Death and The Noble Body in Medieval England

Death and the Noble Body in
Medieval England
We all die, but how we perceive death as an event, process or state
is inextricably connected to our experiences and the social and
environmental culture in which we live. During the early middle
ages, the body was used to demonstrate a whole range of concepts
and assumptions: the ideal aristocrat possessed a strong, whole and
virile body which reflected his inner virtues, and nobility of birth
was understood to presuppose and enhance nobility of character
and action. Here, the author examines how contemporary ideas
about death and dying disrupted this abstract ideal. She explores
the meaning of aristocratic funerary practices such as embalming
and heart burial, and, conversely, looks at what the gruesomely
elaborate executions of aristocratic traitors in England around the
turn of the fourteenth century reveal about the role of the body in
perceptions of group identity and society at large.
Dr DANIELLE WESTERHOF is Honorary Visiting Fellow, School
of Historical Studies, University of Leicester, and Research
Associate, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of York.
Death and the Noble Body
in Medieval England
DANIELLE WESTERHOF
THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Danielle Westerhof 2008
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First published 2008

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ISBN 978–1–84383–416–8
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Contents
List of Illustrations and Figures vii

Acknowledgements ix
List of Abbreviations x
Introduction: Staking out Aristocratic Identities at Roncevaux 1

1. Death and the Cadaver: Visions of Corruption 13
‘Inter omnia terribilissimum est mors’ 16
Voices of the dead 21
What I am so you will be: death and personhood 28
Conclusion 31
2. Embodying Nobility: Aristocratic Men and the Ideal Body 33

Observing is knowing: body and identity 35
Noble body, noble identity 43
The nobility of the aristocratic heart 51
Conclusion 54
3. Here Lies Nobility: Aristocratic Bodies in Death 57

Religious benefaction and burial practice: the Earls of Cornwall 58
Aristocratic patronage and burial 64
‘Hic jacet corpus nobilis’: funerals and funerary monuments 69
Conclusion 73
4. Shrouded in Ambiguity: Decay and Incorruptibility of the Body 75

Multiple burial: origins and context 75
Preserving the cadaver: embalming and mos teutonicus 78
Resting in pieces: aristocratic multiple burial 82
Nobility as incorruptibility 87
Debating the body: integrity and fragmentation 89
Conclusion 95
5. Corruption of Nobility: Treason and the Aristocratic Traitor 96

Scottish traitors and their treatment, 1305–06 97
‘Feloniously as a felon, traitorously as a traitor’ 102
Against king and kingdom: treason accusations between 1238 109
and 1330
Conclusion 113
6. Dying in Shame: Destroying Aristocratic Identities 115

Display and stigmatisation: corporeal punishment in context 117
‘A horrifying spectacle for all nations’ 121
Us and them: The social and metaphorical exclusion of 131
aristocratic traitors
Conclusion 134
Conclusion: Death and the Noble Body 137
Appendix 1 141
Appendix 2 150
Bibliography 155
Index 179
List of Illustrations and Figures
Figures
1 Richard Earl of Cornwall and his family 62
2 Reasons for heart and viscera burials 83
3 Distribution of known heart and viscera burials 85
4 Distribution of bodies associated with heart and viscera burials 86
5 Treason accusations 113
6 Punishments for treason 120
Illustrations
1 The Three Living encounter the Three Dead in the De Lisle 24
Psalter. © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved
(Arundel 83, f. 127)
2 Willam de Marisco’s broken inverted shield, lance and sword. 110
© British Library Board. All Rights Reserved (Royal 14 C. VII,
f. 133v)
3 Simon de Montfort’s death and mutilation on the battlefield at 132
Evesham. © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved
(Cotton Nero D. II, f. 177)
Disclaimer:
Some images in the printed version of this book are not available for inclusion in the eBook.
To view these images please refer to the printed version of this book.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to everyone who has provided comments, criticisms, suggestions,

observations, wine, company, distraction, sounding board, fresh air, ques-
tions, answers, a sense of humour, and more wine, to help me complete this
book. It has been a laborious, fascinating and slightly uneasy task since its
subject matter – death, dismemberment, dead bodies and methods of cadaver
conservation – generally unearths instinctive fears about our own mortality
and confronts us with questions about the purpose of it all. Nevertheless,
death and dead bodies have been my companions for a number of years and I
would not have survived without the help, advice and support from the
following people: Professor W. Mark Ormrod and Dr Nicola McDonald;
Professor Linne Mooney; Professor Carole Rawcliffe; Professor Bill
McCormack; Dr Chris Daniell, Dr Jackie Hall and Dr Martyn Lawrence who
generously shared some of their unpublished work with me; Dr Sophie
Oosterwijk; Dr Victoria Thompson; and the workroom posse at the Centre
for Medieval Studies in York. Caroline Palmer at Boydell and Brewer has
shown great patience with my queries and has been very supportive of this
project in its publishing stages. I would also like to thank everyone able to drag
me away from any dark nights of the soul: Simon, Anne and Coby, Sheelagh
and Larry, Bill and Carla, Renate, Maaike, Kim and Steve, Danny, Christa,
Rebekah, Andy, Chris, Florence, Helen and Nick, and last but not least,
Oscar.
Lastly, I also gratefully acknowledge the financial support I received during
the course of this research from the Centre for Medieval Studies in York, the
VSB beurs, and the Stichting Hendrik Muller’s Vaderlandsch Fonds. Material
from chapters 2, 3 and 5 has previously appeared in articles in Journal of Medi-
eval History, Citeaux, and The End of the Body, ed. S. Akbari and J. Ross.
Special thank you for support, faith and understanding: my partner Simon,
and my parents Anne and Coby, to all of whom this book is dedicated.
Abbreviations
Add. Additional
AN Anglo Norman
Ann. Chester Annales Cestrienses, or the Chronicle of the Abbey of St Werburg
at Chester. Ed. R.C. Christie. Record Society of Lancashire
and Cheshire 14. 1887
Ann. Dunst. Annales de Dunstaplia, AD 1–1297. Annales Monastici. Ed.
H.R. Luard. 5 vols. RS 36. London: 1864–69. Vol. 3
Ann. Hailes ‘A Critical Edition of the Annals of Hailes (MS Cotton
Cleopatra D. iii, ff. 33–59v) with an Examination of their
Sources’. Ed. M.N. Blount. University of Manchester MA
Thesis: 1974
Ann. London Annales Londonienses. Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and
Edward II. Ed. W. Stubbs. 2 vols. RS 76. London: 1882–83.
Vol. 1
Ann. Oseneia Annales de Oseneia, 1016–1347. Annales monastici. Ed. H.R.
Luard. 5 vols. RS 36. London: 1864–69. Vol. 4
Ann. Paulini Annales Paulini. Chronicles of the Reigns of Edward I and
Edward II. Ed. W. Stubbs. 2 vols. RS 76. London: 1882–83.
Vol. 1
Ann. Tewks. Annales monasterii de Theokesberia. Annales monastici. Ed.
H.R. Luard. 5 vols. RS 36. London: 1864–69. Vol. 1
Ann. Wav. Annales monasterii de Waverleia, AD 1–1291. Annales
monastici. Ed. H.R. Luard. 5 vols. RS 36. London: 1864–69.
Vol. 2
Baronage W. Dugdale. The Baronage of England. 2 vols. Hildesheim:
1977 [London: 1675]
BL British Library
Brut Brut or the Chronicles of England. Ed. F.W.D. Brie. 2 vols.
EETS os 131 and 136. 1906–08
CChR Calendar of Chancery Rolls
CCR Calendar of Close Rolls
CEC The Charters of the Anglo-Norman Earls of Chester, c. 1071–
1237. Ed. G. Barraclough. Record Society of Lancashire and
Cheshire 126 (1988)
Cligés ‘Cligés’, in Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian Romances. Trans.
W.W. Kibler. Harmondsworth: 2004
ABBREVIATIONS xi
CP Complete Peerage
CPR Calendar of Patent Rolls
CS Camden Society
EETS Early English Text Society
EHR English Historical Review
Flores Flores historiarum. Ed. H.R. Luard. 3 vols. RS 95. 1890
historiarum
Foedera Foedera, conventions, litterae et acta publica. Ed. T. Rymer 4
vols. London: 1816–69
HMRC: The Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Rutland K.G.
Rutland preserved at Belvoir Castle. Royal Commission for Historical
Manuscripts. 4 vols. London: 1888–1905
Huntingdon, Henry of Huntingdon. Historia anglorum. Ed. T. Arnold. RS
Historia 74 (1879)
JBAA Journal of the British Archaeological Association
Monasticon W. Dugdale. Monasticon Anglicanum. Ed. J. Caley, H. Ellis
and B. Bandinel. 6 vols. London: 1846
Newburgh, William of Newburgh. Historia rerum anglicarum. Chronicles
Historia of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and Richard I. Ed. R.
Howlett. 2 vols. RS 82. London: 1884. Vol. 1
ns New series
ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Orderic Historia Ecclesiasticae: The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic
Vitalis. Ed. M. Chibnall. 6 vols. Oxford: 1969–80
os Original series
Perceval ‘The Story of the Grail’, in Chrétien de Troyes, Arthurian
Romances. Trans. W.W. Kibler. Harmondsworth: 2004
PMLA Publications of the Modern Language Association
Register Episcopal Registers: Diocese of Worcester. Register of Bishop
Giffard Godfrey Giffard. Ed. J.W. Willis Bund. Worcester Historical
Society Publications 1. Oxford: 1902
RS Rolls Series
TBGAS Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological
Society
TCWAS Transactions of the Cumberland and Westmorland Archaeolog-
ical Society
TRHS Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
Trokelowe Johannis de Trokelowe et Henrici de Blaneforde, monachorum
S. Albani, necnon quorundam anonymorum Chronica et
annales regnantibus Henrico Tertio, Edwardo Primo, Edwardo
Secundo, Ricardo Secundo et Henrice Quarto, 1259–1296;
1307–1324; 1392–1406. Ed. H.T. Riley. RS 28.3. London:
1866
xii ABBREVIATIONS
VCH Victoria History of the Counties of England

Worcester Florentii Wigorniensis Monachi Chronicon ex Chronicis. Ed. B.
Thorpe. English Historical Society Publications 12. Vaduz:
1964
Wykes Chronicon Thomae Wykes. Annales Monastici. Ed. H.R.
Luard. 5 vols. RS 36. London: 1864–69. Vol. 4
Yvain ‘The Knight with the Lion’, in Chrétien de Troyes, Arthur-
ian Romances. Trans. W.W. Kibler. Harmondsworth: 2004
Introduction
Staking out Aristocratic Identities at
Roncevaux
Charlemagne is standing in the midst of his vanquished rearguard in the valley

of Roncevaux, lamenting the demise of his kinsman Roland. Before the fallen
hero can be laid to rest, however, his death needs retribution. Ganelon is
brought before the Emperor and summarily tried by battle, during which he is
defeated by Charlemagne’s champion Thierry. Found guilty of treason,
Ganelon is next drawn, hanged, disembowelled, and quartered by four horses
tearing apart his body. Almost immediately afterwards, Roland, Oliver and
the rest of the ‘douceper’ are prepared for burial: their bodies are eviscerated,
embalmed with sweet spices and wrapped in hides and lead. Others are
covered in salt.
This is obviously not the traditional ending of the Chanson de Roland.
Following roughly the same course of events, the author of Otuel and Roland –
an early fourteenth-century Middle English redaction of the French Estoire de
Charlemagne – nevertheless changes several significant details. Ganelon fights
for himself rather than being represented by Pinabel, who dies in the Chanson.
It is also the first fight in which he is engaged. He is immediately tried on the
battlefield instead of in Charlemagne’s court. He is not just torn apart by four
horses as a punishment for his treason, but is subjected to a range of agonising
procedures. The author includes more details of the funerary preparations for
Roland’s body and those of others. Some of these changes the author found in
his source, the ‘Johannes’ translation of the Latin Historia Karoli magni by
Pseudo-Turpin. Others are his own.1
The origins of this Middle English redaction are both fascinating and
complex. The closing scenes of Otuel and Roland are part of a composite poem
1 Otuel and Roland, in Firumbras and Otuel and Roland: Edited from MS British Museum
Additional 37492, ed. M.I. O’Sullivan, EETS os 198 (1935), lines 2733–47, 2754–68. For the
identification of this Middle English version of the Johannes redaction of the Historia see R.N.
Walpole, ‘The Source Manuscript of Charlemagne and Roland and the Auchinleck Bookshop’,
Modern Language Notes 60 (1945), pp. 22–6; id., ‘Note to the Meredith-Jones Edition of the
Historia Karoli magni et Rotholandi ou Chronique du Pseudo-Turpin’, Speculum 22 (1947), pp.
260–2; Historia Karoli magni et Rotholandi ou Chronique du Pseudo-Turpin. Textes revues et
publiés d’après 49 manuscrits, ed. C. Meredith-Jones (Paris, 1936); The Song of Roland: An
Analytical Edition, ed. G.J. Brault, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1978).
2 DEATH AND THE NOBLE BODY IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
of which only the second and last section is derived from the ‘Johannes’ Estoire
(lines 1692–2786). In 1945, Ronald Walpole argued that the French source
of this redaction was MS BL Additional 40142 (mid thirteenth century). The
Middle English Otuel and Roland is found in a single manuscript of the late
fifteenth century (MS BL Additional 37492) and it forms part of a larger
Middle English *Charlemagne and Roland cycle which survives only in one
other fragment, now given the title Roland and Vernagu, found in the
Auchinleck Manuscript. Both fragments appear to be translated from the
same source manuscript which gives an approximate terminus a quo of post-
1250 and terminus ad quem of c. 1330 for this translation.2 This means that
the closing scenes described above were almost certainly conceived during the
time in which male aristocratic perceptions of themselves were increasingly
focused upon their body.
The Middle English redaction generally follows its original, but deviates
significantly in the judicial and embalming scenes. The ‘Johannes’ translation,
for example, closely follows its Latin source in stating that Ganelon was
judged in a trial by battle in which he was defended by his kinsman Pinabel.
Thierry kills Pinabel after a short fight which proves Ganelon’s guilt. Ganelon
is torn apart by four horses. At this point, Charlemagne has already battled the
Saracens a second time and has had Roland’s body embalmed. After
Ganelon’s judgement and execution which take place at Roncevaux, the
narrative briefly mentions that other (anonymous) knights were eviscerated,
embalmed or salted.3
By contrast, in the Middle English redaction the scenes of Roland’s
embalming and Ganelon’s execution are used to foreground a deliberate
juxtaposition between heroic and treacherous behaviour which is implicit and
far more complex in the Chanson de Roland and the Historia Karoli magni.
While in the Chanson doubt is cast over Ganelon’s treason because of his
noble body, in Otuel and Roland his corruption and disloyalty are made clear
on several occasions, not least in his reluctance to fight for anything apart from
saving his own body (unsuccessfully) from destruction.4 In Otuel and Roland,
Ganelon is bought to Roland’s body and not Charles but Turpin and Thierry
2 H.M. Smeyser, ‘Charlemagne Legends’, in A Manual of Writings in Middle English

1050–1500, gen. ed. J. Burke Severs, 10 vols. (New Haven, 1967), pp. 87–92, at 91; Walpole,
‘Source Manuscript’, pp. 22–6.
3 R.N. Walpole (ed.), The Old French Johannes Translation of the Pseudo-Turpin Chronicle, 2
vols. (Berkeley, CF, 1976), 1: 171–3; Historia Karoli magni, c. 25–28. This sequence deviates
significantly from that in the Chanson de Roland. Here Ganelon’s judgement and execution are
postponed until after the Franks return to Aix. Moreover, there is a long debate between
Charles and his aristocracy about whether Ganelon should be tried in the first place. The
knights are reluctant because of his nobility, but finally Thierry of Anjou agrees to stand for
Charles. The scene of the judicial combat is the longest of all versions.
4 Song of Roland, laisse 279: ‘Ganelon stood before the king, his body robust, his face a gentle
colour. If he were loyal, he would resemble the perfect baron.’
INTRODUCTION 3
accuse him of treason (lines 2673–84). Although the embalming of Roland’s
body has been mentioned before, after Ganelon’s shameful death the author
returns in more detail to the funerary preparations of Roland and the other
dead. While in the earlier versions the dead are rendered anonymous, in Otuel
and Roland the author is more specific by naming Roland and Oliver as
among those whose bodies are prepared. Having stated before Ganelon’s
death that Roland was embalmed ‘for fear of putrefaction’, we are afterwards
told that the bodies are elaborately embalmed with balsam and myrrh, and
that thus ‘anointed’ they are made ready for transport to their burial sites (lines
2543, 2754–74).
Throughout the Roncevaux episode of Otuel and Roland the author delib-
erately inscribes the character traits of loyalty and treason into the characters
of Roland and Ganelon respectively, which is ultimately manifested within
the contrasting treatment of the men’s bodies. Both men are valued in terms
of their attitude towards the Christian faith and Charlemagne to the extent
that within the narrative space of the poem, the two become synonymous.
Ganelon’s actions are highly suggestive of Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Christ:
he sells his loyalty to the Saracens for thirty horses ‘or more’, packed with gold
and silver – an obvious reference to Judas’s reward of thirty pieces of silver; he
is held directly responsible for the death of Roland, ‘the very martyr’ (lines
2074–5, 2440). His betrayal consists of telling Charlemagne a fabricated story
about the Saracens’ good intentions – ‘a fals traytour as was Iudas’, the author
comments (line 2093). Roland, on the other hand, is ‘Godes knygt’, a quasi
Judas Maccabaeus, fighting not only for God’s cause but also to protect the
empire from a surprise attack from behind (lines 2532–4).
The drama of Roland’s martyrdom provides the context in which the juxta-
position of his moral integrity and the corruption of Ganelon’s character
comes most emphatically to the fore. In a series of verbal markers, the author
gradually draws attention to the bodies of the two men. Roland’s body is
protected from ‘rottyng’ and putrefaction, and is later described as ‘anointed’,
while Ganelon’s challenge to Thierry’s accusation of treason in the presence of
Roland’s corpse firmly lodges his character within his body’s physicality: ‘nay,
thowe lyxt falsly by thys day, and that schall be well y-fownde, thy body
anone-ryghtys to myn’ (lines 2688–91). The fact that Ganelon’s body betrays
him by losing the battle is the inevitable consequence of the collapse of inte-
rior and exterior, which is in the end literally enacted during his execution.
Presented as rather one-dimensional archetypes, Roland and Ganelon are
symbolic of more complex modes of behaviour and characterisation which
shaped the social, political and cultural interactions of the aristocratic group in
England around 1300. Together, they and their bodies establish the parame-
ters of aristocratic personal and communal identity which extends beyond
their death. Roland represents loyalty, prowess, integrity, piety and bodily
control – Ganelon inhabits the realm of cowardice, betrayal, sinfulness and
lack of control. As a consequence, in death Roland’s body is presented as

