Monumental brasses are usually figures, inscriptions, shields or other devices, engraved in plate brass and laid as memorials. The memorial often comprises two elements: the first is the flat metal plate, or "brass", on which may be engraved the figures of the deceased, canopies, shields-of-arms and inscriptions; the second element is commonly composed of a stone slab, or "casement", normally covering the grave, into which the brass is set.

Brasses originated in continental Europe where they first appeared in the thirteenth century. It is thought that they derived from very similar monuments engraved in stone, termed "incised slabs". They first appeared in England in the second half of the century and developed rapidly. They are widely found in English churches.

Brass rubbing is a technique in which a sheet of paper is laid in contact with the monumental brass and is rubbed with a waxy pigment to reproduce exactly the engraving on the brass.

The Ashmolean Museum holds some five thousand brass rubbings made over a number of years by the Oxford University Archaeological Society, the Oxford Architectual and Historical Society and others. (View the catalogue)