Medieval stone grave markers
The Yllingwyke inscription reads
Hic iacent thomas de
yllyngwyke quondam
civis ebor et juliana ux
or eiusdem, quorum animabus propitietur
deus amen.
Here lie Thomas of Yllingwyke, formerly citizen of York, and Juliana wife of the same,
upon whose souls may God have mercy. Amen.
The last few words quorum animabus propitietur deus amen are frequently found and hence could be heavily abbreviated and still easily understood.
As usual in medieval writing, words can be divided by a line break without any hyphen; thus uxor, wife, appears as ux at the end of the third line and or at the start of the fourth. Also as is normal, there are no capital letters (not even for Deus, God) except at the very beginning – which means we can be certain Hic iacent is indeed the beginning and no extra wording before that has been lost by, say, a fracturing of the stone. (As it happens this information is superfluous: the words Hic iacet, ‘Here lies’, or Hic iacent, ‘Here lie’, when present always come at the beginning of a memorial inscription.)
This page supplements the corresponding page in the Church Guidebook, available in the church or here on the website.