static, protected from ‘rottyng’, while Ganelon’s body is forcefully torn to
pieces.
This intriguing conceptual dichotomy of nobility and treason woven into
corporeal matter is only one example of the way in which character, or interi-
ority, was thought to manifest itself within and upon the physical body in the
perception of aristocratic identity in the thirteenth century. The awareness of
social difference had a profound impact on how aristocrats perceived them-
selves in relation to others, which came most prominently to the fore in the
focus on the noble body as essential to incorporation into the ‘in-group’.5 As I
argue in Chapter 2, the male aristocracy perceived nobility (both in the sense
of moral and of physical integrity) to be embodied; in other words, while their
status was predicated on privileged access to social, political and economic
resources, their ontological underpinning was located in concepts of physical
superiority – thus excluding men from more modest backgrounds from the
elite network on the basis of ‘inferior birth’ and blood relations.
Since a sense of group identity depends on mostly unwritten precepts
which are interpreted and enacted subconsciously, it is at times in which the
ideal underlying social interactions comes under pressure from external,
uncontrollable, factors that it becomes most visible. In the case of the internal-
ised projection of nobility as corporeal, the fundamental pressures are those
generated by the physiological processes which make the body what it is. The
area in which this comes most dramatically to the fore is in the context of atti-
tudes towards death and dying, and the means by which a society disposes of
its dead.6 However, it can also be found at other moments during the life
course in which the norms of bodily appearance in relation to notions of
personal and communal identity are challenged by the natural order of ageing
or illness. The above example thereby also highlights the tensions between the
culturally defined transcendent ideals of the body and the reality of the phys-
ical body’s temporal fixity.
Therefore, the following discussion of the perceptions of aristocratic iden-
tities in medieval England does not only address the pressure upon the body
engendered by mortality but also highlights the inevitable discrepancy
between the ideal and its practical implementation. Not all aristocrats were
noble to the same extent (however they interpreted the idea of nobility) or
5 D. Crouch, The Birth of Nobility: Constructing Aristocracy in England and France 900–1300
(Harlow, 2005); T. Reuter, ‘Nobles and Others: The Social and Cultural Expression of Power
Relations in the Middle Ages’, in Nobles and Nobility in Medieval Europe: Concepts, Origins,
Transformations, ed. A.J. Duggan (Woodbridge, 2000), pp. 85–98.
6 ‘[T]he manner of disposing of the dead reflects social or cultural norms and ideals’; R.C.
Finucane, ‘Sacred Corpse, Profane Carrion: Social Ideals and Death Rituals in the Later Middle
Ages’, in Mirrors of Mortality: Studies in the Social History of Death, ed. J. Whaley (London,
1981), pp. 40–60.
INTRODUCTION 5
cared about nobility to the same extent, but all who perceived themselves to
belong to the social elite, or who were designated by others to belong to it,
would have had a notion of what made them different from the rising bour-
geoisie or from their peasant tenants above and beyond access to wealth or
political connections. This manifested itself in a range of practices and behav-
iours which fundamentally came back to embodied nobility.7
My focus on the attitudes towards death, dying and disposal in the late
twelfth to early fourteenth centuries in England in relation to notions of
embodied nobility is different from more traditional historiography on the
aristocracy in its interdisciplinarity and its emphasis on sociocultural and
psychological mechanisms informing aristocratic behaviour and attitudes.
Instead of concentrating on the external trappings signifying aristocratic iden-
tities such as clothes, weaponry and other material signs of status, I aim to
capture some of the ideas underlying the appropriation of particular objects as
signifiers of aristocratic status as well as some of the strategies informing the
interaction between embodied personhood and external object, such as the
use of heraldry as a metonym for individual and familial identity. This study
deals with ideas about chivalry but aims to go beyond the discussion about its
origin or practical expression in warfare and society at large to grasp its
meaning in relation to personal and communal identity.8
Modern popular perceptions of the medieval aristocrat almost invariably
conjure up images of the armour-clad muscular knight riding on his magnifi-
cent warhorse from one chivalric adventure to the next. Obviously this is an
image derived from romance literature intended for the aristocracy it cele-
brated and coloured by the lens of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century
romantic notions of ‘the’ Middle Ages. It is an ideal type, a discursive
construct, which by its very existence and its popularity among medieval audi-
ences attests the extent to which it shaped perceptions of the aristocracy
outside literary discourse. However, for the majority of aristocrats in the
period between 1100 and 1300 their day-to-day occupation was more about
the drudge of managing estates, administrating local government, and main-
taining the familial and social networks essential for the advancement and
consolidation of one’s position within the social hierarchy. Of course, some
knights went on the French tournament circuit in the hope of gaining fame
and honour, but also to build a lasting reputation for ‘preudommie’ which
might stand them in good stead at the royal court.9 Yet, the image of the
armoured knight proved to be resilient as a defining characteristic of the
7 Reuter, ‘Nobles and Others’, p. 96.

8 For recent English and French studies on the aristocracy, chivalry and the various aspects of
nobility see the historiographical narrative in Crouch, Birth of Nobility, passim.
9 Crouch, Birth of Nobility; P.R. Coss, The Knight in Medieval England, 1000–1400 (Stroud,
1993).
aristocracy, despite the drop in the number of aristocratic men being knighted
towards the end of the thirteenth century.10
Additionally, it is my intention to present a more culturally and temporally
specific discussion of social and psychological attitudes to death and disposal
focusing on the fate of the cadaver. Studies of attitudes towards medieval
death have mushroomed since the publication of Philippe Ariès’ Hour of our
Death in 1978. Although initially scholars agreed with his statements about
medieval death as ‘tamed’ and strictly controlled, these views have now been
challenged as being idealised and too generalised.11 Nevertheless, Ariès’ work
has opened up a wide field of interdisciplinary studies ranging from the more
archaeological to the art historical, from the early medieval to the early Tudor
period, and from localised settings to the whole of Western Europe. They
focus on the rituals of deathbed and funeral, the shape and function of
commemoration, the importance of the Afterlife and the influence of the
formulation of the doctrine of Purgatory on attitudes to death and commem-
oration. The position of the soul and its salvation are central to these discus-
sions, but one aspect is often overlooked or treated summarily, even in
discussions about the archaeology of death: the relevance of the cadaver, the
physical human body. By this I do not mean the discussion of the macabre or
the Dance of Death but rather the ways in which the human corpse was
perceived and manipulated psychologically, socially and culturally.12 I will
discuss the metaphors of death and the cadaver in a religious framework, but
move on to specific questions about the attitudes towards the personalised
cadaver: what does one’s own dead body reveal about oneself? What strategies
are employed to avoid the inherent tension between the concept of the cadaver
and one’s own corpse?13 This will inevitably also raise questions not generally
asked in the death studies mentioned here: what exactly is a body and how are
the subjective experiences of our body shaped by language, culture and
political systems? How do ideal and practice interact when it comes to
embodied experience?14 Although my study focuses specifically on the English
10 Ibid., pp. 69–70, 103–4.

11 See for example D. Crouch, ‘The Culture of Death in the Anglo-Norman World’, in
Anglo-Norman Political Culture and the Twelfth-Century Renaissance, ed. C.W. Hollister
(Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 157–80.
12 P. Ariès, The Hour of Our Death (New York, 1981); P. Binski, Medieval Death: Ritual and
Representation (London, 1996); C. Daniell, Death and Burial in Medieval England, 1066–1550
(London, 1997); B. Gordon and P. Marshall (ed.), The Place of the Dead: Death and Remem-
brance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2000); D.M. Hadley, Death in
Medieval England: An Archaeology (Stroud, 2001); V. Thompson, Dying and Death in Later
Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, 2004); R. Gilchrist and B. Sloane, Requiem: The Medieval
Monastic Cemetery in Britain (London, 2005).
13 A notable exception to the studies mentioned above, is the themed issue of the journal
Micrologus on the cadaver (vol. 7; 1999). Despite its title, Finucane’s ‘Sacred Corpse, Profane
Carrion’ discusses attitudes to death in general and to four ‘types’ of dead more specifically.
14 The concept of ‘body’ underlies an impressive mountain of work in all disciplines. The
INTRODUCTION 7
male aristocracy in the late twelfth to the early fourteenth centuries, similar
questions can be asked for other social groups and for different times but, as
we shall see, it is in relation to male aristocrats that the tensions between the
ideal and the natural body come most acutely to the fore.
Any study into attitudes towards the dead body must take into account the
substantial work done by Caroline Bynum on theological ideas about the
resurrection of the body and the inherent problems regarding personhood and
identity.15 A study of non-theological beliefs and discourses reveals that it was
not just the educated few who pondered the fate of the body after death,
although the concerns proved to be different. Instead of these complex escha-
tological issues, people were concerned about burial location; about the putre-
faction of their body and what it said about them; about isolation and being
forgotten; about social status and commemorative strategies. Therefore,
despite a new emphasis on expressing one’s own thoughts and feelings (which
has been interpreted as a ‘rise of the individual’) in the twelfth century, fear of
isolation from the social and religious community informed much social
interaction and experience, including perceptions of death and dying.
Interactional strategies were based on an awareness of one’s position within
society and the awareness of different conceptions of communal normativity
and alterity. As Chapter 2 argues, for the aristocracy in this period it meant the
adherence to a concept of embodied nobility which separated persons from
the rest of society, but as part of a collective. This separation was conceived as a
nobility of blood: one’s birth predisposed one to a higher status, more wealth,
more political influence. The vertical family was therefore an essential part of
what it meant to be an aristocrat and one of the subjects which will receive
more attention in Chapter 3 is patronage of religious houses and aristocratic
burial practices in relation to the need to be located within a good family
structure.
Aristocratic funerary practices have of course surfaced in discussions of
their self- and group-representation. Recently, Rachel Dressler has discussed
the interplay of masculinist ideas inherent in the concept of the knight and the
dominant strands in the current debate focus on the discursivity of bodily practice, the nature of
matter, and the interaction between discourse and nature. A great deal of this work focuses on
the concepts of gender and sex. See for example J. Butler, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive
Limits of ‘Sex’ (New York, 1993) and Susan Bordo’s critique of Butler’s insistence on ‘discursive
foundationalism’ in for example her ‘Bringing the Body to Theory’ in Body and Flesh: A Philo-
sophical Reader (Oxford, 1998), pp. 84–97. Bordo represents a less radical position which sees
the body as a combination of cultural and material elements – a view also proposed by sociolo-
gists. For a polemic on the study of the body see D. Mann, ‘The Body as “Object” of Historical
Knowledge’, Dialogue 35 (1996), pp. 753–76, arguing that ‘body theory’ is a typical product of
consumer capitalism (p. 753).
15 See in particular her Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body
in Medieval Religion (New York, 1992) and Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity
200–1336 (New York, 1995).
rise of the knightly effigy in the late thirteenth century, while David Crouch,
Brian Golding and Christopher Harper-Bill have each discussed the attitudes
of the ‘knightly class’ to religious patronage and piety in England and
Normandy as well as their decisions on burial location.16 However, both
Golding and Harper-Bill concentrated on the benefits aristocratic burial
would bring to the religious houses families patronised as well as on the
patterns of burial either in Normandy or in England. Crouch, on the other
hand, was predominantly concerned with the rise of humanism in the sources
detailing funerary practices.
Nevertheless, the picture is more complex: burial patterns and funerary
practices depend on a wider set of considerations which all need to be taken
into account: burial was more than an act of piety; it also was a confirmation
of one’s status in society. The rising number of heart and viscera burials in the
thirteenth century in England as well as the rest of Western Europe, one of the
topics discussed in Chapter 4, was a logical development from all these
different considerations, since it solved issues of individual preference, familial
obligation, and social status. It also addressed the problem of bodily putrefac-
tion and the threat to moral and physical integrity. Apart from presenting a
more in-depth study of this practice, my focus on the perception of the aristo-
cratic cadaver is also new since the physicality of the living or dead body is
generally sublimated into more general discussions of chivalry, violence,
burial locations or funerary art.
In relation to this, it is for the first time that later medieval aristocratic
executions for treason will be discussed from a cultural perspective rather than
as state controlled events or as part of a discussion on the development of legal
and political attitudes towards treason. It is in the context of corporeal punish-
ment that social responses to the body and identity come most prominently
into view, something which has been recognised by scholars of the early
modern period. However, the latter have mainly posited medieval executions
as a monolithic alterity marked by barbaric customs which were gradually
phased out in the eighteenth century.17 Instead, I argue in Chapters 5 and 6
16 R.A. Dressler, Of Armor and Men: The Chivalric Rhetoric of Three English Knights’ Effigies
(Aldershot, 2003); B. Golding, ‘Burials and Benefactions: An Aspect of Monastic Patronage in
Thirteenth-Century England’, in England in the Thirteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1984
Harlaxton Symposium, ed. W.M. Ormrod (Grantham, 1985), pp. 64–75; id. ‘Anglo-Norman
Knightly Burials’, in The Ideals and Practice of Medieval Knighthood: Papers from the First and
Second Strawberry Hill Conferences, ed. C. Harper-Bill and R. Harvey (Woodbridge, 1986), pp.
35–58; C. Harper-Bill, ‘The Piety of the Anglo-Norman Knightly Class’, in Proceedings of the
Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies 2, ed. R.A. Brown (Oxford, 1979), pp. 63–77.
17 M.H. Keen, ‘Treason Trials under the Law of Arms’, TRHS fifth series 12 (1962), pp.
85–103; J.G. Bellamy, The Law of Treason in England in the Later Middle Ages. Cambridge
Studies in English Legal History (Cambridge, 1970); M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The
Birth of the Prison (Harmondsworth, 1977); F. Egmond, ‘Execution, Dissection, Pain and
INTRODUCTION 9
that the treatment of the aristocratic traitor should be seen in the context of
concerns about the corruption of their embodied nobility and consequently
about their pollution of society.18 This is not to say that other circumstances,
such as political instability and the level of royal power, did not impinge on
the very real change in attitudes towards aristocratic traitors which can be
observed from the thirteenth century onwards. Moreover, as Katherine Royer
has rightly pointed out, our conception of cruelty and propriety is bound to be
different from past perceptions and therefore medieval executions should not
be judged by our own standards. However, this should not mean that we
regard them as meaningless events in themselves or only as being meaningful
in relation to legal and political developments.19
This book is thus located at the intersection of three very large conceptual
domains, namely ‘identity’, ‘body’ and ‘death’, and is intended as a cultural,
interdisciplinary study. This is not to everyone’s taste and no doubt there will
be areas in which my expertise falls short of that of the specialist. Nevertheless,
I feel it makes a considerable contribution to our understanding of people’s
behaviours in history, in particular where they deviate substantially from our
own. I also hope it will offer scholars from different disciplines an insight into
alternative readings of historical events and discourses by making connections
and associations from across a range of genres and attitudes. As a consequence,
this study draws upon a wide selection of sources ranging from monastic and
urban chronicles to judicial and government records; from literary texts and
political songs to law codes; from contemporary narratives to early modern
antiquarian collections. To this mix are added a selection of medical and
encyclopaedic sources pondering the anatomy and physiology of the human
body, philosophical debates on the nature of the dead body in relation to the
soul, and lastly, political treatises exploring the concept of the body politic.
Throughout, the conflicts between ideal and practice will be highlighted.20
Moreover, I should stress here that as in any complex society or culture,
Infamy – A Morphological Investigation’, in Bodily Extremities: Preoccupations with the Human

Body in Early Modern European Culture, ed. F. Egmond and R. Zwijnenberg (Aldershot, 2003),
pp. 92–127.
18 For an interesting, if unreferenced, article listing examples of dismemberment in relation to
treason and heresy, see F. Ohly, ‘The Death of Traitors by Dismemberment in Mediaeval Liter-
ature’, Atti della Accademia Peloritana dei Pericolanti. Classe di Lettere Filosofia e Belle Arti 63
(1989), pp. 9–27. Ohly suggests broadening the view beyond the punishment for political
treason to address cultural attitudes towards dismemberment.
19 K. Royer, ‘The Body in Parts: Reading the Execution Ritual in Late Medieval England’,
Historical Reflections 29 (2003), pp. 319–39. For an interpretation which is coloured by
modern concepts of sexuality see C. Sponsler, ‘The King’s Boyfriend: Froissart’s Political
Theater of 1326’, in Queering the Middle Ages, ed. G. Burger and S.F. Kruger (Minneapolis,
2001), pp. 143–67. I will come back to this in Chapter 6.
20 A good example of the wider use of sources to highlight cultural interconnectivity see J.
Sawday, The Body Emblazoned: Dissection and the Human Body in Renaissance Culture (London,
1995). However, Sawday has been criticised for his reliance on ‘highbrow’ sources while
beliefs are not uniform or unchangeable. However, it is very clear that the
human body stood in the centre of the medieval universe and was subject to a
continuous play of associations and metaphors which occasionally collapsed
into the physical. It was ruled by natural and metaphysical forces while
providing an interpretative template for them; it was, as Marcel Mauss has
commented in a different context, humanity’s ‘most natural instrument’.21
This totalising interconnecting concept would provide a serious challenge to
any exploration of medieval attitudes towards the body or identity. By
limiting myself to the analysis of how one segment of society defined itself and
was defined by others within the parameters of a critical moment within the
life course – the transition from this life to the next – while making use of a
wider range of sources, I hope to capture some perceptions of and attitudes to
the body.
In the following chapters, the issues raised here will be explored in greater
detail. First of all, in Chapter 1, I will examine medieval responses to the
cadaver in relation to ideas about the meaning and nature of death. What asso-
ciations were conjured up by the concept of death and how did this impact on
attitudes towards dying and the dead body in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries? Next, Chapter 2 discusses the embodied nature of aristocratic iden-
tity in this period, central to which was the merger of knighthood and the
concept of nobility. I have made a conscious decision to refer to the social
group under discussion as the ‘aristocracy’ to distinguish them from ‘nobility’.
The former is used as a collective noun, the latter as a term for the quality with
which the group identified themselves. It also means that it is possible to
include all who regarded themselves to belong to the social elite – be they
magnates of the realm or local landholders – or were regarded by others to
belong to it. With group identification came adherence to a common ideal,
which in the case of the aristocracy meant the concept of nobility.22 In this
chapter, I will also address the gendered nature of this concept.
The ideas discussed in Chapters 1 and 2 will be combined in a more applied
analysis of aristocratic religious patronage and funerary practices, which
includes a discussion of heart and viscera burials. Chapter 3 will focus on the
former, Chapter 4 on the latter. Moreover, the practice of ‘multiple burial’
will be located in the context of theological and medical ideas about the integ-
rity of the body and its participation in the actualisation of identity.
Having examined the means by which aristocrats embodied nobility and
implying cultural all-inclusiveness. See M.S.R. Jenner, ‘Body, Image, Text in Early Modern
Europe’, Social History of Medicine 12 (1999), pp. 143–54, at 144–6.
21 M. Mauss, Sociology and Psychology: Essays (London, 1979), p. 104.
22 Cf. Crouch, Birth of Nobility, p. 3; id. The Image of the Aristocracy in Medieval Britain
1100–1300 (London, 1992), pp. 4–5; T. Reuter, ‘The Medieval Nobility in Twentieth-
Century Historiography’, in Companion to Historiography, ed. M. Bentley (London, 1997), pp.
177–203, at 178–9.
INTRODUCTION 11
sought to control their bodies in death, the final two chapters focus on what
happens when that nobility is thought to be corrupted and to pose a threat to
the rest of society. Chapter 5 discusses definitions of treason in legal and polit-
ical sources and examines the accusations made against aristocratic traitors in
the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Chapter 6 focuses on the execu-
tions of aristocratic traitors and shows how the aristocrat was gradually
removed from the social group by destroying his identity and exposing his
corrupted nobility.
Chapter 1
Death and the Cadaver: Visions of

Corruption
Imagine a large exhibition space somewhere in a large North American, Euro-

pean or South-East Asian city. Throngs of people are queuing at the entrance,
while inside others walk around in amused horror in the modern equivalent of
a nineteenth-century ‘freak show’. Welcome to ‘Body Worlds’, the controver-
sial exhibition staged under the auspices of the German doctor Gunther von
Hagens. Inside the exhibition space, the human form is on display in all its
glory, not in the shape of intricate plastic models, but the real thing.
According to the official documentation, the exhibitions are staged to demys-
tify human anatomy in a drive to educate the public about how to take care of
their bodies.1 In order to achieve this, real bodies and body parts are displayed
in a series of striking poses illuminating the workings of muscles, bones,
organs and displaying their pathologies. Caught in perpetual stasis effected by
a process called ‘plastination’, death is made visible in a tasteful objectification
of the human cadaver, acting as a contemporary memento mori (one of the
exhibits for example displays the effect of heavy smoking on the lungs) but
without the accompanying smells and sights so repulsive to the modern
human senses and without the danger of contamination, fear of which is
generally triggered upon contact with decomposing matter.2
Paradoxically, by displaying a static and sanitised death, the Body Worlds
exhibitions subconsciously subscribe to a wider trend within modern society
to deny the effects of ageing and dying (the exhibits of whole cadavers tend to
underscore the athletic and vigorous aspects of living). Popular culture, privi-
leging the young and healthy body, encourages us to shop for anti-ageing
products to manipulate the outward signs of physical decay subconsciously
associated with a loss of the ‘real’ us, a process completed with death.3 Death
1 See the official Body Worlds website at www.bodyworlds.com.

