Houghton Regis - All Saints - Old Brass

Image: © Rob Farrow Taken: 13 Jun 2014

I was shown this old brass in All Saints, Houghton Regis by one of the caretakers there, as it is normally covered. The brass commemorates William Walley, a former vicar of the church. The inscription is quite difficult to read, but this is my transcription of it: "Dear to the soul of William Walley Intyme (?) vicar of this church which deceased the year of our lord m ccccc vi [1506] on whose soul Jesu (?) have mercy amen." The "Intyme" may mean "one time" or may be "sutime" meaning "sometime" - and the date is open to conjecture, though I believe 1506 to be correct from other sources. Try as I might, I can't make out the word before "have mercy", but think it may be "Isu" = Jesu Note that the date is a little strange in several ways. Firstly the M for a thousand is either missing or if it's at the end of the previous line, it looks more like y(superscript t) - which is the old abbreviation for "that"; secondly the five hundred part is rendered as CCCCC rather than the correct D; thirdly the vi for 6 is a bit malformed too!

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