Thomas Bekynton, or Beckington (c. 1390 – 1465), was secretary to Henry VI, later Lord Privy Seal, and then bishop of Bath and Wells from 1443 to 1465. His tomb is situated in the south choir aisle at Wells cathedral church.
The tomb of Thomas Bekynton is one of the most remarkable at Wells. Apart from forming a chantry chapel within an enclosure of stout iron bars, it is also a striking specimen of what is known as a “transi”, “memento mori” or “corpse” tomb, where an effigy of the once living person appears on an upper platform, while another effigy of their emaciated, skeletal and even rotting corpse appears on a lower.
The received meaning or ‘message’ of the transi tomb is that it serves to remind the disquieted onlooker of the transience of life. It is interesting to note however that such tombs only began to appear in Europe in the late 14th century, which fact may be explained by the prior ravaging of these lands by the bubonic plague pandemic, which tore through the population roughly between the years 1346 to 1353.
Thus it has been argued, notably by the author Paul Binski in his book Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation, that transi tombs such as that of Thomas Bekynton were inspired by a “plague-motivated culture of the macabre”. The fact and proximity of unrelenting death which resulted from that almost unrestrained pandemic may have motivated this type of grisly funerary monument.
On a less gruesome note, one can’t help wondering why the chair, with its handsome though fading upholstery, has been placed next to the tomb on the orange turkey carpet, for who is ever going to sit on it?