2 In a sense, the Body Worlds project reads as a postmodernist reinvention of the anatomy
theatres of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including rumours of bodies of executed
criminals being used. Von Hagens himself staged a televised autopsy a few years ago on a British
TV channel.
3 On this topic, see E. Hallam, J. Hockey and G. Howarth, Beyond the Body: Death and Social
tends to be depersonalised and segregated. In some extreme cases, the dying,

in their anonymous hospital beds, experience social death before clinical death
sets in. The process of death is something we cannot control and we can never
experience subjectively and live to tell the tale. We have trouble defining the
boundary between life and death; when do we know that someone is dead? In
the twenty-first century, modern medical techniques make this an even more
pressing ethical question as more people are kept alive in a state not tradition-
ally associated with life.4 The funerary business is booming as more people
engage in elaborate fantasies to obscure the reality of the death of loved ones
by requesting to have the deceased presented to them as if alive. This is
achieved through embalming, the careful application of cosmetics and by
dressing the deceased in their favourite clothes (often daywear). It is no
surprise that Von Hagens’ technique of ‘plastination’ is in effect a very elabo-
rate combination of mummification and embalming.5
Although it would be simplistic, not say anachronistic, to read medieval
sociocultural responses to death and the dead body as if they mirror our own,
there are indications that what medieval men and women experienced when
confronted with the mysteries surrounding death and dying was not
completely dissimilar to modern reactions. While medieval perceptions,
which conceptualised physical death as ‘transition’ rather than as ‘end’, were
infinitely more coloured by religious beliefs than ours, it is obvious that there
was a real concern about what happened to the body after death, either to
one’s own or that of others.6
Generally, when medieval historians have addressed the issue of death and
dying in the period before the Black Death, they have tended to focus on areas
such as eschatology, burial practices and rituals, and the relationship between
the dead and the living, while ideas about the actual cadaver itself are hardly
addressed. Ronald Finucane concentrated on the role of the cadaver in medi-
eval eschatology in a brief article in which he identified four oppositional
archetypes of the dead: saints and heretics, criminals and kings. The juxtaposi-
tion of attitudes towards saintly and criminal bodies in relation to autopsy was
also argued by Katherine Park in an article specifically focused on Italy. In a
second article, she observed a difference between Italy and Northern Europe
in late medieval beliefs and attitudes towards the cadaver, again in relation to
autopsy and to burial customs. Recently, a volume of Micrologus was devoted
Identity (London, 1999); J. Hockey and A. James, Social Identities across the Life Course
(Basingstoke, 2003).
4 C. Seale, Constructing Death: The Sociology of Death and Bereavement (Cambridge, 1998),
pp. 53–5; R.J. Kastenbaum, Death, Society, and Human Experience (St Louis, 1977), pp. 31–6.
5 A. Bardgett, ‘A Job for Life’, in Ritual and Remembrance: Responses to Death in Human Soci-
eties, ed. J. Davies (Sheffield, 1994), pp. 188–99, at 194–5.
6 See for example Bynum, Resurrection of the Body on this.
DEATH AND THE CADAVER 15
to the cadaver, with articles on, for instance, cruentation, jurisprudence
involving the cadaver, and ghosts.7
According to a more traditional view, first suggested by Johan Huizinga, it
was only with the mass mortality of the mid fourteenth century that people’s
perspectives on death changed profoundly. Suddenly, it was argued, medieval
men and women concentrated on the physicality of death: cadaver tombs and
other macabre iconography appeared to warn the living of the dangers of
dying in sin.8 However, although the Black Death had made an impact on
how people felt about death and dying, the focus on the cadaver or the
macabre was not new. Rather, new outlets were found to express ideas associ-
ated with the cadaver, ideas which had been prevalent since the early days of
Christianity. The dead body was in turn seen as a valuable participant in the
salvation drama and as a source of pollution and vileness; the conceptual
boundaries were usually drawn between martyrs and ordinary people or
between bones and flesh.9 The body was at best an ambiguous and often unre-
liable companion on the road to salvation during life, but it was after death
that this became more obvious.
How a society deals with death and the dead is often highly informative of
its sociocultural attitudes.10 As Julia Kristeva has observed, the fear of pollu-
tion associated with the cadaver has less to do with ideas about hygiene or
health (although this may be how this fear is vocalised) and more with ideas
about order and identity.11 For example, Robert Hertz’s comparative study on
the death customs of indigenous tribes in Borneo and other pre-industrial
communities shows how post-mortem rituals are informed by ideas about the
connection between the deceased and their body until the process of decay has
been finalised.12 What Hertz’s observations reveal is the conceptual difference
between visible decay of the flesh (which is a source of pollution – lack of
order) and the apparent stasis of the post-decay skeleton (which is safe to
7 Finucane, ‘Sacred Corpse, Profane Carrion’, pp. 40–60; Micrologus 7 (1999); K. Park, ‘The
Criminal and the Saintly Body: Autopsy and Dissection in Renaissance Italy’, Renaissance
Quarterly 47 (1994), pp. 1–33; ead. ‘The Life of the Corpse: Division and Dissection in Late
Medieval Europe’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 50 (1995), pp. 111–32.
8 K. Cohen, Metamorphosis of a Death Symbol: The Transi Tomb in the Late Middle Ages and
the Renaissance (Berkeley, Calif., 1973).
9 Bynum, Resurrection of the Body, passim; P.R.L. Brown, The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and
Function in Latin Christianity. Haskell Lectures on History of Religions ns 2 (Chicago, 1981).
One of the main differences between early Christianity and Judaism and Roman religions was
the attitude towards the dead and mortal remains.
10 Finucane, ‘Sacred Corpse, Profane Carrion’, p. 41.
11 J. Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York, 1982), p. 4.
12 R. Hertz, ‘Death’ and ‘The Right Hand’, trans. R. Needham and C. Needham with an intro-
duction by E.E. Evans-Pritchard (Aberdeen, 1960), pp. 27–86. His ideas were elaborated upon
by M. Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, Routledge
Classics (London, 2002). See also P. Metcalf and R. Huntington, Celebrations of Death: The
Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual, second edition (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 34–8, 71–9, 84.
handle – ordered and static). Despite the danger of generalisation on the basis
of selective evidence in Hertz’s work, it will become evident that medieval
Western European society held broadly similar views about the dead body.13
Before concentrating on the impact of death on the noble body, it is useful to
think about some of the sociocultural dimensions of death and the cadaver in
medieval society. How was death defined? What associations did the cadaver
conjure up in the medieval mind? How did ideas about identity and
personhood inform attitudes towards death and the cadaver?
‘Inter omnia terribilissimum est mors’ 14
How society perceives death tends to be shaped by basic values of good and
bad; the prospect of reward or damnation in an afterlife (or its absence); and
how the dead continue to interact with the living. Although I am mainly
concerned with attitudes towards the cadaver, as a once animate object it is
inevitably invested with the cultural notions informing life and death in
general. For example, how people personify death can be highly informative
of their attitudes towards it and as Elizabeth Bronfen has pointed out in a
critique of nineteenth-century English attitudes to death, the image of the
cadaver is easily appropriated and manipulated politically, morally, even eroti-
cally.15 For the last we do not have to look in medieval attitudes, but moral
and political appropriations of death and the cadaver feature widely.
It is also important to realise the different conceptual dimensions of death:
it can refer to a temporally and spatially limited event, in which the transition
from life to death takes place; it also refers to the state beyond life; and finally,
it can point to a socio-religious exclusion, which is tied in with notions of
memory and forgetting both before and after physical death. In modern
society, the fear of both pre- and post-mortem depersonalisation or
marginalisation looms large despite our yearning for individuality; in medi-
eval society exile, excommunication or post-mortem damnation were equally
dreaded as mechanisms to erase one’s memory from the community. For
example, as John of Salisbury maintained with regard to traitors and other
criminals: ‘those with whom no one associates in life [as a consequence of their
crime] are not exonerated by benefit of death.’ In other words, criminals
would not only be excluded from their community, but their punishment
13 See the comments by Evans-Pritchard in his introduction to Hertz, ‘Death’ and ‘The Right
Hand’, pp. 21–2.
14 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I.2.42.2 (citing Aristotle, Ethics, 3.6).
15 Kastenbaum, Death, Society and Human Experience, pp. 25–8; E. Bronfen, Over her Dead
Body: Death, Femininity and the Aesthetic (Manchester, 1992); cf. E. Bronfen and S.W.
Goodwin (ed.), Death and Representation (Baltimore, 1993), introduction.
would continue after death without the prospect of successful intercession by
the living.16
Although, as Augustine of Hippo argued, there was no physical state of
‘being in death’, medieval theologians and preachers did often point out the
difference between physical death of the body (which was temporary) and
spiritual death of the soul (which was eternal). Those ‘dead’ to the teaching of
Christ, for example, had no hope to regain eternal life on the Last Day; after
the reunion of body and soul, they would continue to suffer the pains of
eternal death, which Augustine would concede was a kind of permanent
‘being in death’. It meant being eternally deprived of God’s presence, a failure
to obtain Divine Grace, as a result of sins committed with full awareness and
without repentance. According to Aquinas, this was an unnatural rejection of
the rational soul by the body – a ‘rebellion of the flesh against the spirit’.17
Moreover, spiritual death was associated with lack of control: sinners were
subject to punishments signifying their lack of control over themselves and
their bodies, while those who were ‘alive’ with God were depicted as static and
unchangeable.18
Death was thus viewed as a consequence (and result) of change, but
whether it was a natural part of life or intrinsically alien from humanity’s orig-
inal state was debatable. For example, Thomas Aquinas considered death to be
part of the nature of the material body. Although it was a consequence of sin
in that the Divine Grace which gave humanity immortality had been with-
drawn from the soul, physical death did not in itself signify sin. Instead,
because the matter from which the earthly body was formed was subject to
change, it belonged to a different ontological category from angels whose
nature was unchangeable. It needed Divine Grace to stop this change from
reaching its inevitable conclusion; immortality was therefore a sign of special
favour and not an intrinsic part of embodied existence, as Augustine had
argued. For Augustine, physical death was an actualisation of sin brought into
the world by Adam and it was therefore unnatural. Although humanity was
immortal in principle, individuals died if disobedient to God. In this they
differed from angels who were immortal and could not die as a result of sin.19
16 Kastenbaum, Death, Society and Human Experience, pp. 5–40. Iohannes Salisburienses
Episcopi Carnotensis Policratici, sive De nugis curialium et vestigiis philosophorum libri VIII, ed.
C.C.I. Webb, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1909), 2: 74; Policraticus: Of the Frivolities of Courtiers and the
Footprints of Philosophers, ed. and trans. C.J. Nederman, Cambridge Texts in the History of
Political Thought (Cambridge, 1990), p. 137. [Hereafter: John of Salisbury, Policraticus.] Cf.
Ps. 31:13 (Douay-Rheims trans.): ‘I am forgotten as one dead from the heart’.
17 Augustine, De civitate Dei, II.13.11; II.20.6; Honorius Augustodunensis, L’Elucidarium et
les lucidaires, ed. Y. Lefèvre, Bibliothèque des écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 180 (Paris,
1954), p. 177; Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I.97.1; II.2.164.1.
18 Cf. Bynum, Resurrection of the Body, pp. 117–19.
19 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I.97.1; II.2.164.1; Augustine, De civitate Dei,
II.13–14. For a lengthier discussion of Thomas’s ideas on the nature of death see M.D. Jordan,
The connection between death and sin was frequently emphasised in

sermons and homilies, whereby the distinction between physical and spiritual
death was often blurred. Although Thomas Aquinas could argue that physical
death was natural to the body’s material essence, images of physical death
constituted potent metaphors for sin and its consequence.20 A twelfth-century
homilist declared that there were three kinds of spiritual death, the worst of
which, evil habits, was connected to the terrible smells emanating from the
tomb. Habitual sinners could be compared to the owl living in the graveyard,
both delighting in the ‘stench of human flesh’.21 Although the dead were
physically separated from the living, the latter could still learn from them and
their remains. The image of the tomb, for example, could be used to remind
people about death, even though ‘dead bones cannot speak from the tombs’.22
A stark warning against sin also filtered through in the idea that physical
death would be a fearful and painful experience for sinners. Stories about jour-
neys to the afterlife such as the Vision of Tundalus were intended to instruct
the audience as its main character was enlightened about his hitherto sinful
life. The soul of the knight Tundalus was subjected to a particularly fearful
ordeal after it had left the body: timid and vulnerable, the soul was surrounded
by jeering demons eager to take this ‘child of death’ to the ‘unquenchable fire’.
A similar experience was recounted by Gervase of Tilbury on the evidence of a
ghost who had appeared to his cousin a few days after his death. Having been
murdered, as the soul of the man left his body he witnessed a battle between
angels and demons to determine his fate – an event which left him so trauma-
tised that even the word ‘death’ conjured up painful images. Instead, he
preferred to speak of ‘passing from life [migracio a seculo]’.23
Regular confession and an awareness of the inevitability of death could help
relieve the trauma of this migration from life, and idealised depictions of one’s
deathbed invariably show the dying quietly reclining in their bed. Surrounded
by family and possibly attended by their physician and a priest within the
private space of the bedroom, it was possible to prepare one’s passing with
‘Death Natural and Unnatural’, in Death, Sickness and Health in Medieval Society and Culture,
ed. S.J. Ridyard, Sewanee Mediaeval Studies 10 (Sewanee, Tenn., 2000), pp. 35–53.
20 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I.97.1; II.2.164.1.
21 Twelfth-Century Homilies in MS Bodley 343, ed. A.O. Belfour, EETS os 137 (1909), pp.
136–7; R. Barber (ed.), Bestiary (Woodbridge, 1992), p. 149. Cf. the comment by Walter Map
about the owl, which as one of the ‘creatures of the night’, is primarily concerned ‘to follow up
the odour of carrion’. Walter Map, De nugis curialium: Courtiers’ Trifles, ed. and trans. M.R.
James; revised by C.N.L. Brooke and R.A.B. Mynors (Oxford, 1983), pp. 12–13.
22 Twelfth-Century Homilies, pp. 124–5; Fasciculus morum: A Fourteenth-Century Preacher’s
Handbook, ed. S. Wenzel (University Park, Penn., 1989), p. 33.
23 Visio Tnugdali. Lateinisch und Altdeutsch, ed. A. Wagner (Hildesheim, 1989; 1882), p. 10;
The Vision of Tnugdal, ed. and trans. J.M. Picard and Y. de Ponfarcy (Dublin, 1989), p. 114;
Gervase of Tilbury, Otia imperialia: Recreation for an Emperor, ed. and trans. S.E. Banks and
J.W. Binns, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 2002), pp. 762, 768; J.C. Schmitt, Ghosts in the
Middle Ages: The Living and the Dead in Medieval Society (Chicago, 1998), pp. 88–9.
proper decorum. As peaceful as this may sound, it is unlikely to have been the
case for many that they were able to renounce life with quiet resignation. Even
saints could be described as belligerent or in severe pain on their deathbed,
although they would welcome the prospect of union with God.24 The ‘tame-
ness’ of death which Philippe Ariès observed as the dominant attitude for the
medieval period is also belied by what are evidently paradigmatic descriptions
of how things ought to be, not how they were.25 Young King Henry, for
example, was described by Geoffrey de Vigeois and Thomas Agnellus as
resigned to his fate as he lay dying in the early days of June 1183, although he
did request to be placed on a bed of ashes in contrition for rebelling against his
father and for plundering the monasteries in the Limoges region. There is
little to no evidence in these sources to point to the fact that he died of the
agonising effects of dysentery.26
Similarly, the description of Earl William Marshal of Pembroke’s deathbed
in the Histoire de Guillaume de Mareschal is a textbook moment-by-moment
account of how an elderly aristocrat was supposed to die.27 In the course of this
section of the narrative, which is over a thousand lines, the reader catches a
glimpse of William arranging his funeral and sharing his possessions with
others, including many religious houses, in exchange for spiritual intercession.
He appears calm and resigned even as his relatives and ‘familiares’ appear over-
come by grief, and he is rewarded with a vision of two angels who will guide
him towards God. Finally, William feels the pangs of death upon him and asks
for the doors and windows to be opened. As he dies, his hands are folded in
prayer and his eyes are firmly fixed upon the cross in front of him. Although
there are signs of William’s suffering dotted around in the narrative, the over-
whelming impression remains that of someone acutely aware of the correct
procedures to follow in this situation.28 William’s eldest son, another William
Earl of Pembroke, however, died excommunicate in 1231. When his cadaver
was found in 1240 at the dedication of new Temple Church, according to
Matthew Paris, it was sewn into an oxhide; the late Earl’s body, however, was
found to be so putrid and horrible that people recoiled in disgust. In the
24 Cf. Crouch’s discussion of the deathbeds of Ailred of Rievaulx and Hugh of Lincoln:
‘Anglo-Norman Death Culture’, pp. 166–7.
25 Crouch, ‘Anglo-Norman Death Culture’, p. 159; Ariès, Hour of Our Death; Binski, Medi-
eval Death, p. 36.
26 Geoffrey de Vigeois, ‘Chronica Lemovicense’, in Recueil des historiens de France de la Gaule,
ed. M. Bouquet et al. 24 vols. (Paris, 1869–1904), 18: 217; Thomas Agnellus, ‘Sermo de morte
et sepultura Henrici Regis Junioris’, in Radulphi de Coggeshal Chronicon Anglicanum, ed. J.
Stevenson. RS 66 (1875); Crouch, ‘Anglo-Norman Death Culture’, p. 168.
27 Histoire de Guillaume de Mareschal, ed. A.J. Holden, S. Gregory and D. Crouch.
Anglo-Norman Text Society Occasional Publications 4–6. 3 vols. (London, 2002–06), 2:
396–451.
28 Crouch surmises that William may have died of bowel cancer; D. Crouch, William Marshal:
Court, Career and Chivalry in the Angevin Empire 1147–1219, The Medieval World (London,
1990), p. 130.
context of recounting the sins committed by William Marshal the Younger,

Matthew’s point is clearly that because the younger William had died excom-
municate, his corpse reflected his sinful life and death.29
The idea of social containment was one of the dominant elements in medi-
eval perceptions of death. Death ideally took place in a specific private loca-
tion, in which the dying were expected to make peace with God and to
maintain their composure in the presence of their relatives and friends. As
such, the fear of death itself was rendered visible as a fear of the unknown and
the disorderly. The ideal death ‘event’ was a highly orchestrated process in
which all participants, including the dying, knew what to do and what to
expect. Although disease would inevitably be the cause of death in many cases,
it was glossed over in the narrative of the ideal death unless it was used as a sign
of endurance and patience within the dying.
An underlying reason for this orderly death, moreover, was the desire to
ensure a good memory of the deceased in the minds of survivors – thus to
re-establish oneself within the social community which encompassed both the
living and the dead and not to be forgotten. So for example, while St Augus-
tine argued that care for the dead actually made very little difference to the
dead themselves, it was a suitable and positive strategy for survivors to cope
with their loss to think that their deceased relatives and friends were properly
cared for.30 Continuing on from this thought, the continuator of Aquinas’s
Summa stressed the charitable nature of burial – and it would of course
become one of the Seven Works of Mercy – which was pleasing to God.
Sinners, on the other hand, deserved far less because they were not worthy of
attention, from which it was logical to conclude that they deserved to be
forgotten.31
The centrality of burial locations and of commemorative practices in the
attitudes towards death further reveals the importance of remaining part of
the wider community. People were buried in their local parish cemetery
amongst their relatives and friends, unless they could pay their way into a
monastic house. Again depending on money and status, a commemorative
programme could be instigated for years to come. This ensured continued
future intercession for the deceased, which became an acute concern during
the rise of Purgatory in popular belief, and after its adoption as Church
doctrine in 1274 at the Second Council of Lyons. It also maintained a disem-
bodied presence of the dead in the minds of the living community, despite the
growing commercialisation and specialisation of commemoration in the thir-
teenth century.32
29 Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, 4: 494–5.

