James Berkeley (bishop)

Berkeley was buried in Exeter Cathedral, against the north wall of the south ambulatory, where survives his chest tomb. It is devoid of the monumental brass which originally adorned the Purbeck marble^[3] ledger stone top, in the form of a demi-effigy of a bishop wearing a mitre, the indent of which is still visible.^[3] Following the Reformation the brass was stripped away in 1561^[4] on the orders of the Cathedral authorities. The antiquarian John Leland (c. 1503-1552) saw the monument complete and recorded in his writings that it bore inscribed Latin verse of which one line was: In Barkley natus, jacet hic Jacobus tumulatus^[3] ("In Berkeley (Castle) he was born, here lies James covered"). This is similar to the eight-line leonine verse (or "jingling verse") on the ledger stone of Sir Peter Courtenay (1346–1405), KG, situated a few feet away from the bishop's tomb on the floor of the south ambulatory (but originally part of the Courtenay chantry chapel in the nave) which commences: Devoniae natus, comitis (comes) Petrusque vocatus ("Born of the Earl of Devon, called Peter"). The bishop's monument although now very plain, is of interest as it was constructed whilst the Norman nave was being demolished and rebuilt in the Gothic style, and it was made from some of the stones from the Norman building, alternate squares of pink and cream coloured stone, of which some similar survive in the south aisle of the nave marking the responds of the Norman arcade.^[5]

• Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third revised ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56350-X.