed as those which survive. The
southern and eastern counties are most richly furnished with these
monuments, whereas the western and northern counties have but few
brasses. Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, and Kent are the most rich in this
respect. The earliest brass of which we have any record is that of
Simon de Beauchamp, who died before 1208. This is mentioned by Leland.
The earliest brass now in existence is that of Sir John D'Aubernown at
Stoke Dabernon, Surrey, which was fashioned in 1277. In the fourteenth
century a very large number of brasses, remarkable for their beauty of
form and execution, were made. The artistic workmanship began to decline
in the fifteenth century, and in the following became utterly degenerate.

It was not an uncommon practice for subsequent generations to appropriate
the memorials of their predecessors. Such brasses are called palimpsests.
By the carelessness of churchwardens, by fraud, or spoliation, brasses
were taken from the churches, and acquired by some maker in the town.
When a new one was required, the tradesman would take from his stock,
and on the reverse engrave the figure of the individual whose memory he
was called upon to perpetuate. Hence when brasses are taken up from the
pavements, frequently the remains of a much earlier memorial are found on
the reverse side. There is an example of this curious method of procedure
at St. Lawrence's Church, Reading, where on the reverse of a brass to the
memory of Walter Barton was found the remains of the brass of Sir John
Popham, who was buried at the Charterhouse, London. This monastery was
dissolved in 1536, the monuments sold, Sir John Popham's brass among them,
which was evidently soon converted into a memorial of Walter Barton.

Sometimes the original brass was appropriated as it lay, the figure
being slightly altered to suit the style of costume prevalent at t