30 Augustine of Hippo, De cura pro mortui gerenda, par. 6.
31 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, suppl.71.9 and 11.
32 Cf. J. Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory (Chicago, 1984), pp. 84, 326–8. For example, the
rising popularity of chantry foundations in the thirteenth century is testimony to the
The codification of dying, the assurance of an appropriate burial location
and the instigation of commemorative programmes, all formed an elaborate
sociocultural response to what was essentially an inevitable and fearful part of
living. A considerable part of this response involved procedures to smoothen
the transition from living body to cadaver and to limit exposure to putrefying
matter, which as we have seen, formed part of the metaphorical arsenal of
preachers and homilists in their quest to spread a proper understanding of the
Christian message. Whether death itself was natural or unnatural, the fact
remained that people died as a result of the first sin, as a consequence of which
putrefaction of the body was also part of the process. The rest of this chapter
will focus on how people responded to and used the image of the cadaver in
relation to their own sense of being, social membership and salvation.
Voices of the dead
One of the most powerful symbols of sinful life in medieval religious

discourse, both prior to and after the Black Death, was the spectre of the
rotting cadaver. As ‘matter out of place’, the decomposing body confronted its
audience with the transience of earthly life in general and with the prospect of
their own end in particular. Within hours of clinical death, signs of decompo-
sition begin to appear: discolouration of tissue occurs, noxious gases and fluids
escape from the body, and insects and larvae eventually appear – all very clear
signs that there is no longer inherent control over bodily processes.33 The
threat to psychological order becomes acute: what is this leaking and chaotic
thing demanding of us the realisation that we will all end up like it?
The means by which the cadaver would negatively impose itself upon the
living was by means of a multilevel sensory attack. Bernard of Clairvaux, cited
in the Fasciculus morum, pointed out the ‘deadly poison’ of the monstrous
body which is cadaver on the visual, olfactory and tactile senses. ‘Nothing’, he
said, ‘is more abhorrent than [the] corpse [cadavere]’ which should therefore
importance of intercession and remembrance. See G.H. Cooke, Mediaeval Chantries and
Chantry Chapels, rev. edn (London, 1968); Daniell, Death and Burial, pp. 12–20; one of the
earliest references to the foundation of a chantry for an individual is John Count of Mortain’s
allocation of funds to Lichfield Cathedral for one in 1192. See Crouch, ‘Anglo-Norman Death
Culture’, p. 177.
33 Douglas, Purity and Danger, p. 44; Kristeva, Powers of Horror, pp. 1–4; A.T. Chamberlain
and M.P. Pearson, Earthly Remains: The History and Science of Preserved Human Bodies
(London, 2001), pp. 12–18. Here the authors discuss the process of decomposition in greater
detail and point towards environmental and chemical factors which inhibit or slow the bacterial
growth aiding decomposition resulting in saponification or mummification. Kristeva’s notion
of the corpse as abject is inherently subjective; it is the individual response rather than a collec-
tive, unified, repression of the cadaver as object – she criticises Douglas for rejecting individu-
alism from her social analysis of taboo and pollution (pp. 65–6).
be removed from the company of the living so that it would not taint the air or
the water, or the sight, smell and touch of surviving relatives.34 The putrefying
cadaver would not just be repulsive to the eye, but posed a real threat to survi-
vors by the way it smelled. Medical practitioners held that foul vapours could
be responsible for a range of diseases, while pleasant odours aided the patient
towards recovery.35 Vapours formed an intrinsic part of the essence of an
object and were composed of the same humoral elements. As substance, smells
could therefore immediately affect those who inhaled them, both physically
and mentally. One of the main dangers, according to Bartholomaeus
Anglicus, came from ‘heavy’ or cold vapours, which he marked as ‘evil’.
Typically, he associated these heavy vapours with corrupt matter: ‘as it fareth
in fisshe that is longe kepte withouten salt’ or indeed any other matter which
had been left to putrefy.36 The abundance of good, ‘light’ and more subtle
vapours from herbs and spices would serve to neutralise the dangers of heavy
and corrupt odours, which is important to bear in mind in the context of
embalming practices.37
Some vapours could be lethal: one of the explanations for the pandemic of
1348–49 was that the air had been corrupted by the stench of carrion and
unburied corpses; a similar fear of contamination surfaces in the comment
made by Henry of Huntingdon with regard to the burial preparations of King
Henry I in December 1135.38 After several attempts to stop his body from
decomposing, one of the king’s servants died from contact with the royal
brain, despite having taken the precaution of wrapping his face in a cloth. As
the chronicler gloomily observes, he was ‘the last of many the king had
murdered’.39
The sensory attack of the cadaver is also the main theme in the many
revenant stories circulating in medieval society at all levels. Despite the
frequent assertions in sermons, homilies or theological discourse that the dead
do not interact with the living, revenants appear frequently in exempla or in
the context of popular literature, such as in Walter Map’s De nugis curialium.
Generally speaking, revenants were dead people who had died in bad
34 Fasciculus morum, ed. Wenzel, pp. 98–9; see also pp. 718–19 for similar sentiments attrib-
uted to St Jerome.
35 R. Palmer, ‘In Bad Odour: Smell and its Significance in Medicine from Antiquity to the
Seventeenth Century’, in Medicine and the Five Senses, ed. W.F. Bynum and R. Porter
(Cambridge, 1993), pp. 61–8.
36 Bartholomaeus Anglicus, On the Properties of Things: John of Trevisa’s Translation of
Bartholomaeus Anglicus’ ‘De proprietatibus rerum’, Gen. ed. M.C. Seymour, 3 vols. (Oxford,
1975–88), 1: 115–16 (Lib. III, c. 19) [Hereafter: Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus
rerum]; Palmer, ‘In Bad Odour’, p. 63.
37 Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum, 2: 1296–1304; Palmer, ‘In Bad Odour’,
p. 66. See below Chapter 4.
38 E.g. R. Horrox, The Black Death (Manchester, 1994), pp. 173–6; P. Ziegler, The Black
Death, ill. edn (Stroud, 1991), p. 10; Huntingdon, Historia, pp. 254–8.
39 Ibid., p. 257.
circumstances; those who had followed the correct procedures to die would be
safe in the awareness that the living would intercede on their behalf and there-
fore there was no need to get back in touch with surviving relatives, neigh-
bours or friends. The most apparent characteristic is the revenants’
overwhelming corporeality, which has nothing in common with romanticised
views of the spectral waif but all the more with tangible physicality, putrefac-
tion and lack of containment. These bodies can hold objects, be wounded and
cause wounds, and have conversations with the living (sometimes – more
often it is a matter of howling and shrieking), but they also leak, suck blood,
change shape and weight, and pollute the air around them to cause disease.
One revenant who had been causing a plague in his village was found ‘swollen
to an enormous corpulence, with its countenance red and turgid’ as if he had
been sucking blood, while another bled heavily after being wounded with a
well-planted axe stroke in his chest.40 A series of revenant stories found in a
Yorkshire manuscript of c. 1400, moreover, call attention to the problematic
relationship between body and soul, the idea of personhood and the flexibility
of the physical body after death.41
In these stories, the revenants more than once change the shape of their
body, appear weightless yet very material, and they are all recognised as former
members of the local community who need absolution for their sins; in one
case, the revenant is presented as an empty husk: the dead person’s voice is
thought to come from his bowels rather than his tongue.42 This, plus the fact
that revenants were sometimes considered to be bodies possessed by demons,
suggests that they were somehow animated by residual ‘spirits’ which would
also account for their animalistic behaviour, which is irrational and uncon-
trolled. Their rational soul is no longer present, and the revenant could be
considered in Augustinian terms only to be the ‘outer man’ (i.e. the body)
without its ‘inner man’ (i.e. the rational soul).43
40 Newburgh, Historia, pp. 479, 481–2.

41 M.R. James, ‘Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories’, EHR 37 (1922), pp. 413–22 (Latin edition);
A.J. Grant, ‘Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 27 (1924), pp.
363–79. A related issue is the matter of ‘cruentation’ or a cadaver bleeding in the presence of its
murderer. The common scientific explanation was that an exchange of spirits took place
between the murderer and a freshly murdered body either through the laws of physics or
through the guilty conscience of the murderer. Cf. B. Lawn, The Prose Salernitan Questions
(London, 1979), p. 130; Albertus Magnus, Quaestiones super de animalibus, in Opera omnia 12,
ed. E. Filthaut; gen ed. B. Geyer (Köln, 1955), p. 151. The Franciscan Roger Marston was alto-
gether more dismissive of the possibility of cruentation in relation to the bleeding bones of
Thomas Cantilupe as his remains passed through the lands of John Pecham, Archbishop of
Canterbury; Roger Marston, Quodlibeta quattuor ad fidem codicum nunc primum edita, ed. G.F.
Ertzkorn and I.C. Brady, Bibliotheca Franciscana scholastica medii aevi 26 (Florence, 1968),
pp. 281–2; A. Boureau, ‘La preuve par le cadavre qui saigne au XIIIe siècle: Entre expérience
commune et savoir scolastique’, Micrologus 7 (1999), pp. 247–81, at 260.
42 James, ‘Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories’, pp. 416, 418–19.
43 Augustine of Hippo, De trinitate, IV.3. Cf. Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, XI.1.6: ‘Human
beings have two aspects: the interior and the exterior. The interior human is the soul [and] the
Disclaimer:
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the printed version of this book.
1: The Three Living encounter the Three Dead

in the De Lisle Psalter.
© British Library Board.
All Rights Reserved (Arundel 83, f. 127r)
However revenants might defy the laws of nature – and it is obvious that
authors including revenant stories in their work have difficulty explaining their
existence – they ultimately could not defy the laws of the Divine.44 After a
period of incessant fear and anxiety, the living resolutely regained control
through a ritual ‘killing’ of the revenant or by means of granting absolution.
The absolution tended to be quite straightforward; the ritual killing involved
several measures geared towards fragmenting or destroying the revenant’s
body. One evil revenant spreading pestilence was beheaded and sprinkled with
holy water, while another was dismembered and burnt after his ‘evil heart’ had
been ripped out with a blunt spade and was torn to pieces.45
The medieval cadaver, as death personified, as mirror of a living individual
or as actual revenant, therefore calls attention to the fragility of the material
body and the effects of sin.46 This is particularly evident in the forceful
confrontation between the living and the dead in the French poem Le dit des
trois morts et trois vifs, for example found in the famous early fourteenth-
century De Lisle Psalter.47 In this particular manuscript, the poem is accom-
panied by an image which follows the flow of the poem, while depicting exact
mirror figures of the living and the dead (ill. 1).
The three living, young and handsome kings richly attired and displaying
symbols of their status, are confronted with three gruesome cadavers stripped
of their worldly possessions, with two dressed in shroud-like rags and the third
stark naked. These three cadavers, stiff and static compared to the elegantly
flowing bodies of the three living, appear to represent three different stages of
decomposition, while simultaneously mirroring the responses of the kings in
the poem. The second corpse, for example, is modestly covering its decaying
flesh and bowing its head in humility. This corresponds to the second king,
whose body language expresses fear and wonder. He is partly shielded by the
exterior is the body’. The ‘Etymologies’ of Isidore of Seville, ed. S.A. Barney, W.J. Lewis, J.A.
Beach, O. Berghof (Cambridge, 2006), p. 231.
44 E.g. William of Newburgh refers to revenants as ‘prodigies’ or ‘monsters’ and occasionally
‘spirits’, while maintaining that in some, but by no means all, cases these bodies are possessed by
demons. Walter Map, writing with a different agenda, provides his audience with a series of
‘apparitions’, ‘fantasms’, and ‘prodigies’ which include encounters with demons and fairies as
well as the wandering dead. Sometimes these are God-approved demonic appearances; some-
times they are not so easily explained. Ultimately, however, Map dismisses the question with
the comment that we cannot even begin to comprehend God’s ways. Newburgh, Historia, p.
476. Walter Map, De nugis curialium, pp. 148–65. See also N. Caciola, ‘Wraiths, Revenants
and Ritual in Medieval Culture’, Past and Present 152 (1996), pp. 3–45, at 10–15.
45 Walter Map, De nugis curialium, pp. 203–4; Newburgh, Historia, p. 482; see also p. 476 for
a similar procedure.
46 Cf. the popular ‘Debate between Body and Soul’, discussed by R.W. Ackerman, ‘The
Debate of the Body and the Soul and Parochial Christianity’, Speculum 37 (1962), pp. 541–65.
Also P. Tristram, Figures of Life and Death in Medieval English Literature (London, 1976), pp.
154–83.
47 MS BL Arundel 83, f. 127. See Binski, Medieval Death, pp. 135–6 for a brief discussion and
a translation.
first king who proudly but fearfully confronts the first corpse. The second
corpse, on the other hand, reverses the gesture in what appears to be an exten-
sion of sympathy to the first corpse, whose abdomen is covered with vermin
and whose speech is a stark warning not to indulge too much in earthly plea-
sure. The second king shows awareness of the need for repentance (‘I desire,
friend, to amend my life’). In response to the third king questioning the divine
purpose of death when life is so full of pleasures, the third corpse – with its
empty abdominal cavity – responds that even the worms which ordinarily
prefer corruption, have deserted it because of the earthly pleasures it enjoyed
during life.48
In this profound and confrontational exchange, image and text together
invoke the common flow of thought within Everyman: from doubt to resigna-
tion back to doubt, while every time the answer comes back to ‘such as we are
you will be’. The potency of the image obviously follows from the contrast
between the living and the dead but also from the realisation of how little
influence on their fate humanity can exert in the face of death: depending too
much on earthly pleasures subjects the cadaver to passivity as worms make
their temporary home in it; at least a degree of humility and self-awareness can
take away some of this anxiety. This is also the message underlying the
numerous ‘signs of death’ lyrics which came forth from a long tradition of
medical prognostication.
It is a truism that dying or death cannot normally be subjectively experi-
enced and be recounted afterwards. However, it is possible to imagine its
process through observation, which is how the Hippocratic tradition of prog-
nostication developed. Initially included in medical discourse to provide
authoritative basis for predicting a patient’s state of health, these ‘signs of
death’ were enthusiastically employed in religious discourse to warn the living
against the unpredictability and suddenness of death. In the transition from
strictly medical prognostication, with its semblance of objectivity, to religious
didactic literature, the signs acquired an intimacy and urgency directed
towards subjective experience: although phrased in terms of another person’s
48 According to the thirteenth-century encyclopaedist Bartholomaeus Anglicus, worms and

