Dame Joan de Cobham

Joan de Septvans was one of the co-heirs of Roese, the widow of Stephen de Pencestre.

Her tomb brass, pictured here, is a large and prestigious composition, likely to have cost in the region of £10, a huge sum in the early 14th century. The brass features the full length effigy of a lady wearing a loose gown with demi-sleeves over a kirtle, her head covered by a veil, and a wimple enveloping her neck and the lower portion of her face. Over her is a canopy and round the edge of the slab of Purbeck marble an inscription in rhyming Norman-French, reading: DAME IONE DE COBEHAM GIST ICI, DEUS DE SA ALME EIT MERCI, KI KE PUR LALME PRIERA, QUARAUNTE IOURS DE PARDOUN AVERA (Dame Joan de Cobham lies here, God have mercy on her soul, whoever prays for her soul shall have 40 days pardon).

This brass is the earliest surviving brass in England commemorating a woman. It is the first of the outstanding series of brasses at Cobham, Kent, which lie in serried ranks before the high altar, attesting to the power and importance of the Cobham family. Joan merited her own brass because, although she was a woman, she was a person of wealth and consequence in her own right. Her marriage allied her to the Cobhams, a minor baronial family of some consequence who were yet to reach the zenith of their influence, but she was a co-heiress of the more important Septvans family. Her brother, Sir Robert de Septvans, who died in 1306, was himself commemorated by a fine military brass at Chartham, Kent.

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Joane Septvans Cobham
BIRTH 1240
Kent, England
DEATH 1298 (aged 57–58)
Cobham, Gravesham Borough, Kent, England
BURIAL
St. Mary Magdalene New Churchyard
Cobham, Gravesham Borough, Kent, England
MEMORIAL ID 80415591

Daughter of Robert, wife of John and mother of Henry.
Inscription
DAME IONE DE COBEHAM GIST ICI / DEUS DE SA ALME EIT MERCI / KI KE PUR LALME PRIERA / QUARAUNTE IOURS DE PARDOUN AVERA

(Dame Joan de Cobham lies here, God have mercy on her soul, whoever prays for her soul shall have 40 days pardon).
Family Members
Parents
Sir Robert IV de Septvans
1219–1253

Spouse

John de Cobham
1240–1300

Siblings
Sir Robert de Septvans V
1250–1304

Children
Henry de Cobham
1260–1339
from Compiler: R. B. Stewart, Evans, GA

( http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cousin/html/index.htm )