Some of my future blog posts will be tagged as relating to Memento Mori. Translated from Latin, this means remember death, or remember you must die. In art, literature, and funerary monuments, it has a more specific meaning, referring to particular symbols, such as hourglasses, skulls, bells and coffins. These are often used in paintings, memorials and gravestones to represent death.
For me, such morbid representations are often the most interesting finds in any church I visit, along with the contrasting beauty of stained glass. Occasionally of course, both combine, when death is represented in glass, with most windows memorialising someone who has died tending to show Biblical scenes or saints, with a smaller inscription in memory of the dear departed. Such use of windows for remembrance became popular in Victorian times, often replacing the larger carved tablets on the walls of churches (see below for examples of these).