vermin were the only creatures which thrived on corrupt smells and vehemently disliked sweet
odours. Interestingly, he also maintains that foul smells could sometimes be countered by even
fouler vapours – this appears to be the case for the third corpse, who was so corrupt in life that
even the worms did not want him in death. Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De proprietatibus rerum,
2: 1302. Cf. Thomas Cantimpratensis Liber de natura rerum. Editio princeps secundum codices
manuscriptos. Teil 1: Text, ed. H. Boese (Berlin, 1973), p. 277. [Hereafter: Thomas of
Cantimpré, De natura rerum.] Thomas also mentions that it is said that ‘serpents’ are born in
the human spine. Also, Lotario dei Segni (Pope Innocent III), De miseria conditionis humanae,
III.1: De putredine cadaverum. PL 217 col. 735–7. See A. Paravicini-Bagliani, The Pope’s Body
(Chicago, 2000), p. 179, who argues that Lotario’s comments are inspired by Salernitan
learning.
demise, the audience was invited to identify with the process through the
context in which the signs occurred (e.g. sermons, lyrics or hagiography).49
As expected, although certain rituals or procedures were also occasionally
included in the list of signs, the most common elements are those relating to
sensory response and the loss of bodily functions. It is the latter in particular
which seeks to invoke the sense of alienation and lack of control associated
with dying, which would ordinarily be made abject through the elaborate
funerary strategies described above. In a systematic top-to-bottom description
of the body, of the kind often found in romances and rhetorical guides, the
signs of death are catalogued according to the loss of faculty in each body part.
The eyes become blind, the ears deaf, the nose sharp, and the tongue dumb
within a contracting and grimacing mouth surrounded by blackened and
shrivelled lips. Hands and feet tremble and become rigid, the muscles contract
and paralyse.50
Disturbing when recounted as happening to someone else, these signs occa-
sionally appear in a more intimate and urgent setting. Instead of the neutral
third person singular, or the more invocative second person, the signs are
recounted in the first person present tense bringing the action extremely close
to its audience, who are forced to witness death as it happens at that moment
and who by extension are irrevocably caught up in the enfolding drama:
Whanne mine eyhnen misten/ and mine eren sissen/ and my nose koldeth/ and
my tunge foldeth/ and my rude slaketh/ and mine lippes blaken/ and my mouth
grenneth /…/ and mine honden bivien/ and mine fet strivien …51
This can hardly be described as a clinical prognostication either in a medical or
in a sermonic sense. The tone is anxious and urgent; the rhyme is staccato and
the grammar repetitive; the words reveal disgust and horror: this is the body
itself bemoaning its fate in its final moments and warning its audience to
repent before it is too late. It is a potent image of the body losing control over
itself which simultaneously symbolises the lost opportunity of the soul to save
itself (‘All too late/wanne the bere is ate gate’).
The body is presented here as a catalogue of disharmonious and malfunc-
tioning parts – a threat to the idea of the unity and stability of the inner
person, which is further underscored by the transitional nature of the
moment: ‘body’ becomes ‘cadaver’ as we read or listen. One of the strongest
images in this lyric is surely that of the face transformed into a grinning skull,
not too dissimilar to those of the Three Dead in the De Lisle Psalter. However,
49 R. Woolf, The English Religious Lyric in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1968), pp. 67–85; R.H.
Robbins, ‘Signs of Death in Middle English’, Mediaeval Studies 32 (1970), pp. 282–98;
Fasciculus morum, ed. Wenzel, pp. 718–21. F.S. Paxton, ‘Signa mortifera: Death and Prognosti-
cation in Early Monastic Medicine’, Bulletin for the History of Medicine 67 (1993), pp. 631–50.
50 Middle English Lyrics, ed. M.S. Luria and R.L. Hoffman, A Norton Critical Edition (New
York, 1974) pp. 232–31 for some ‘death’ lyrics.
51 Middle English Lyrics, p. 224.
this is not all. The lack of control displayed by the dying body is a reminder of
a lack of moral constraint: for the body repentance comes too late, a realisation
rendered visible in its symbolic fragmentation.
What I am so you will be: death and personhood
These observations about the connection between sin and putrefaction in the
depictions of the Three Dead and the death lyrics hark back to one of the
essential elements of religious behaviour, namely rational control over the
body by the soul in terms of corporeal processes and emotions. As Caroline
Bynum has shown, the somatic miracles of the high Middle Ages reveal a
deep-seated belief in the reasembling of body parts at the Resurrection and a
masterly control over the body’s physicality and emotions.52 While on the one
hand, saints were subjected to pre-mortem fragmentation and viscosity (the
latter albeit without permanently destroying the body’s boundaries), which
they generally endured with remarkable equanimity, on the other hand their
bodies were often found incorruptible after death.53 Their cadavers were
quasi-alive: cheeks were rosy or milky white, the body was supple without
signs of rigor mortis and it was sometimes surrounded by a fragrant odour.54
When Hugh of Lincoln’s body was prepared for burial, for example, it was
observed to be perfectly clean and shining like glass, and his outer skin to be
whiter than milk. Mixing the mundane with the miraculous, his hagiographer
then explains that because Hugh’s remains had to travel a distance, it was
decided by his doctors that he should be disembowelled. However, when the
viscera (‘interaneorum secreta’) were removed from the body by a surgeon,
they were also found to be perfectly clean and immaculate. Walter Daniel,
moreover, describes Ailred’s post-mortem state in similar terms, adding that
there were no signs in the dead man of his illness or old age, but instead that he
resembled an innocent child.55
Significantly, there is a general silence on the topic of saintly putrefaction.
Parts of the body might be slightly damaged from being placed in a coffin,
such as Edmund of Pontigny, whose nose was found to be damaged by the
52 Cf. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, II.2.164.1: ‘For life and soundness of body depend
on the body being subject to the soul, as the perfectible is subject to its perfection. Conse-
quently, on the other hand, death, sickness and all defects of the body are due to the lack of the
body’s subjection to the soul.’ This sentiment also underlies treatises on old age; see below, p.
37.
53 Bynum, ‘Bodily Miracles’, pp. 69–71; ead. Fragmentation and Redemption, p. 295.
54 A. Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 427–8; Finucane,
‘Sacred Corpse, Profane Carrion’, p. 53.
55 Magna vita Sancti Hugonis: The Life of St Hugh of Lincoln, ed. D.L. Douie and H. Farmer. 2
vols. (London, 1961–62), 2: 218–19; Walter Daniel, Vita Ailredi: The Life of Ailred of Rievaulx,
ed. F.M. Powicke (London, 1950), p. 62.
weight of the coffin lid upon his translation, but saints did not decay in the
sense that ordinary mortals were subject to putrefaction. Edmund, for
example, was still found to emanate a most ‘heavenly scent surpassing that of
any balsam or myrrh’.56 Future saints either possessed incorruptible bodies or
they were reduced to a white unblemished collection of bones to be distrib-
uted as relics. They were not subjected to the humiliating liquefying process of
their bodily remains (or if their bodies were found to be liquid, it was inter-
preted as holy oil); instead their remains were perceived to be static and to
have attained a semi-celestial appearance.57 Many times this was attributed to
Divine intervention; however, in twelfth- and thirteenth-century hagiog-
raphy, we find explicit references to attendants aiding God by embalming the
saintly body – as Hugh of Lincoln’s hagiographer maintained, the removal of
the saint’s viscera served to increase God’s glory in that they were found mirac-
ulously clean – or by subjecting holy remains to mos teutonicus. The latter
procedure was followed for Thomas Cantilupe for his post-mortem journey
back to Hereford, but also for Thomas Aquinas, whose body was boiled to
speed up the distribution of his relics.58
The importance of bodily purity in saints is underscored by a curious
eulogy written by Thomas Agnellus shortly after the death of Young King
Henry in 1183.59 In this case, the natural process of bodily decay is rewritten
to suit a political purpose rather than a hagiographical one. The Young King
died after a troubled life in the shade of his formidable father Henry II and his
potentially formidable brother Richard Duke of Aquitaine. Despite being
crowned king, young Henry lacked real political authority or the funds to
support his lavish lifestyle. Driven in desperation, and perhaps envy, to rebel-
lion in early 1183 for the second time, Henry cast his lot with the rebelling
barons of Aquitaine in exchange for being recognised as Duke of Aquitaine
instead of Richard. In the next few months, the brothers raided each other’s
territories and on one such expedition, while plundering the monasteries
surrounding Limoges, the Young King fell ill with dysentery and died on 11
June 1183.60 After his death, the brain and entrails were extracted from young
Henry’s body, which was salted and wrapped in hides and lead. The extracted
organs were buried at Grandmont near Limoges, while his body was taken to
Rouen via Le Mans. There was a squabble between the people of Le Mans and
56 The Life of St Edmund by Matthew Paris, ed. and trans. C.H. Lawrence (London, 1999;
1996), p. 167.
57 Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 429–30.
58 AASS 2 October, p. 581; R.C. Finucane, ‘The Cantilupe-Pecham Controversy’, in St
Thomas Cantilupe, Bishop of Hereford: Essays in his Honour, ed. M. Jancey (Hereford, 1982), pp.
103–23; Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 219, 431.
59 Thomas Agnellus, De morte et sepultura Henrici Regis Angliae junioris, in Radulphi de
Coggeshal Chronicon Anglicanum, ed. J. Stevenson. RS 66 (1875), pp. 265–73.
60 J. Gillingham, Richard I (New Haven 2002), pp. 70–5; Crouch, ‘Anglo-Norman Death
Culture’, p. 168.
the archbishop of Rouen over Henry’s remains, which meant that several
weeks passed before the body reached its final destination.61
The eulogy by Thomas Agnellus, however, skips over the more mundane
practicalities and realities of the Young King’s death and burial; instead the
emphasis is on his heroic suffering and martyrdom. Henry is described as
‘beatus vir’, ‘vir sanctus’ and ‘beatus martyr’ who heals the people suffering
from haemorrhoids and anal fistula, leprosy and putrefying pustules on his
journey from Limoges to Rouen.62 Moreover, although Thomas describes the
effects of the burning fever which gradually weakens the Young King, he
glosses over the fact that it was caused by dysentery. Neither does he see the
need to elaborate on the preparation of the royal cadaver, while he highlights
its miraculous preservation at forty days after Henry’s death when it finally
arrived in Rouen. It was found to be whole and without signs of decay. There
were no effects of sun and delayed burial upon the body to horrify attendants,
nor was there any fetid smell to offend their noses.63 Clearly, Thomas has
reconstructed the events of Henry’s final days and post-mortem journey in
terms of a saintly paradigm, which stresses the virtues of the young man’s soul
in an attempt to divert the attention from the acrimonious circumstances in
which he had died.
At the other end of the spectrum we find the cadavers of (perceived)
sinners, which rotted prematurely and were presented as a danger to the living.
Despite their elevated position in society, after their death the early Norman
kings did not escape scathing comments on their spiritual well-being from
ecclesiastical chroniclers. Orderic Vitalis, for example, uses the unceremo-
nious funeral of William the Conqueror at Caen, which culminated in the
undignified eruption of stench and body fluids from the king’s body, as a
pretext to comment on William’s moral shortcomings.64 Similarly, Henry of
Huntingdon elaborates extensively on the character of Henry I by means of
the royal corpse’s behaviour.
Both Orderic and William of Malmesbury are relatively neutral in this case.
Orderic restricts himself to giving the bare facts, while William merely states
that the king’s body was prepared to stop its decay. Henry of Huntingdon,
however, freely indulges in the comparison of decomposing body and sinful
61 Roger of Howden, Gesta Regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti Abbatis: The Chronicle of the Reigns
of Henry II and Richard I, AD 1169–1192, ed. W. Stubbs, RS 49 (1867), pp. 301–4.
62 Agnellus, De morte et sepulturae, pp. 267–8.
63 Ibid., pp. 265, 271–2.
64 Orderic, 4: 100–9. According to Orderic, William’s bowels ‘disgracefully’ (cum dedecore)
burst from eating too many delicacies (pp. 108–9), while the corpse’s stench was so over-
whelming that even the frankincense and other spices could not obscure it (pp. 106–7). The
association with Judas and Arius whose bowels also erupted from their bodies as a consequence
of sin would have been obvious to Orderic’s audience. Cf. Ohly, ‘The Death of Traitors’, p. 15.
soul in his version of the events of December 1135.65 Henry I, it is well known
since 1066 and All That, died of a surfeit of lampreys, which are notoriously
difficult to digest. In fact, the king had been warned they were bad for his
health, yet he chose to ignore his doctor’s advice because he was excessively
fond of the fish. The king died soon after from the bad humours caused by the
extreme coldness which the fish and the king’s bitter feelings towards his
rebelling daughter together had effected.66 During the preparation of the royal
remains for transport to Reading Abbey, it was noted that the brain had
become putrid, which caused the death of one attendant as we saw above,
while others were severely affected by the noxious smells emanating from the
corpse. After finishing the embalming, however, the king’s body continued to
leak a black fetid liquid, which the application of more salt and oxhides could
not stop. This, Henry of Huntingdon suggests, was a clear sign of the king’s
love of riches, of his gluttony and his tyranny. The misbehaving royal corpse
in its unstoppable process of decomposition thus became a testament to
Henry’s sinful behaviour in life and a mirror of his wretched soul in death.67
Conclusion
It is evident from the above discussion that medieval perceptions of death

focused on the frightfully real possibility of dying in sin rather than on the
physical process of dying itself. The idea of ‘death’ contained a social and
moral dimension which entailed exclusion from the community, being
forgotten and isolated, and which called attention to the dangers of sin; elabo-
rate strategies were in place to contain the event of death and to ensure the
correct installation of the dead into their new position within the social
community. The putrefying cadaver forcefully disrupted this harmonious and
ideal process of dying and disposal while it reinforced the need for contain-
ment. Emblematic of sin it issued a warning to the living about their own spir-
itual state, while incorporating a real danger of contaminating the living by its
presence. As a material object the cadaver constituted a danger to the
well-being of the community of the living; as a metaphor it rendered visible
the effects of sin upon the soul and body alike: it engendered death and it
symbolised death. The ways in which the cadaver was perceived in the medi-
eval mind thus provide a good example of how it could be manipulated to
express an opinion about moral behaviour – much of this manipulation obvi-
ously took place in the realms of discourse with hagiography providing a clear
example of Divine Grace overcoming natural decay in saintly bodies; in other
65 Orderic, 6: 448–51; Huntingdon, Historia, pp. 254–7; William of Malmesbury, Historia

novella: The Contemporary History, ed. E. King (Oxford, 1998), pp. 26–31.
66 Huntingdon, Historia, p. 254.
67 Ibid., p. 257.
instances the putrefying body was held up as a mirror to Everyman. In addi-

tion, the cadaver was symbolic of the continued connection between body and
soul: not only did it reinforce ideas about material and numerical continuity
until the Resurrection, as Bynum has shown, it also expressed notions of a
psychosomatic personhood, in which the body rendered visible the metaphys-
ical state of the soul.
The next chapters will concern themselves with exploring these themes in
greater detail. If the message of sin as death was reinforced time and again in
socio-religious contexts, this undoubtedly impacted on how people viewed
their own bodies and bodily processes in relation to personhood and
communal identity. The notion of the incorruptible bodies of saints is a case
in point, but how did a social group such as the aristocracy manipulate their
(dead) bodies to render visible their political, economic and social supremacy
both inwards, amongst themselves, and outwards? It is to this question that we
shall now turn.
Chapter 2
Embodying Nobility:
Aristocratic Men and the Ideal Body
Much has been said and written about the high medieval nobility as a social
class and their ideas of chivalry. David Crouch has recently written a very
useful and densely packed overview of the centuries-spanning English and
French historiographies of the nobility underlying current discussions and it is
therefore unnecessary here to rehearse the main points of debate.1 One of the
most interesting themes to arise from Crouch’s discussion is the adoption of
the French sociologist-philosopher Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of habitus in an
attempt to define and analyse ‘pre-chivalric’ chivalric behaviour –
‘pre-chivalric’ meaning before the first manuals and codifications of noble
behaviour appeared in the late twelfth century.2 Although there are several
epistemological issues with Bourdieu’s use of habitus as well as with Crouch’s
assertion that habitus ‘disappears’ when codification of behaviour takes place,
the notion that (embodied) behaviour is socioculturally produced and takes
place subconsciously in social interaction between members of the same group
or community is extremely useful for the discussion of aristocratic ideas of
personal and communal identity.3 In Bourdieu’s theory as I understand it,
habitus is always present (the epistemological issue here is how change is
effected) and codification is therefore part of it. Moreover, it is important to
1 Crouch, Birth of Nobility.

2 He is of course not the first to allude to Bourdieu’s theory of practice: cf. Reuter, ‘Nobles
and Others’, p. 92. Also, the first manuals of aristocratic behaviour, such as Stephen de
Fougères’ Livre des manières, were written at approximately the same time as Hugh of St
Victor’s De institutione novitiorum, and by men not part of the secular aristocratic community.
W. Simons, ‘Reading a Saint’s Body: Rapture and Bodily Movement in the Vitae of
Thirteenth-Century Beguines’, in Framing Medieval Bodies, ed. S. Kay and M. Rubin
(Manchester, 1997), pp. 10–23, at 14.
3 For a balanced critique of Pierre Bourdieu’s work see R. Jenkins, Pierre Bourdieu (London,
1992); for Crouch’s assertion that habitus disappears or moves elsewhere, see Birth of Nobility,
p. 55. The idea of habitus itself is founded in the structuralist anthropology of Durkheim and
Mauss, who posited the idea of embodied experience and behaviour. Cf. Bede’s description of
Imma, who was ‘of noble family’ (de nobilibus) because of his ‘appearance, bearing and speech’
(ex vultu et habitu et sermonibus eius), cited in J. Roberts, ‘The Old English Vocabulary of
Nobility’, in Nobles and Nobility in Medieval Europe, ed. Duggan, pp. 69–84, at 72.
make a distinction between ideal and day-to-day behaviour. The former is

obviously found in the prescriptive manuals Crouch discusses, initially
written by those outside the secular aristocratic community; the latter is more
difficult to envisage because of its subjective, embodied, nature.4 This distinc-
tion obviously raises further issues of how ideal and practice interacted, and to
what extent the ideal impinged on social interaction and shaped the
communal outlook. Having said this, Crouch’s discussion of high medieval
aristocratic ideals is a good starting point for an examination of aristocratic
perceptions of the body and the impact of death in the context of ideas about
personal and communal identity.
Another important point raised by Crouch is the role of the concept of
nobility with which the social elite came to differentiate itself from the rest of
society in the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. About as difficult
to define as ‘chivalry’, nobility was grounded in ideas about ancestry and
personal moral conduct above and beyond the sense of social, political and
economical supremacy already inherent in the elite identity. The force of the
concept of nobility as a kind of social glue holding together a disparate group
of people with individual ideas about what exactly nobility meant to them is
evident from our application of the term as a collective noun, even for a period
in which they did not use the term themselves as a group identifier.5
The idea of nobility constituted an additional layer of social differentiation
beyond wealth and political position. Because of its flexible nature, it could be
manipulated strategically to further personal and familial aspirations in terms
of social status, wealth and influence, whilst destroying those of others. With
the political and economical arena open to the upwardly mobile, the elite
resorted to an abstract ideology concretised by the notion of knighthood to
obscure what in practical terms remained a power struggle over economic and
political stakes. Nobility was something which was first of all interior and
innate to the members of the aristocratic elite, rather than something which
could be acquired as easily as money or political influence.
The boundaries between social groups, therefore, were more fluid and
permeable than the ideal surfacing in prescriptive sources would allow for.
Members of the urban community, such as Robert Fitz Harding, or men of
lower birth from the countryside could establish themselves as members of the
aristocracy while, conversely, aristocrats invested in trade or urban ventures.
Military or administrative skills, or just good fortune, could bring social and
4 It is interesting that he chose not to include a more extended discussion of the songs by the
troubadour Bertran de Born, who was a castellan himself and who wrote his songs for a highly
critical audience of fellow aristocrats, or the Roman des eles, written by the aristocratic trouba-
dour Raoul de Hodenc.
5 C.B. Bouchard, ‘Strong of Body, Brave and Noble’: Chivalry and Society in Medieval France
(Ithaca, 1998), pp. 1–3, 26. Reuter, ‘Nobility in Twentieth-Century Historiography’, pp.
177–203; Crouch, Image of the Aristocracy, pp. 2–4.
EMBODYING NOBILITY 35
economic prosperity, although critics were quick to point out the inappro-
priate behaviours and ostentatious display of wealth which sometimes
followed upon success. As Turner has pointed out, the same critics were also
keen to highlight – falsely – these men’s peasant background which, they
argued, accounted for the fact that they did not know the correct behaviours
befitting the lofty position they now found themselves in.6 Generally
speaking, however, it was possible for individuals in the grey area between
social groups to reposition themselves higher up in the internal hierarchy,
someone such as William Marshal being a case in point.7
This chapter, therefore, focuses predominantly on how the idea of nobility
was rendered visible or concrete within and upon the body of the aristocratic
man, who was almost unthinkingly cast as a knight in the contemporary
sources discussed below. In the first part, I shall outline my thoughts on the
interconnectivity of body and identity (both communal and personal) in
medieval culture, particularly in relation to communal self-definition through
positive and negative typology, including ideas about physiognomy, disease,
and gender. These are obviously vast subjects in their own right, and I cannot
do more than provide a sketch in this context. In the second half of this
chapter, I shall focus on the noble body more specifically in terms of its onto-
logical status and what behaviour and appearance this ought to engender.
Observing is knowing: body and identity
On the surface of it, modern popular culture appears to perceive personal and
communal identity almost exclusively in terms of the body and body image;
whether consciously or not, our embodied practices reveal a wealth of infor-
mation about how we see ourselves in relation to others, our environment and
the social groups we suppose ourselves to belong to or wish to belong to (even
under the guise of individualism …).8 Moreover, whether we approve of it or
not, this information is often used (again consciously or subconsciously) by
those around us – as well as ourselves – to evaluate how we relate to the
cultural norms and ideas associated with the social groups in which we move.
6 R.V. Turner, Men Raised from the Dust: Administrative Service and Upward Mobility in
Angevin England (Philadelphia, 1988), pp. 1–19. Cf. Crouch, Birth of Nobility, pp. 53, 213–20
for examples.
7 J. Gillingham, ‘Some Observations on Social Mobility in England between the Norman
Conquest and the Early Thirteenth Century’, in The English in the Twelfth Century: Imperial-
ism, National Identity and Political Values, ed. J. Gillingham (Woodbridge, 2000), pp. 259–76;
Crouch, William Marshal.
8 See for example B.S. Turner, The Body and Society: Explorations in Social Theory. 2nd edn
(London, 1996); M. Featherstone, M. Hepworth and B.S. Turner (ed.), The Body: Social
Process and Cultural Theory, Theory, Culture and Society (London, 1991) and the extremely
accessible A. Howson, The Body in Society: An Introduction (Cambridge, 2004).
This is a continuous and flexible process depending on a great many variables

