le Despenser

I don't think that Edward, Baron le Despenser and a Knight of the Garter who fought for the Black Prince, would have taken kindly to jokes about his name.

His chantry chapel in Tewkesbury Abbey is a quite beautiful example of early fan vaulting and - strikingly - he is not represented within the chapel but by a stone statue of himself on its roof, kneeling and facing the high altar.

What were his motives in causing this chapel to be created and mass to be said in it daily? Clearly he knew that it would be an object of beauty and awe for much of the foreseeable future (though I doubt he was able to imagine how people might respond to it 633 years after his death) and thus strengthen his reputation and the honour of his family. But the cost must have been staggering - I wouldn't be surprised if it didn't take up enough of his wealth to feel rather like an inheritance tax for his heir - so one thinks about its personal value for the man himself.

He may well have been personally devout, but I suspect that the codes of chivalry at court went hand in hand with quite extreme violence in battle and as a magistrate. Did he approach his death thinking of his deeds and wishing to secure his eternal soul? I suspect he may well have done.

Blipfoto is not the place to digress on the curious logical structure of orthodox christianity and its strange consequences for the behaviour of men like Edward, Lord le Despenser, who were motivated not to charity but to such extravagant shows of - let's be frank here - divine flattery. But we mustn't forget that these things of beauty were built at a great cost to the medieval 99%.

Perhaps we could be more forgiving towards the 21st century plutocrats if we thought they used their great wealth to create things of such lasting value.