What is it about?
Monuments to the dead in Elizabethan England are usually seen as formal statements of power, with representations of land, lineage and honour in word and image. This case study looks at the monuments erected by William Cecil, Queen Elizabeth I's right-hand man and by others in the Cecil family. This study reveals the surprising use of emotion in shaping the memory of himself and his family, especially grief, but also happiness.
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Why is it important?
This is the first focussed study of the monuments erected by William Cecil and his family in the late sixteenth century. The use of grief in the language of their monuments suggests a shift in the emotional expression of the English elite a generation or two earlier than previously thought. This is important as it shows the value of looking at material culture - objects such as monuments - as well as printed and manuscript materials to understand how pre-modern societies used emotions.
Perspectives
I loved writing this piece - I had the privilege of travelling to Westminster Abbey and to Stamford in rural England to visit the monuments, which still exist, and to think about how they interacted with the spaces and geographies in which they were erected. It was also striking to see how contemporary visitors, both tourists and scholars, engage with the monuments and what they convey today. The essay collection of which this article is a part provided a wonderful opportunity to reflect specifically on objects and emotions, something I had not previously pursued.
Peter Sherlock
University of Divinity
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A Sight Full of Woe: The Cecil Family and Their Monuments c.1580–1620, Emotions History Culture Society, June 2023, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/2208522x-02010199.
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