of context and circumstance, and one which may depend on subconsciously
‘knowing’ how to behave ‘correctly’. In the best circumstances, it is a harmo-
nious process whereby each member is valued in their own right; in the worst,
it leads to social exclusion and bigotry.
Identity is a multilayered and intrinsically flexible and unstable construct.
Moreover, it is a process of ‘becoming’ rather than an end point, while it is not
always clear where social identity ends and personal identity begins. My termi-
nology will therefore move along a slightly different axis. Instead of social
identity, I will use communal identity, which is this fuzzy sense of belonging to
a particular group which has its own set of values and practices to distinguish
itself from other groups. Personal identity, I feel, refers to how individuals
position themselves in relation to the groups in which they move. This is obvi-
ously as fictitiously stable a construct as communal identity: I will ‘perform’
differently as a daughter, friend or colleague, but in all cases my environment
(and hopefully myself as well) will perceive me as ‘me’. The body and embodi-
ment – i.e. our sense of being a body rather than having a body to paraphrase
the sociologist Bryan Turner – play an important role in the definition of
personal identity: how would I know who or what I am without reference to a
social environment? How would I be able to distinguish between my body and
that of another?9 This leads to further questions about the nature of the body,
and whether we are not over-reifying it in our search to define it.10 Because of
our embodied perception, any definition of the body will be subjective and
culturally bounded, our conception of the ‘ideal’ body is likewise highly indi-
vidualised. According to Mark Jenner, we should be historicising ‘bodies’
rather than the body.
Although this may be a near impossible task to undertake in detail, it is a
warning against an over-conceptualised generalisation of bodily practice. At
the root of the multifaceted and discursive ‘body’ lies a physicality which
cannot be ignored (as much as we might want to sometimes) and sociocultural
conditioning of the body can be interpreted as a consequence of physiological
processes resistant to order or unity, which are given meaning by that selfsame
9 Turner, Body and Society, p. 232. This also taps into the well of psychoanalytical theory, in
particular of Jacques Lacan, who posited the idea of the ‘mirror stage’ in which the infant gradu-
ally comes to see itself as a coherent being rather than a loose array of body parts. This process is
accompanied by a growing sense of unity of the ‘self’, Lacan’s ‘armour of an alienating identity’,
which serves to obscure the fact that there is no such thing as ‘a self’ but rather a collection of
‘selves’. See J.J. Cohen et al., ‘The Armour of an Alienating Identity’, Arthuriana 6.4 (1996),
pp. 1–24.
10 See Mark Jenner’s comments in a rather scathing article on the popularity of ‘body studies’
in history: Jenner, ‘Body, Image, Text in Early Modern Europe’, p. 154. Also: R. Porter, ‘His-
tory of the Body Reconsidered’, in New Perspectives on Historical Writing, ed. P. Burke, 2nd edn
(Cambridge, 2001), pp. 232–60; Kay and Rubin, ‘Introduction’, in Framing Medieval Bodies,
ed. Kay and Rubin, pp. 1–9.
discursive valorisation. However, the way in which this valorisation is applied
is dependent on individual interpretations of it. For example, modern society
disavows the effects of ageing as a sign of losing one’s ‘self’ based on the fact
that in old age we may encounter difficulties performing tasks which came
easily in youth. Sometimes, this can in turn lead to an excessive emphasis on
‘staying young’.11
Similarly, medieval interpretations of the life course held an ambiguous
attitude towards ageing in relation to bodily practice and identity, although it
could be more pragmatic. For example, the elderly hermit introducing the
squire to the principles of knighthood in Ramon Llull’s Llibre de l’Orde de
Cavalleria reveals himself to be a knight who has retreated from the world of
tournaments and battles, because his body has become too weak in old age to
maintain the knightly lifestyle. Rather than suffering dishonour as a result of
diminishing achievements, he has withdrawn from society to live a solitary life
in a forest. As a consequence of this change, his body has taken on the appear-
ance of hooly lyf, i.e. the old man has shed the characteristics of one communal
identity and has taken on another, which is marked by a change in his body.12
At the other end of the spectrum, however, was the drive to retard the effects
of old age through a combination of natural science and alchemy. For
instance, one author, long thought to be Roger Bacon, argued that it was
necessary for rulers and those in high office to delay the onset of mental and
physical decrepitude by following a strict dietary and moral regimen – advice
which appears to have been lapped up at the court of Pope Boniface VIII,
whose concern with decay and bodily integrity has been pointed out in rela-
tion to his attitudes towards mos teutonicus.13 The reason for fearing old age
seems not just to have been the physical defects which it causes, but also the
weakening of the mind, morally and intellectually, as a result of a change in
the humoral conditions within the body. Old age was signified by dryness and
11 Cf. Hockey and James, Social Identities across the Life Course, pp. 42–3; M. Featherstone,
‘The Body in Consumer Culture’, The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory, ed.
Featherstone, Hepworth and Turner, pp. 170–96, which argues that this is a consequence of
capitalist policing of society. For a discussion of medieval interpretations of the life course, see J.
Burrow, The Ages of Man: A Study in Medieval Writing and Thought (Oxford, 1986), which
appeared around the same time as E. Sears, The Ages of Man: Medieval Interpretations of the Life
Cycle (Princeton, 1986).
12 Ramon Llull’s Llibre de l’Orde de Cavalleria was written in Catalan. I shall refer to the
Caxton translation, supplemented by a modern Spanish translation where necessary. Book of the
Ordre of Chyvalry, translated by William Caxton, ed. A.T.P. Byles. EETS os 168 (1926), pp. 4,
7; Ramon Llull, Obras litterarias, ed. M Batllori and M. Caldentey. Biblioteca de Auctores
Cristianos (Madrid, 1948), pp. 97–141 for the Libro. Cf. D.M. Westerhof, ‘Deconstructing
Identities on the Scaffold: The Execution of Hugh Despenser the Younger, 1326’, Journal of
Medieval History 33 (2007), pp. 87–106, at 95–6.
13 See below, pp. 89–90. Roger Bacon, De retardatione accidentium senectutis cum aliis
opusculis de rebus medicinalibus. Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Baconi 9, ed. A.G. Little and E.
Withington (Oxford, 1928). For a discussion of the authorship of the De retardatione, see
Paravicini-Bagliani, The Pope’s Body, pp. 201–9.
an increasing coldness as the body’s natural heat receded. As a consequence,

old men were thought to be melancholic, miserly and irascible. The accidents
of old age, moreover, were described as the result of moral corruption engen-
dered by the First Sin and transmitted through the generations. In other
words, the equilibrium experienced during adulthood would gradually disap-
pear if the right precautions were not taken earlier in life. As a consequence of
re-establishing physiological equilibrium, however, the body would be
primed for resuscitation in an incorrupt state at the Last Judgement.14
Although these examples reflect two ends of a spectrum, both have at their
heart the perception that the body somehow reflects the status of the soul. The
knight’s transformation into a wise, and indeed semi-sanctified, hermit is first
of all signified by his changed appearance. The author of the De retardatione
argues that moderation and virtue of character can have a profound impact on
the body’s physiological processes. Both examples, moreover, reflect on
aspects of self-knowledge and self-control, which as we have seen above
equally informed the metaphorical use of the cadaver. As Caroline Bynum has
argued, the body’s physicality and the question of personal identity were at the
heart of discussions about the Resurrection. Whether personal identity was
lodged exclusively as form within a substantial soul, or it was something in
which the physical body participated as well, it was generally agreed that the
soul would be embodied at the sound of the Last Trumpet.15
Not only did this have consequences for how the body should be treated
after death, as we have seen, there were also consequences for how it was
perceived during its earthly existence in terms of sin and moral worth. In
terms of the first, it highlighted the problematic ontological status of the
cadaver; the second raised the issue of who, or what, was responsible for the
intention and the act of sinning: the soul or the body, or both, and as a conse-
quence, whether the physical body could be marked either by sin or its
absence. From about the 1060s onwards, considerations about the role of the
flesh in the act of sinning sparked a venerable flow of self-aware confessional
tracts, debates about the sinfulness of certain bodily functions, and a greater
emphasis on the significance of intention and contrition. Self-awareness, self-
examination, and self-control logically led to an examination of one’s
embodied practice in relation to the soul, to the natural environment and to
other human beings.16
14 Paravicini-Bagliani, The Pope’s Body, p. 208. See also M. Goodich, From Birth to Old Age:
The Human Life Cycle in Medieval Thought, 1250–1350 (Lanham, MD, 1989), pp. 146–8 (on
old age), pp. 150–4 (on retardation of old age). The views expressed in the De retardatione were
not isolated and there are numerous treatises which advocate healthy living to prolong youth
and, as a consequence, one’s life span.
15 See Bynum, Resurrection of the Body.
16 C.W. Bynum, ‘Did the Twelfth Century Discover the Individual?’ Journal of Ecclesiastical
History 31 (1980), pp. 1–17. J.F. Benton, ‘Consciousness of Self and Perceptions of
Intercutting theological concerns about the relationship between body and
soul were natural philosophical ideas about sex and gender. If the body’s
surface should be considered a mirror of the soul, how were non-conforming
bodies and peoples to be viewed? Did appearance determine the state of the
soul as much as the other way around? What constituted a conformist body or
person? These were questions addressed variably in attitudes towards disease,
or ‘other’, non-Christian peoples, in hagiography and in physiognomical trea-
tises, which considered the relationship between inner and outer ‘man’.
The interplay of inner and outer ‘man’ was particularly tense when it came
to non-Christian peoples, the diseased, and the ‘monstrous races’. Thomas of
Cantimpré questioned whether the latter even had a rational soul; despite this,
however, he spoke approvingly of the gymnosophists and Bragmani as being
close to the Christian ideal of living. These ‘monsters’ had either come into
the world through the illegitimate coupling of humans and animals, or they
were the result of the disobedience of some of Adam’s offspring.17 The
Muslim adversaries of the Christian crusaders, moreover, were popularly
depicted in less than flattering descriptions and images, while a romance
writer such as Chrétien de Troyes deliberately exacerbated the difference
between his main characters and their adversaries in terms of physical appear-
ance.18 Matthew of Vendôme, in his rhetorical handbook, following Sidonius,
provided an elaborate description of ugliness in which inner corruption is
manifested upon the outer surface of the body. What is interesting in the case
of the description by Sidonius is his repulsion of his ugly character’s leaking
and uncontrollable body which renders visible his moral depravity.19
Disease which manifested itself on the exterior body and was considered
the result of an internal imbalance of the humours was often perceived to be
connected to moral corruption. Some illnesses were caused by immoderation
Individuality’, in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. R.L. Benson and G.
Constable (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), pp. 263–95.
17 Thomas of Cantimpré, De natura rerum, pp. 97–8. Although Thomas derived his material
from Jacques de Vitry’s Historia orientalis, he does not follow the latter’s more nuanced
approach to foreign peoples. See J.B. Friedman, The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and
Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), pp. 93, 164.
18 L. Mirrer, ‘Representing “Other” Men: Muslims, Jews, and Masculine Ideals in Medieval
Castilian Epic and Ballad’, in Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages, ed.
C.A. Lees (Minneapolis, 1994), pp. 169–86; cf. the image of Richard I and Saladin among the
Chertsey tiles as well as the colour and body changing topos in the King of Tars; J. Gilbert,
‘Putting the Pulp into Fiction: The Lump-Child and its Parents in The King of Tars’, in Pulp
Fictions of Medieval England: Essays in Popular Romance, ed. N. McDonald (Manchester, 2004),
pp. 102–23. For Chrétien de Troyes’ use of the motif see for example Yvain, p. 298. Cf. Porter,
‘History of the Body Reconsidered’, p. 247, where he discusses the ideal of the Classical Greek
man in eighteenth-century Western Europe, cast in relief against a collection of ‘other’ vilified
types of masculinity.
19 See J. Ziolkowski, ‘Avatars of Ugliness in Medieval Literature’, Modern Language Review 69
(1984), pp. 1–20, at 8.
(either excess or abstinence) which disrupted the ideal internal balance of the
individual, and which could be taken as a physical manifestation of a lack of
moral control over one’s flesh, although the opposite view was advocated as
well. For example, the figure of the physically afflicted leper could in religious
or literary texts be considered as a symbol of lechery, as a warning against those
indulging too much in physical beauty, or as the fortunate who were able to
atone for some of their sins before they died.20 Nevertheless, hagiographers
could write admiringly about their subject attending to the sick, ‘even those
afflicted with leprosy’, as in the case of St Hugh of Lincoln. He would attend
to them, receiving them as honourable guests in his chamber or by going
round the hospitals on his estates. He would embrace and kiss them, and
console them in their misery. Despite their deformity, Hugh would say, those
afflicted shone with an inner beauty. Indeed, those ‘who now gloried in the
beauty of their bodies’ should await the Final Judgement in dread. His
biographer, however, confesses to being utterly disgusted by the sufferers’
‘swollen and livid, diseased and deformed faces with the eyes either distorted
or hollowed out and the lips eaten away!’21 Only the saint is capable of seeing
beyond the ravaged exterior, which as a consequence says as much about the
poor sufferers as about the response of their environment to their affliction.
The saint and the physically deformed come to share an ideological space
separated from the rest of society (which includes Hugh’s disgusted biogra-
pher) in a fascinating example of reverse psychology. By siding himself with
his audience, the hagiographer suggests that Hugh’s response is exceptional
and that this is a sign of his inherent saintliness. Thus, by pointing out his own
moral weakness, compared to Hugh’s magnanimity and insight, the hagiogra-
pher reconstructs the scene as a moral lesson about superficial judgement and
instinctive fear. In other words, despite the ambiguous response to leprosy,
those thought to suffer from the disease were singled out, either positively or
negatively, as different because of their bodily deformities.
Saints themselves could be subject to bodily afflictions and suffering, which
could be interpreted as a pre-purgatorial atonement. However, as they died,
any signs of deformity were rapidly erased from the surface of the body to leave
a perfectly formed and shining prefiguration of the saint’s heavenly exis-
tence.22 The main thrust of the moral message underlying these descriptions
20 Recently, the view that lepers were ipso facto regarded in a negative light during the medieval
period has been challenged. Archaeological evidence suggests that although leprosaria could be
situated outside towns, they were conspicuously placed along main roads in and out of urban
settlements. Moreover, in some cases their extramural location was due to a lack of space inside
the town walls. See C. Rawcliffe, Leprosy in Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2006); ead.
‘Learning to Love the Leper: Aspects of Institutional Charity in Anglo-Norman England’,
Anglo-Norman Studies XIII: Proceedings of the Battle Conference, ed. J. Gillingham (Wood-
bridge, 2000), pp. 231–50.
21 Magna vita Sancti Hugonis, 2: 13–14.
22 See above, pp. 28–9.
appears to be the opposition of control and its lack in terms of physical moder-
ation and balance. From the twelfth century onwards, mystics (mainly
women) subverted this opposition by displaying extremes at different times.
Their vitae emphasised the supreme control these women held over their
body: they never moved or spoke without purpose and no untoward corporeal
behaviour was ever observed in them. The only time this extreme composure
was broken was during periods of spiritual rapture in which their body was
subject to the Divinity rather than to their soul.23 Internal balance could
therefore manifest itself in different ways; it could either be an experiential
process in which both extremes surfaced, or it could be a permanent state, as
advocated in health regimens, physiological treatises and physiognomy.
In these texts, the collapse of inner and outer ‘man’ appears almost
complete. The normative body in these texts was male. Men were thought to
have a hotter constitution and a more even-tempered disposition than
women; above all, men were considered to be the normative sex, with women
being regarded as imperfect men, which also consigned each to specific
gendered roles in society. As we shall see below, the idea of a single-sex
continuum, as McNamara has described it, had a profound impact on
conceptions of aristocratic personal and communal identity.24 Men (vir)
derived their name from the fact that they had greater strength (virium) than
women, according to Isidore of Seville. Men in the prime of their life were
supposed to be in perfect balance physically and mentally, and to display qual-
ities such as loyalty, strength, courtesy, justice and temperance. The adult man
was ruled by reason rather than emotion.25 For example, Giles of Rome
argued that the acme of life is the phase in which there is supreme equilibrium
within the body. He regarded this as the middle age, in which rulers were
‘manly in a temperate way and temperate in a manly way’.26
Women and sexually ambiguous people such as eunuchs and hermaphro-
dites were expected to conform to certain gendered behaviours.27 As Miri
Rubin has shown, hermaphrodites were expected to ‘choose’ their sex and the
23 Simons, ‘Reading a Saint’s Body’, pp. 15–16; Bynum, ‘Bodily Miracles’, p. 71. According
to Isidore of Seville, the word ‘virgin’ was related to ‘virago’ in that both indicated a sense of
incorruptibility and capacity to control feminine passion. He makes a positive comparison with
the Amazons, generally regarded as one of the ‘monstrous races’. Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae,
XI.22; Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference, pp. 205–6. Cf. Thomas of Cantimpré, De natura
rerum, pp. 97–8.
24 Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference, pp. 170–1, 183–4, 202. T. Laqueur, Making Sex: Body
and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, MA, 1990), pp. 19, 25–6; J.A. McNamara,
‘An Unresolved Syllogism: The Search for a Christian Gender System’, in Conflicted Identities
and Multiple Masculinities: Men in the Medieval West, ed. J. Murray (New York, 1999), pp.
1–24. See also, D. Neal, ‘Masculine Identity in late Medieval English Society and Culture’, in
Writing Medieval History, ed. N. Partner (London, 2005), pp. 171–88.
25 Goodich, From Birth to Old Age, pp. 143–5.
26 Cited by Burrow, Ages of Man, p. 11.
27 Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference, pp. 201–6.
associated gendered behaviour, while women such as Queen Matilda or

