Note 69 — Chapter VII · LAST YEARS AND DEATH

Hist. et Cart. S. Petri Gloucestriae, i, p. 15: “in ecclesia Sancti Petri Gloucestriae honorifice coram principali altari sepelitur”; Ordericus, iv, p. 486; v, p. 18; Interpolations de Robert de Torigny, in William of Jumièges, p. 292. The well known effigy of Robert Curthose in wood with which his tomb was later adorned is still preserved in Gloucester cathedral—the abbey church having become the cathedral upon the institution of the bishopric in 1541. It is no longer in its original position, but is in the northeast chapel, called Abbot Boteler’s chapel, off the ambulatory. It was broken into several pieces during the civil wars of Charles I, but was repaired and restored to the cathedral through the generosity of Sir Humphrey Tracey of Stanway. It was evidently still in its original position when Leland saw it in the sixteenth century. He says: “Robᵗᵘˢ. Curthoise, sonne to K. William the Conquerour, lyeth in the midle of the Presbitery. There is on his Tombe an Image of Wood paynted, made longe since his Death.” The Itinerary of John Leland the Antiquary, ed. Thomas Hearne, 3d ed. (Oxford, 1769), iv, p. 80. According to W. V. Guise the effigy is of “a date not very remote from the period at which the duke lived.” He bases his opinion upon the fact that the hauberk of chain-mail and the long surcote, as represented in the effigy, ceased to be worn after the thirteenth century. Records of Gloucester Cathedral, ed. William Bazeley (Gloucester, n. d.), i, 1, p. 101. Nothing appears to be known as to who provided for the effigy or as to the circumstances under which it was wrought. See H. J. L. J. Massé, The Cathedral Church of Gloucester: a Description of its Fabric and a brief History of the Episcopal See (London, 1910), pp. 85-86.