Knight of Threekingham

This knight’s effigy found at the parish Church of St Peter ad Vincula in the Lincolnshire village of Threekingham has his legs crossed. A myth was spread in Victorian times that if a knight’s legs were crossed, he fought on crusade. There is no evidence for this (though some surely did), and many with crossed legs did not ‘take the cross’. So why are they, and the manor lord of Threekingham, above and below, depicted in such a way? Simple. It was the fashion. Perhaps it bespeaks their action-packed lives, or even a hint of willingness within the stone effigy itself to leap up and reach for its sword, given sufficient provocation.

Whether this knight was as great a fighter as he wished us to think, or whether he was just another landlord with a rusting set of armour inherited from more valiant times, we cannot tell. I sometimes wonder if eulogies of the dead paint a far pleasanter picture than actual experiences suggest. Although one should be respectful of the dead, let us not think that the great God is as fooled as we may be.