Countess Hawise of Aumale were described with admiration because of their
‘manly’ behaviour. Both women were skilled in manipulating their male
dominated environment by appropriating ‘masculine’ behaviour. Queen
Matilda, for example, took control over the royalist army after her husband
Stephen was captured at the Battle of Lincoln in 1141. Described as a woman
of ‘constancy with a clever and virile heart [astute pectoris virilisque]’ by the
sympathetic author of the Gesta Stephani, she did not hesitate to instruct her
army to ransack London. However, the comment is flanked by comparative
observations about the empress, whose lack of mercy distorted the face of
female gentleness (‘muliebris mansuetudinis eversa faciem’) and whose viscera
were devoid of compassion.28 Countess Hawise, a rich heiress subjected to
three different marriages before she paid John 5,000 marks to relieve her from
marrying a fourth time, was described by Richard of Devizes as a ‘woman who
was almost a man, lacking nothing virile except virile organs’ (‘feminam fere
virum, cui nichil virile defuit preter virilia’). Half-mockingly highlighting the
ontological connection between manhood and strength, the author thus
describes Hawise as a woman of exceptional inner strength who would be a
good match for the virile and valorous knight William de Forz.29
Although women with a virile character were said to display certain phys-
ical characteristics of manhood, such as beard growth, physiognomical trea-
tises did not generally consider women part of their discussion of character
types, although their basic premise was that the outer appearance of the body
could be read as a description of the interior.30 The most widely read treatises
were the Pseudo-Aristotelian Chiromancy and the Secretum Secretorum, which
in the Latin translation by Phillip of Tripoli (early thirteenth century) was
given a separate section on physiognomy in contrast to its Arabic original.
Roger Bacon included it in his version of the Secretum secretorum, Albertus
Magnus discussed it in his commentary on Aristotle’s De animalibus, and it
was part of physiological description in the medical compendium known as
Almansor by Rhazes, translated by Gerard of Cremona in the late twelfth
century.31 Despite the warning against the indiscriminate application of
physiognomy in one’s judgement of others, both Roger Bacon and Albertus
28 Gesta Stephani, ed. and trans. K.R. Potter (London, 1955), pp. 122–5.
29 Richard of Devizes, Chronicle of Richard of Devizes of the Time of Richard the First, ed. J.T.
Appleby (London, 1963), p. 10.
30 Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference, pp. 204–5. Hildegard of Bingen’s physiognomy was an
exception in that it focused exclusively on female characteristics; ibid., p. 186.
31 L. Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science II: The First Thirteen Centuries
(New York, 1923), pp. 266–72, 575; Roger Bacon, Secretum secretorum cum glossis et notulis;
Opera hactenus inedita V, ed. R. Steele (Oxford, 1920), pp. xxii–xxiii. Albertus Magnus, De
animalibus: A Medieval Summa Zoologica, ed. K.F. Kitchell Jr. and I.M. Resnick. 2 vols. (Balti-
more, 1999) and Quaestiones de Animalibus; Rhazes’ physiognomy is in Scriptores
physiognomonici Graeci et Latini, ed. R. Förster, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1892–93), 2: 163–79.
Magnus maintained that it was a useful skill to possess. Both also cite a story
about Hippocrates, attributed to Aristotle, about the danger of holding too
mechanistic a view on the connection between the interior and exterior. A
physiognomist described Hippocrates in mostly negative terms, which
outraged his disciples. Hippocrates, however, agreed with this description of
him, saying that his intellect and rationality had been able to overcome the
character defects suggested by his physical appearance.32 Nevertheless,
Hippocrates being an exceptional figure, Bacon asserted that the rules of
physiognomy were a great help for rulers in choosing their friends and advi-
sors; his ideal man was in fact someone who displayed moderation in appear-
ance.33 Although the relationship between external appearance and soul was
therefore occasionally problematised as too reductionist, in particular consid-
ering the influence of Divine Grace on individual characters, in many other
cases the interconnectivity of the exterior and interior of the body was consid-
ered a reliable indicator of one’s physical, mental, and spiritual well-being,
which is evident in hagiography and medical discourses and, as we shall see
now, also in texts generated for aristocratic consumption.
Noble body, noble identity
Although ‘new men’ had entered the sphere of the social elite with every
generation and there had been a mainly unwritten understanding of who
belonged to the elite, it is possible to observe an increased differentiation
during the course of the twelfth century of those who had entered it because of
their individual merit, or material success, and those who could claim noble
ancestry. As the structural anthropologist Mary Douglas argued, just as any
threats to the stability of a social body may translate itself into closing its
symbolic boundaries to outsiders or the exclusion of non-conformist
elements, so society may redraw its ideas about the physical body as a conse-
quence of social threat.34 A similar process appears to be taking place in the
later decades of the twelfth century with urban elites and non-aristocratic
members of society increasingly entering the sphere of political influence in
national and local government. By appropriating the idea of knighthood and
transforming its raison d’être from being just a functional office to an innate
and embodied essence, the aristocratic communal identity distinguished itself
from members of the urban elite or other upwardly mobile men who obvi-
ously lacked this essential feature, even if they were able to achieve the status of
32 Roger Bacon, Secretum secretorum, p. 165; Albertus Magnus, Quaestiones de animalibus, p.

95.
33 Roger Bacon, Secretum secretorum, pp. 166–7.
34 M. Douglas, Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology. With a new introduction
(London, 1996), pp. 74–5; Ead., Purity and Danger, p. 142.
knighthood. The focus was cast more sharply on the physical and moral quali-
ties true knights were supposed to possess: strength, prowess, loyalty, valour,
grace, generosity and honour – qualities which came to be underwritten by an
impressive noble lineage.35
Association with the aristocratic community’s ideal was increasingly deter-
mined not in terms of material possessions or political influence (which
anyone could acquire) but in terms of abstract and romanticised notions of
personal honour and virtue, with the understanding that the truly ‘noble man’
was a knight who was naturally entitled to political, social and economic
power. This immediately drew a line between those who fought and those
who did not; between those who fought on horseback and those who did not;
and between those who could afford the time and money to maintain a
knightly life style and those who could not.
The centrality of the knight’s body in the perception of communal aristo-
cratic identity in relation to the above is evident. The etymological ontology
of the knight in Raoul de Hodenc’s Roman des eles (c. 1220), for example, is
gentillece, a term which refers both to birth and individual character.36 In a
cleverly conceited play on the interconnectedness of language, social order,
and moral qualities, which centralises Raoul’s own moral authority as minstrel
to comment on knighthood and which exposes the fragile symbiosis of
nobility and resources, the Roman describes the two wings of prowess, each
with seven feathers, which all true knights should have. One wing represents
generosity, the other courtesy. In order to remind true knights of their nature,
Raoul has taken it upon himself to act as an educator, since as a minstrel he has
a deep understanding of the nature of honour, shame and courtesy both
through the material which shapes his profession and through first-hand ex-
perience of courtesy and generosity (lines 104–12).
Knights, according to Raoul, embody or ‘are’ (ont) courtesy, a virtue
instilled in them by God; a knight’s proper name is gentillece, or nobility (lines
13–15, 23–6, 39). This ontology is, for example, echoed by Daniel of Beccles,
who wrote his treatise on ‘urbane’ conduct towards the end of the twelfth
century. Daniel maintains that it is conceptually impossible for a noble
character to issue forth from bad blood (de sanguine prauo).37 Fundamentally,
by indicating the centrality of language and meaning inspired by the
35 M.H. Keen, Chivalry (New Haven, NJ, 1984) and Coss, Knight in Medieval England trace
the development of the noble knight.
36 Raoul de Hodenc, Le Roman des eles, ed. K. Busby. Utrecht Publications in General and
Comparative Literature 17 (Amsterdam, 1983). On gentillece see E. Kennedy, ‘The Quest for
Identity and the Importance of Lineage in Thirteenth-Century French Prose Romance’, in The
Ideals and Practice of Medieval Knighthood 2, ed. C. Harper-Bill and R. Harvey (Woodbridge,
1988), pp. 70–86, at 73.
37 Urbanus magnus Danielis Becclesiensis, ed. J.G. Smyly (Dublin, 1939), p. 5; Crouch, Birth of
Nobility, p. 127. Cf. Llull, Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry, p. 58.
etymological view of the world proposed by Isidore of Seville, Raoul observes
that the name of the object is the key to its meaning and essence. As a
wordsmith, therefore, he is in a prime position to comment on the essence of
knighthood (lines 1–4, 55–6).38
As a consequence of their ontologically superior status, Raoul argues, it is
only proper that knights are socially elevated. Sadly, however, there are too
many knights who are ignorant of the true nature of knighthood and many
vainly appropriate the title and status without understanding its essence or
origin (lines 33–54). As a result, the very nature of knighthood is corrupted by
those who claim its title. Not for the last time, a distinction is made between
true knights who embody nobility and false knights who attain negative char-
acteristics. This idea is taken quite literally by Raoul as expressing themselves
upon the body. In a rather graphic description of a miser (i.e. a false knight),
his stinginess is envisaged as literally erupting from the insides of his corrupt
body in a flow of fetid and noxious matter which permeates the minstrel’s
every sense: as he hears the shameful word, he smells its corruption which he
feels has sprung from evil and idleness (lines 84–103). In other words, a true
knight will reveal himself through his noble bearing (franchise), liberality and
courtesy.
The opposition between knightly and rich ‘common’ members of society,
implicit in Raoul de Hodenc’s discussion of knighthood (cf. ‘A knight … will
not rise to great heights if he inquires of the value of corn’; lines 165–7), is
made explicit both in the work of Bertran de Born and Andreas Capellanus.
The former, a troubadour and minor aristocrat from the Limoges region,
frequently highlights the noble characteristics of true knights, while deeply
criticising the nouveaux riches who call themselves noble, but who put wealth
and political status before worth and honour. In S’abrilis e fuoillas e flors, for
example, Bertran spites rich men for ruling by fear rather than by generosity
and for preferring siege warfare over more honourable face-to-face combat.
They hunt and joust, build large castles and eat too much – they squander
their reputation ‘because such behaviour is not admired by good people [las
bonas gens]’. Only nobility, grace and generosity (‘francs e cortes e chauzitz e
larcs e bos donadors’) and valour give a man ‘high merit’ in Bertran’s view as
one of the ‘good people’. In Mout mi plai quan vey dolenta, a more vicious
attack is launched against ‘rotten rich people [malvada gent manenta]’, who
cause trouble to noblemen (‘paratge’) by their very existence. These rich
people are the upwardly mobile who, when they rise to wealth, ‘go mad’. It is
better to keep them in their right place, Bertran asserts, because they are
38 See Jacquart and Thomasset, Sexuality and Medicine, pp. 8–11 for a useful discussion of
Isidore’s etymological system. Cf. The lady’s advice to her son Perceval in the romance by
Chretien de Troyes to learn the names of those he encounters on the road, ‘for by the name one
knows the man’; Perceval, p. 388.
disloyal and untrustworthy by nature. In other words, they are the antithesis
of the noble knight, who of course is entitled to all that wealth.39
Andreas Capellanus steers a slightly different course in his attack on
non-noble ‘upstarts’. Like Raoul de Hodenc, he sees the ability to love in a
polite manner as one of the defining characteristics of knightly mentality.40
Needless to say, this only applies to civilised interaction between the members
of the aristocracy. However, his discussion does not limit itself to rules of
conduct between members of the aristocracy, but also calls to attention the
inherently hyper-masculine nature of aristocratic communal identity. Like
Raoul’s miser, who is described as ‘soft in arms and fat from sojourning’ (line
99), Andreas’s ladies comment sharply on the bodily shapes of their bourgeois
suitors (referred to as ‘plebeii’ by Andreas). One suitor is told by a lady of
middling nobility (‘nobilis’) that his non-noble lineage (‘genus’) is evident
from his appearance (‘forma’), while another is dismissed by a countess
(‘nobilior’) because of his physique which makes him unsuitable for the
knightly profession:
Knights [milites] should be naturally [ex sua natura] endowed with slim long
calves and neat feet whose length exceeds their width as if moulded by a
craftsman, but I observe that your calves are on the contrary podgy, bulging,
round and stunted, and your feet are as broad as long, and gigantic to boot.41
His contemporary Chrétien de Troyes likewise stresses the connection
between moral and physical nobility. In a telling passage describing the arrival
of Alexander, the father of Cligés, at Arthur’s court from Greece, he and his
group of soldiers bare their shoulders ‘so that no one could consider them
ill-bred’. Arthur’s barons, moreover, are in awe of the youths’ nobility and
physical beauty, their ‘handsome age’ and their ‘well-formed body’.42 The
Greeks are polite, modest, respectful, and well spoken. In Perceval, the epony-
mous hero is from an impressive lineage which shows in his behaviour and
body, even though he was brought up like a peasant and wears peasant clothes.
39 The Poems of the Troubadour Bertran de Born, ed. W.D. Paden Jr., T. Sankovitch and P.H.
Stäblein (Berkeley, 1986), no. 20 (pp. 254–65), no. 28 (pp. 318–23).
40 Raoul devotes most space to the discussion of love which he states inspires all knightly deeds
and gives them greater honour (lines 485–632).
41 Andreas Capellanus, On Love, ed. and trans. P.G. Walsh (London, 1982), pp. 62–3, 78–9.
The tension between nobility of birth and nobility of character is played out between the lady
and her suitor in a further critical exchange in which the suitor chastises the lady for paying too
much attention to the exterior. Later on in the dialogue, the lady instructs the suitor in the ways
of noble love (pp. 82–7). Andreas’s satire, therefore, is never far from being instructional also.
Needless to say, the suitor does not get his way.
42 Cf. the description of Lancelot’s body and behaviour in the Prose Lancelot: Lancelot do Lac:
The non-cyclic Old French Prose Romance, ed. E. Kennedy, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1980), 1: 38–40;
Lancelot of the Lake, trans. C.F.V. Corley (Oxford, 1989), pp. 27–30. Not only is his behaviour
exemplary, his body is described as temperate and moderate, while individual body parts are in
‘reasonable’ proportion to the others. His only shortcomings are his great fury when angered
and his large chest.
He takes to being a knight quite naturally, and although he lacks the ‘civilisa-
tion’ to be a noble man until instructed by an older fellow knight, it is clear that
his innate nobility can be easily unlocked.43
Moreover, Walter Map, in a satirical story about a lady pursuing a virtuous
knight, draws attention to the virility of knights, connecting courage and
prowess to sexual ability. In order to escape the attentions of this lady, who is
his lord’s wife, the knight feigns impotence. Not deterred by this, because she
considers ‘the signs […] clear enough’, the lady tries to trick the knight by
sending one of her maids to seduce him. These signs are the external manifes-
tations of his character and physical health listed by the lady: the knight is a
young man with a strong body and sufficient beard growth, and without a
‘jaundiced eye or coward heart’. The lady is puzzled. Surely, his martial
prowess, valour and physical appearance point towards a sexually healthy
man? ‘Could one less than a man have pierced through so many armed
phalanxes [Numquid posset effeminatus tot armorum penetrare cuneos], dimmed
the glories of all men, raised his own repute to such a pinnacle of praise?’44 In
other words, the lady’s evocative and sexually charged description of the
knight, which draws upon medical ideas, consciously connects virility to the
martial and virtuous excellence needed to be a knight.45
Ramon Llull, writing in a more serious vein, nevertheless reveals very
similar thoughts on the noble body, insisting that men who did not possess a
‘whole’ body were not fit to enter the order of chivalry: ‘A man lame or ouer
grete or ouer fatte or that hath ony other euyl disposycion in his body, for
whiche he may not vse thoffyce of chyualrye, is not suffysaunt to be a knight.’
Although in this passage he does not overtly stress the connection between the
inner and outer man in judging someone’s suitability to become a knight, else-
where Llull emphasises the importance of body and soul working together to
maintain chivalry. A morally depraved knight is ‘al contrary to chyvalrye and
to al honour’, who ought to be removed from the order and destroyed. Llull
warns his audience that nobility does not lie in external trappings such as
armour or clothes, but in the display of virtue and knightly qualities.46 Llull’s
concept of nobleza de corazón, which signifies these virtues of the soul, is a
43 Cligés, pp. 126–7; Perceval, p. 393; cf. Perceval’s transition from being a ‘boy’ to being a
‘man’, p. 402.
44 Walter Map, De nugis curialium, pp. 218–19.
45 See Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference, pp. 171, 181–2. Both women and castrati did not
grow beards, because they were thought to be colder and moister than men. The growing of a
beard (a sign of nutritional superfluity) signified male adulthood and the ability in men to
produce the heat needed to create healthy semen from the vital spirit located in the heart. Cf.
Rhazes, Al-Mansor, II. 57, in Scriptores physiognomonici, ed. Förster, 2: 178.
46 Ramon Llull, Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry, pp. 63, 45, 55. See also p. 99: a knight is called a
knight, because he fights against evil and vice with the force of noble courage. Cf. John of Salis-
bury’s ideas on knighthood, based on Vegetius, discussed in J. Flori, Richard the Lionheart: King
and Knight (Edinburgh, 1999), pp. 250–1.
treasure protected by the body and it is as essential to the knight as eyes are to
the artisan to judge his own work or to the sinner to observe his sin.47 The
noble body thus becomes a shrine or castle which needs to be maintained in
order to be worthy of the treasure kept within it.48 This is also the sentiment in
the Ordene de chevalerie, which was written about seventy years before Llull
came to write his treatise. In it a knight instructs Saladin in the obligations of
knighthood. One of the main instructions concerns the knight’s body, which
should be kept ‘pure and untainted by the follies unceasingly committed’ by
it.49 Although less explicit in the necessity of noble ancestry, stressed in other
treatises, the Ordene nevertheless makes it very clear that not everyone is suit-
able for knighthood – only the pure and virtuous can be admitted. In the end,
Saladin is denied his knighthood on account of his religion, which reinforces
the knight’s earlier crude response to Saladin’s request to be made familiar
with the idea of knighthood that it is impossible to ‘cover a dunghill with
silken sheets so that it could never stink’.50
This embodiment of nobility was not unproblematic and it was severely
challenged from the ecclesiastical corner as being divorced from reality. Alex-
ander Neckam lamented the fact that noble blood seemed to count for itself as
a sign of worth and honour without recourse to individual noble behaviour. If
knightly qualities were embodied and a consequence of noble ancestry, did
not the aristocracy have a moral obligation to maintain the high standards of
nobility? One would think so. However, not only did noble and non-noble
ultimately derive from the same source, all the lofty ideas so favourable to the
aristocracy were in fact a sham. Instead of showing real nobility of character,
the aristocrats in Neckam’s time exaggerated their manners to give the impres-
sion of noble birth. They were more concerned with money than with virtue,
and besides many aristocrats were actually humbly born and had forced legiti-
mate heirs away from their rightful inheritance. Without disputing that noble
47 Ramon Llull, Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry, pp. 39–40. Cf. Llull, Libro de la orden de
Caballería, p. 117: ‘Si Dios ha dado ojos al menestral para que vea trabajando, los ha dado
también al picador para que llore sus pecados. Y si al caballero ha dado el corazón para que sea
aposento de la nobleza de ánimo …’
48 Ramon Llull, Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry, p. 119. Cf. Henry Duke of Lancaster’s elaborate
metaphor of his body as a castle under attack from vices who try to enter his heart: the donjon
containing his soul. Henry of Lancaster, Le livre de seyntz medicines: The Unpublished Devo-
tional Treatise of Henry of Lancaster, ed. E.J. Arnould. Anglo Norman Text Society 2 (Oxford,
1940), pp. 64–5. See also E.J. Arnould, ‘Henry of Lancaster and his Livre des seintes medicines’,
Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 21 (1937), pp. 352–86. Henry probably wrote this highly
contrite confession and plea for absolution around 1354 (Livre, p. 244). The castle is also used
as a metaphor by the fourteenth-century author of the Fasciculus morum (pp. 720–1).
49 Ordene de chevalerie, ed. K. Busby. Utrecht Publications in General and Comparative Liter-
ature 17 (Amsterdam, 1983), lines 233–4 (trans. p. 172).
50 Ordene de chevalerie, lines 87–90 (trans. p. 171). On importance of noble ancestry for
knights, see Ramon Llull, Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry, p. 58. Cf. Giles of Rome, The Gover-
nance of Kings and Princes, pp. 150–2; Henry of Lancaster, Livre de seyntz medicines, p. 27.
birth predisposed an aristocrat to a better position in society, Neckam argues
that only noble deeds can declare one’s noble ancestry, not the other way
around.51
The emphasis on virtue and bodily appearance in relation to true knight-
hood is found with other social commentators as well. Bernard of Clairvaux,
for example, in his praise of the Knights Templar contrasts their humility and
prowess sharply with knights he considers effeminate. Instead of restraining
their lower urges, these knights grow their hair, adorn their armour with all
sorts of frivolous extras and rather than serve others, they serve themselves.52
In his description of the Battle of the Standard (1138), Ailred of Rievaulx, on
the other hand, praised the knightly qualities of Walter Espec, Lord of
Helmsley and patron of Rievaulx Abbey, by referring to his conduct and
bodily appearance grounded in a noble background (‘nobilis carne’), although
Ailred was also quick to point out that his patron was ‘more noble’ in Chris-
tian piety. Walter was of great stature and limb, with black hair and a flowing
beard, a broad forehead and an open face with sharp eyes. He had a voice like a
trumpet and could speak eloquently. Although we cannot tell whether Ailred
drew a faithful portrait of Walter or not, it is interesting to note the similarities
between Walter’s body, his aristocratic (and knightly) qualities, and the
connections between the two noted in physiognomical treatises. According to
Rhazes, black hair signified anger, while Roger Bacon maintained that it
referred to a love of justice. The latter also connected a loud voice with a love
of war and with eloquence; long arms showed the owner’s courage, his good-
ness and largesse.53
Writing from a more secular perspective, moreover, Richard de Templo in
his celebration of Richard the Lionheart’s deeds in the Middle East in
1191–92 stresses the king’s splendid noble qualities which marked themselves
in an equally splendid physical appearance. Richard was considered very
generous, skilled in warfare and diplomacy, and valorous to the extent that it
was sometimes considered inappropriate. In the Itinerarium peregrinorum et
gesta Regis Ricardi, authored by Richard de Templo in c. 1220, King Richard
is favourably compared to the heroes of the Ancient World, such as Hector,
Alexander and Titus Vespasianus, as well as the paragon of crusaders, i.e.
51 Alexander Neckam, De naturis rerum libri duo, ed. T. Wright. RS 34 (1863), pp. 244,
312–13.
52 Bernard of Clairvaux, De laude novae militiae, in Opera, III, ed. J. Leclerq and H.M. Rochais
(Rome, 1963), pp. 216–19. See also R. Bartlett, ‘Symbolic Meanings of Hair in the Middle
Ages’, TRHS sixth series 4 (1994), pp. 43–60 for comments on different hair styles and what
they were thought to signify.
53 Ailred of Rievaulx, Relatio de standardo. Chronicles of the Reigns of Stephen, Henry II and
Richard I, Ed. R. Howlett, 3 vols. RS 82 (1886), 3: 138. Rhazes, Almansor, Lib. II c. 28,
Scriptores physiognomonici, 2: 164; Roger Bacon, Secretum secretorum, pp. 167, 169–70. Cf. the
Middle English version of the Secretum secretorum in Secretum secretorum: Nine English Versions,
ed. M.A. Manzalaoui. EETS os 276 (Oxford, 1977), p. 11.
Roland. Moreover, the king did not only possess heroic and military virtues,
but he was also wise and clever (an unusual combination according to the
author). What is more, the king had the physique to match his virtues: tall and
elegant of stature with long arms and legs, his body was highly suitable for
knightly pursuits.54
What impressed Richard de Templo was the king’s awareness of how to
make the right impression. In describing Richard’s entry into Messina, the
chronicler waxes lyrical about the king’s astuteness in projecting authority
commensurate to the power he holds. King Philip of France, in contrast, had
entered the city furtively and with only a few companions. This is wrong,
according to de Templo who maintains that the king’s ‘exterior appearance
should declare his inner virtue’:
As it is commonly said: ‘The man that I see I expect you to be’. What is more,
appearance is governed by character. Whatever sort of character the ruler has, it
is naturally reflected in outer appearance.55
Evidently, to Richard de Templo, King Richard’s noble birth and virtues were
clearly inscribed upon his body, which thus acted as a touchstone for his inner
being.
The idea of the body as touchstone for nobility also arises from comments
made by John of Arderne in the introduction to his Fistula in ano which reveal
an interesting practical example of the pressures generated by the flow of ideo-
logical chivalric texts. Sometimes associated with sexual overindulgence, anal
fistulas could mark the sufferer as physically, morally and socially deficient.
The case cited by John of Arderne concerns a household knight of Henry
Duke of Lancaster, who is sent home when he becomes unable to fulfil his
functions as a consequence of his fistula. At home, according to the surgeon,
the knight shed his armour and donned ‘mornyng clothes’ to mark the end of
his professional career and social status.56
In other words, the ideal knight was predominantly the ideal man discussed
in the previous section: he was of noble ancestry which predisposed him to
noble deeds; he was loyal, courteous, generous, courageous, temperate, judi-
cious, virile and virtuous. If sex and gender were to be seen as a continuum, the
54 Itinerarium peregrinorum et gesta Regis Ricardi, in Chronicles and Memorials of the Reign of
Richard I, vol. 1, ed. W. Stubbs, RS 38 (1864), p. 144. Translations are taken from H.J.
Nicholson, Chronicle of the Third Crusade (Aldershot, 1997). His valour and diplomatic skills
were also commented upon by Muslim authors such as Baha al-Din and Imad al-Din.
Gillingham, Richard I, p. 19.
55 Itinerarium peregrinorum et gesta Regis Ricardi, pp. 155–6; Nicholson, Chronicle of the Third
Crusade, p. 156. This is reminiscent of Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 19:26 (Douay-Rheims trans.): ‘A
man is known by his look, and a wise man, when thou meetest him, is known by his counte-
nance [sensatus].’ Cf. Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, p. 435 n. 31.
56 John of Arderne, Treatise on fistula in ano, ed. D. Power, EETS os 139 (London, 1910), p.
1; see also J.J. Citrome, ‘Bodies that Splatter: Surgery, Chivalry and the Body in the Practica of
John Arderne’, Exemplaria 13 (2001), pp. 137–72, at 137.
ideal man inhabited one end, the ideal woman the other. In between, there
were numerous points of reference for men and women not fitting these ideal
categories. The idea of the knight as the ideal man is not surprising in a society
which valorised the characteristics of the most dominant social group, and one
of the ways in which the knight’s position was problematised was in compar-
ison to feminine qualities. Walter Map’s satirical story highlights the social
expectations of knights as simultaneously strong and (hetero-)sexually active;
without one or the other, he would be less than perfect and could be negatively
viewed as effeminate. As we shall see below, the feminisation of the knight,
both literally and discursively, was one potent strategy for diminishing his
social reputation in the contexts of punishment and negative propaganda.
The nobility of the aristocratic heart
There was one thing secular and ecclesiastical authors of chivalric treatises
agreed on: the virtues of knighthood in evidence in worthy individuals were
located in the heart. The heart plays a central role in the description of Lance-
lot’s character and body: his anger is disproportionate and his chest could be
criticised by lesser men for being too large. However, as Guinevere observes,
his chest is large enough to accommodate his heart, ‘and it would surely have
burst, if it had not had a space that size to reside in’.57 Lancelot’s supreme
knightly qualities thus take on a physical, heart-shaped, dimension both in
terms of its size and in terms of the innate heat erupting from his body in anger
or happiness. Indeed, the ‘qualities of his heart’ are the very qualities good
noblemen were supposed to possess: generosity, gentleness, judiciousness,
moderation, courage and steadfastness.58 In a later dialogue between Lancelot
and the Lady of the Lake, an allowance is made for a difference between quali-
ties of the heart and those of the body. According to Lancelot, qualities of the
heart are easier to come by, even if the body is of lesser quality. The Lady of the
Lake agrees, but from her instruction it is abundantly clear that only a combi-
nation of heart and body qualities make the best knight. The first knights were
‘the big and the strong and the handsome and the nimble and the loyal and the
valorous and the courageous, those who were full of the qualities of the heart
and of the body.’59 In addition, the Lady argues that knights ought to have
two hearts: a heart ‘soft as wax’ and ‘hard as diamond’. The latter ensures that
a knight punishes the cruel with ferocity and cruelty – indeed a knight should
57 See above, p. 46 n. 42; Kennedy, ‘Quest for Identity’, pp. 73–4.

