Brasses.

A monumental brass is a figure, inscription, shield or device, or a combination of elements, engraved on brass and usually inlaid in a marble floor slab as a memorial to the dead. Brasses first became popular in the 13th century. Their primary function was to elicit prayers for the soul of the departed, but as time went by they became more a record of family lineage. Their popularity spread across Christian Europe and lasted throughout the late medieval period, to wane in the 17th century when marble monuments became fashionable.

There are varying estimates of how many brasses were laid down in England (perhaps as many as 100,000) but large numbers were destroyed during the Reformation and the Civil War. Just as many were lost through 18th century neglect and 19th century 'restoration'. There was a renewed upsurge of interest in brasses as memorials in Victorian times, inspired by the Gothic Revival, and this continued beyond the end of the Great War when there was a need for a convenient form of memorial for the multitude of war dead. These trends are all reflected here in St Mary of Charity, Faversham.

John Weever, in his Ancient Funerall Monuments of 1631, says of Faversham: 'The funerall Monuments of this Church are more carefully preserved than in any other that I have seene in all Kent.' Edward Jacob, in his History of the Town and Port of Faversham of 1774, noted that 'the monuments of the deceased are in different parts of the church and chancels, some mural; others with brasses, and many without brasses on the floor" these last, when the body and aisles were not pewed, to preserve the memory of those they covered were carefully removed into some open and conspicuous parts thereof'. So when Dance restored the church in 1754-5 he tidied up the brasses.

In 1926, Mill Stephenson compiled a great national list of brasses, and Faversham still had the largest amount (twenty-six) of any parish church in England.

As well as the floor brasses dating from the 15th to the 17th century, St Mary of Charity also has Victorian inscription brasses under windows, given in memory of a loved one, or to commemorate a major national event.

So, in this glorious town church, we have brasses dating from the early 15th to the 20th century, acting as a reminder of the generations of Faversham folk who have worshipped here. They are an important aspect of the history of this church and this town.

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Henry Pay

Date: 1419

North transept floor, middle aisle. Only the feet of a man in armour, part of a Latin inscription, and two shields remain. 'Harry' Pay was in command of the Cinque Ports fleet in 1405 and, with Lord Berkeley, succeeded in routing the French fleet at Milford Haven. He then ravaged the French and Spanish coasts. Pay was known in naval circles as 'Arripay' according to a contemporary Spanish chronicler, Don Pedro Nino, who wrote: This Arripay came often upon the coast of Castile and carried away many ships; he scoured the channel of Flanders so that no vessel could pass that was without being taken. He burnt Gijon and Finisterre, and carried off the famous and most holy crucifix from Santa Maria de Finisterre, and much more damage he did in Castile, taking many prisoners and exacting ransoms; and though other armed ships came there from England, he it was who came oftenest.

Perhaps his greatest exploit as a privateer was in 1407 and is recorded by William Lambarde in his Perambulation of Kent of 1570: In the daies of King Henrie the Fourth, the Navie of the Five Ports, under the conduct of one Henrie Paye, surprised one hundreth and twentie French ships, all laden with salt, iron, oyle, and no worse merchandize.
Pay captured all the ships and brought them back to his home port of Poole in Dorset. Pay was born in Poole and a clue to why he ended his days in Faversham is contained in the will of Seman Tang in which he bequeaths £40 to 'Henry Paye and Isabelle my daughter'.