St. Edward´s Church
Hatchments
Within St Edward´s Church in Goathurst there are a number of imposing painted boards displayed on the walls either side of the font. These are called Hatchments and have a curious history. An outline of these intriguing designs are outlined below.
A Hatchment is a funeral escutcheon or armorial shield enclosed in a black lozenge-shaped frame which used to be suspended against the wall of a deceased person's house. It was usually placed over the entrance at the level of the first floor, and remained for from six to twelve months, after which it was removed to the parish church.
At the universities of Oxford and Cambridge it was usual to hang the hatchment of a deceased head of a house over the entrance to his lodge or residence.
Hatchments have now fallen into disuse, but many hatchments from former times remain in parish churches throughout England such as St Edward´s in the village. The intricate design variations depended on who had died, what their relationship was to surviving members of the family together with a myriad of other coded information. Below gives a taster of what could be encoded if you knew how to read the design.
Examples can be:
- Hatchment of a man leaving a surviving wife
- Hatchment of a woman leaving a surviving husband
- Hatchment of a man who dies after his first wife (her arms top right), and before his second wife (her arms bottom right)
If for a bachelor the hatchment bears upon a shield his arms, crest, and other appendages, the whole on a black ground. If for a single woman, her arms are represented upon a lozenge, bordered with knotted ribbons, also on a black ground. If the hatchment be for a married man, with a surviving wife, his arms upon a shield impale those of his wife; or if she be an heiress they are placed upon a scutcheon of pretence, and crest and other appendages are added. The dexter half of the background is black (the husband being dead), the sinister half of the background is white (his wife still being alive).
For a wife whose husband is alive the same arrangement is used, but the sinister background is black (for the wife) and the dexter background is white (for the surviving husband). For a widower the same is used as for a married man, but the whole ground is black (both spouses being dead); for a widow the husband's arms are given with her own, but upon a lozenge, with ribbons, without crest or appendages, and the whole ground is black. When there have been two wives or two husbands the ground may be divided in a number of different ways. Sometimes the shield is divided into three parts per pale, with the husband's arms in the middle section and the arms of each of his wives to each side of him. Sometimes the husband's arms remain in the dexter half and the two wives have their arms in the sinister half, divided per fess, each wife having one quarter of the whole shield, one half of the sinister half.
As can be deduced… not for the feint-hearted to try and understand!
Colours and military or naval emblems are sometimes placed behind the arms of military or naval officers. It is thus easy to discern from the hatchment the sex, condition and quality, and possibly the name of the deceased. In Scottish hatchments it is not unusual to place the arms of the father and mother of the deceased in the two lateral angles of the lozenge, and sometimes the 4, 8 or 16 genealogical escutcheons are ranged along the margin.
Hatchment originally meant, in heraldry, an escutcheon or armorial shield granted for some act of distinction or "achievement", of which word it is a corruption through such forms as atcheament, achement, hathement, etc. "Achievement" is an adaptation of the Fr. achievement, from achever, a chef venir, Lat. ad ca put venire, to come to a head, or conclusion, hence accomplish, achieve.
