The Pudsay Family of Bolton-by-Bowland and their Monuments

Abstract

The Pudsay chapel in Bolton-by-Bowland church contains a varied collection of monuments to the Pudsays, a gentry family who held the manor from 1349 to 1770. In the century before the Reformation, the successive heads of the family rebuilt much of the church and provided eye-catching monuments to various family members, yet after the Reformation only two minor brasses to family members are to be found in the church. This article analyses the collection as a set, explores what they represented especially in relation to the family’s religious adherences, investigates how and where they were made, and places them in a wider context of contemporary monuments.