78 
EXPOSITION AT VIENNA. 
Eurlj exfimples ot the use of tiles for mortuary purposes 
are numerous and interesting. Red tiles of this nature, inlaid 
with black clay, havo beeil found in Devonshire, Somerset- 
shii'e and Surrey, England.* It is known that inlaid tiles 
were used to mark the site of graves in Worcestershire far 
into the seventeenth Century. In Malveru Priory church, 
whieh contaius some of the finest examples of heraldic tablets, 
Richard Corbet, a knight templar, >vho died in the thirtecnth 
Century, has a plain table monnment, the sides and ends of 
which are covered with tiles, 51 inches square and U inches 
thick, decorated with the arms of the Corbet family. f 
In the same ancient church, there were examples of mono- 
grams, the letters impressed in the clay and then filled in 
with white earth, and of pious inscriptions in black-letter in 
connection with 1hem. Inscriptions formed with small tiles, 
each bearing a separate letter, have been found there, and the 
grave of Vicar Edmund Rea, 1640, was marked by a border 
of such tiles, chronicling his death. 
In the pottery districts of Staffordshire, earthenware slabs 
or gravestones were not uncommon. Sevoral examples, with 
drawings, of specimens in the Mayer collection are cited in 
Meteyard’s Life of Wedgwood. One is a fablet one foot 
high, nine inches broad, and two inches thick; auother, two 
feet three inches high, one foot seven inches broad, and three- 
fourths of an inch thick. One is formed of seggar clay, and 
the other of dark red clay, and both are inscribed, one with 
raised white letters, and the other with the letters sunk, and 
covered with a glaze. All of the inscriptions are remarkably 
clear. 
Building-Tablets . 
Auother example of the use of tiles is found in the build- 
ing-tablets set into the front walls of houses to show the date 
of construction, and the name of the builder or owner. The 
custom was an old one, and was very generally followed in 
the pottery region. Some of these were made of light brown 
clay, with the Ornaments in relief in yellow clay. Others are 
glazed white, with the date and armorial bearings painted in 
* Life of Josiah Wedgwood, Meteyard, I., 55. 
t Antiquarian and Architcctural Ycar Book, 1844, p. 147.