Pleurants

Pleurants or weepers (the English meaning of pleurants) are anonymous sculpted figures representing mourners, used to decorate elaborate tomb monuments, mostly in the late Middle Ages in Western Europe. Typically they are relatively small, and a group were placed around the sides of a raised tomb monument, perhaps interspersed with armorial decoration, or carrying shields with this. They may be in relief or free-standing. In English usage the term "weepers" is sometimes extended to cover the small figures of the deceased's children often seen kneeling underneath the tomb effigy in Tudor tomb monuments.

These figures represent the mourners, who pray for the deceased standing during the funeral procession.^[1] Because many of the original tombs have been vandalised or destroyed, relatively few examples remain to be studied. Many figures have been detached from their original context, which is not always known.

In the 16th and 17th century the practice of placing anonymous pleurant figures disappeared, although the group at Brou for Margaret of Bourbon were not begun until 1526 at the earliest. But these were commissioned over 40 years after her death by her daughter, along with tombs for herself and her husband, and reflected the taste of Margaret's lifetime.^[2]