English: Engraving from Rev Francis Peck (1692-1743) MSS on the Natural History and Antiquities of Leicestershire, his unpublished collection of material that was then made available to Nichols for his massive work. Nichols implies that the picture and an accompanying description of the funeral procession relating to the mendicant friars of Leicester. Nichols quoting Peck describes the work thus in Latin on page 299 of History and antiquities thus:

“Processio quedam funebris antiqua, quâ cadaver vespillonibus tedas ferentibus precessum est, et Fratribus Mendicantibus asportatum, frequente magna collachrymantium turba. — 1. Vespillones atratis vestibus cereos magnos cadavari preferentes. — 2. Frater Niger, sive prediactor, ordinis Sancti Dominici. — 3 Frater Leucopheatus, sive minor, ordinis Santi Francisci. — 4. Frater Albus, sive Carmeliticus, ordinis beate Marie de Monte Carmeli. — 5. Frater Eremeticus, ordinis Sancti Augustini. — 6. Consanguinei, affines, proximi, pauperes, populique plurimi alii subsequentes condolentesque.

Notandum eat, quod cum unicuique domui mendicantem aliaquam eleemosinam dono dederit vir mortuus, tum cadaver ejus veste fratris mendicantis indutum est; idemque uniuscujusque ordinis frater unus linteolis ad ecclesiam Sepulchrum verses asportat, & in hunc modum eorum omnium confratri agnoscitur mortuus, & bonorum operum cujuscunque ordinis mendicantium (uti asseritur) fit particeps. Nec mirum igitur, quod super tumulos suos, & monumenta sepulchralia, laicorum etiam mortuorum effigies, vestibus religiosis a sculptoribus indute, non raro videntur expresse.”

Which translates:

“At a certain ancient funeral procession, when the body has been carried forward by the pall-bearers and has been further carried by the Mendicant Friars, often with the noise of great weeping: 1) The pall bearers, dressed in black, put forward a great waxen figure of the cadaver, 2) A Blackfriar, or Preacher, of the order of St Dominic, 3) l A Greyfriar, or minor, of the order of St Francis, 4) Whitefriar, or Carmelite, of the order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, 5) An eremite brother, of the order of St Augustine, 6) Family, spouse, friends, paupers, followed by other people who want to wish condolences. It is to be noted that when a dead man has made benefactions to the mendicant houses, then his corpse would be dressed in the clothes of his favoured order: and the friars also carried the corpse in linen to the Church of the Sepulchre, and in this way the dead is recognized as a Confrater of all of them, and becomes a partaker of the good works of the mendicants of whatever order. It is not surprising, therefore, that on their mounds and sepulchral monuments, effigies of laymen, even of the dead, clothed in religious garments by the sculptors, are not infrequently seen expressly.”

Translated by Alexander Van Dijk, Jesus College, Cambridge 20,03,2024