HATCHMENT

heraldic memorial to a deceased person. This kind of memorial seems to be restricted mainly to the British Isles and The Netherlands. In England the hatchment, or funeral escutcheon, as it is sometimes called, is diamond-shaped and made of wood or canvas in a black-edged frame; on it are painted the arms of the deceased. The hatchment is placed first over the doorway of the house and then moved to the church of burial. Hatchments developed in England from the 17th century and declined in the 19th, though they by no means became obsolete. Many old English parish churches contain hatchments, as, for example, St. Giles Church, Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire. The background of the device is painted black throughout for an unmarried man or woman and a widower or widow. For a married person with a surviving spouse the part beneath the survivor's arms is painted white. In the case of a bishop or other head of a public armigerous corporation, the sinister side, which bears his personal arms, is painted black under the arms, and the dexter side, under the official arms, remains white. Frequently on Scottish hatchments, the arms of both parents and sometimes of the grandparents of the deceased appear. A parallel Continental custom is to make circular plaques of the arms of the deceased as well as memorial slabs with the arms of the parents and grandparents engraved upon them. See heraldic memorials.