58 Lancelot do Lac, p. 41; Lancelot of the Lake, p. 30.
59 Lancelot do Lac, pp. 141–3; Lancelot of the Lake, pp. 50–2. Kennedy, ‘Quest for Identity’,
pp. 73–4.
never attack the good with a diamond heart; it will damn him ‘for the Scrip-
tures say that a man who loves treachery and cruelty hates his own soul’.60
The Ordene also instructs aspiring and existing knights first of all to love
God from the heart, while Ramon Llull and Henry Duke of Lancaster both
centralise the heart as the seat of the soul. Raoul de Hodenc explains that the
knight is spurred on to greater deeds through the love for a lady. In a clever
inversion of his earlier example of the miser whose corrupt heart erupts from
his mouth, he argues that love born from a noble heart will cast out evil
(‘vilonie’) and keeps it clean, pure and fine so that love becomes like a good
wine:61
I promise you this about good wine: when it is in a good clean vessel, the vessel
is all the better for it, for from a good vessel the drink is good.
A heart cleansed by love reveals itself in great deeds, good manners and polite
conversation.
Within the contemporary context of the valorisation of knighthood and its
qualities, it is easy to see how King Richard was able to present himself as a
dashing romance hero as a result of his early military successes. Educated and
probably exposed to contemporary literature extolling the virtues of the aris-
tocracy, he would have grown up with a deep sense of duty to himself and his
family to perform ‘noble’ deeds, and while his elder brother sought to gain
honour in the tournament circuit, Richard by necessity concentrated on mili-
tary campaigns against his rebellious barons.62 Contemporaries commented
on his aristocratic qualities, and scenes such as his entry into Messina, and
later Limassol, are evidence of his awareness of his own reputation. Unsurpris-
ingly, the epithet ‘lion-heart’ was applied in connection to his prowess,
strength and leadership already during his life. Some physiognomy texts
described the lion with its red-golden mane as emblematically masculine; and
the animal was generally seen as a symbol of royalty and nobility. The fact that
contemporaries went as far as to refer to Richard as lion-heart, suggests that
they felt he embodied, not just resembled, the essence of the lion, whose
strength (virtus) was said to reside in the chest. Like Raoul de Hodenc’s asser-
tion that knights are nobility, so ‘lion-heart’ seems to encapsulate Richard’s
being.63
Subscribing to the psychosocial need for order, the body in medical theory
was divided into a strict hierarchy of physiological components, of which the
60 Lancelot do Lac, p. 145; Lancelot of the Lake, p. 55.

61 Ordene de chevalerie, lines 201–3 (trans. p. 172); Raoul de Hodenc, Roman des Eles, lines
565–76 (trans. p. 168). See also p. 48 n. 48.
62 Gillingham, Richard I; Flori, Richard the Lionheart, pp. 282ff.
63 Alexander Neckam, De naturis rerum, pp. 288–9; Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, XII.2;
Gillingham, Richard I, pp. 260, 266, and p. 326 citing Bernard Itier’s comments in the margin
of the St Martial (Limoges) copy of the chronicle of Geoffrey de Vigeois; Cadden, Meanings of
Sex Difference, p. 207.
heart was generally regarded the noblest. To Henri de Mondeville, the heart
was like a king in his kingdom, controlling the body with the distribution of
the vital spirit and blood.64 For Bartholomaeus Anglicus, the heart was the
source of all ‘felinge’ and the fountain of life, which therefore takes precedence
over the brain. Its nobility was marked not only in its centrality physiologi-
cally but also anatomically. As Aristotle had maintained and Bartholomaeus
repeated, no other organ is as necessary as the heart, which is therefore the
most noble. Because of its supremacy, moreover, it is located in the noblest
part of the body:
For nature, when no other more important purpose stands in her way, places
the more honourable part in the more honourable position; and the heart lies
about the centre of the body, but rather in its upper than in its lower half, and
also more in front than behind.65
Aware of the significance of the heart to one’s inner being, the knight, as
embodiment of reason, should be naturally inclined towards good judgement
and intention.66 But because of his innate nobility, this made him also suscep-
tible to lapsing. Arnold de Villanova, for example, ascribed to the heart the
origin of all religious thoughts and actions, as well as the reverse: all malign
and evil thoughts and intentions emanate from the heart, which makes it not
only the noblest but also potentially the weakest organ in the body. Henri de
Mondeville also commented on the frailty of noble organs.67
The nobility of the heart was considered fundamental in later medieval
theological discourse. As Bernard of Clairvaux had argued, the heart was the
location of the dialogue between humankind and God, and the contempla-
tion of one’s interior life and intentions would ultimately lead towards salva-
tion – a point eagerly exploited by late medieval female mystics and authors of
devotional tracts.68 Saints could be found after death to have the cross and
64 Le Goff, ‘Head or Heart: The Political Use of Body Metaphors in the Middle Ages’, in Frag-
ments for a History of the Human Body 3, ed. M. Feher, R. Nadaff and N. Tazi. (New York,
1989), pp. 13–27, at 23; cf. Albertus Magnus, On animals, 1: 368 using the same metaphor.
65 Aristotle, De partibus animalium, III.4.665b, in The Works of Aristotle Translated into
English 5, ed. J.A. Smith and W.D. Ross (Oxford, 1965). Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De
proprietatibus rerum 1:239.
66 See the comment by the Lady of Lake: Lancelot do Lac, p. 142; Lancelot of the Lake, p. 51; cf.
Ramon Llull, Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry, pp. 85–6.
67 J. Ziegler, Medicine and Religion c. 1300: The Case of Arnau de Villanova (Oxford, 1998), p.
72; M.C. Pouchelle, The Body and Surgery in the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1990), p. 119.
68 Bynum, Resurrection of the Body, pp. 329–43; the New Testament in particular focuses on
the relationship between Christ and humanity in terms of interiority and the heart. Cf. Gal.
4:6, Rom. 5:5, Eph. 2:4–5 and 3: 17. See also, W. Gewehr, ‘Zu den Begriffen anima und cor’,
Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte, 27 (1975), pp. 40–55; X. von Ertzdorff, Studien
zum Begriff des Herzens und seiner Verwendung als Aussagemotiv in der höfischen Liebeslyrik des
12. Jahrhunderts (Freiburg, 1958), p. 42. On Bernard’s spirituality, see T.H. Bestul, ‘Anteced-
ents: The Anselmian and Cistercian Contributions’, in Mysticism and Spirituality in Medieval
England, ed. W.F. Pollard and R. Boenig (Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 1–20, at 10–14.
other symbols of the Passion literally inscribed upon their heart and other
internal organs. Chiara of Montefalco’s heart and entrails were dissected to
find these symbols formed from their flesh, while the examination of the heart
of St Ignatius revealed that the name of Jesus Christ was carved into it.69 The
idea of the metaphorical exchange of hearts between two lovers was made
literal in visions in which Christ took out the mystic’s heart and replaced it
with his own.70 By contrast, Lotario dei Segni, the future Innocent III,
described how sinners were tortured after death internally in their heart and
externally in their body, making the connection, as Augustine had done,
between the human interior (represented by the heart) and the soul.71 Lastly,
organic metaphors of society frequently associated the heart with lay power;
while Mondeville associated the heart with kingship, Humbert de
Moyenmoutier had written earlier (1057) that the heart and chest are the
knights defending the Church. John of Salisbury saw it more in terms of the
Senate providing the king with counsel and guidance, which concentrated
more on the advisory role of the aristocracy, and by implication its political
and moral intelligence.72 The latter, as we shall see in particular in chapters 5
and 6, proved to be one of the crucial factors determining the individual
worth of an aristocrat in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries.
Conclusion
The body in medieval culture was a site of intense scrutiny and a touchstone of
normative behaviour, appearance and character. Therefore, identity, a multi-
faceted concept, was considered to be embodied: the soul predicated the exte-
rior. Although not universally accepted, ideas about the interconnectivity of
soul and body – of the inner and outer human being – resonated in popular
treatises such as the Secretum secretorum and medical texts. Physiognomy
69 P. Camporesi, The Incorruptible Flesh: Bodily Mutilation and Mortification in Religion and
Folklore (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 3–6; M.C. Pouchelle, ‘Répresentations du corps dans la
Légende Dorée’, Ethnologie Française 6 (1976), pp. 293–308, at 296.
70 Vauchez, Sainthood, p. 442. For the motif of the heart exchange, and its actualisation in the
shape of the motif of the ‘eaten heart’, see for example Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde,
in The Riverside Chaucer, gen. ed. L. Benson, 3rd edn (Oxford, 1987), pp. 471–585, in which
various literal and metaphorical heart exchanges take place. For the ‘eaten heart’, see the collec-
tion of stories in Le coeur mangé: Récits érotiques et courtois des XIIe et XIIIe siècles, ed. D.
Régnier-Bohler (Paris, 1979). Cf. M. Doueihi, A Perverse History of the Human Heart
(Cambridge, Mass., 1997), which traces the motif of the heart exchange from the Egyptians
through to the cult of the Sacred Heart from a psychoanalytical perspective.
71 Lotario dei Segni, De miseria humanae conditionis, III.2 (col. 737); see also above, p. 23. Cf.
Albertus Magnus, On animals, 1: 373; ‘For the soul is a unity, with united power, which func-
tions out of the heart.’
72 John of Salisbury, Policraticus, 1: 318 (ed. Nederman, p. 81); Le Goff, ‘Head or Heart’, pp.
16–17.
established ideals of (mainly) manhood from which, unsurprisingly, the figure
of the temperate man arose as normative.
Despite critical appraisal of physiognomy – interior and exterior are not
always mirror images – we find in the literature intended for an aristocratic
audience that the ideal character did in fact lodge in the ideal body. Appropri-
ating a dual concept of ‘nobility’, aristocratic self-perceptions centred on the
‘virtues of the heart’ and the ‘virtues of the body’: a noble soul and noble body
enfolded. One’s ancestral background became one of the predicates for a
noble character. As several romances testify, it is the heroes’ elevated parentage
which ensures their virtue and worth as knights. Lancelot’s assertion that
virtues of the heart can be acquired by anyone, for example, is undermined by
the fact that the text’s project is to recount his deeds as the most excellent
knight at Arthur’s court. The author of the Prose Lancelot spends a great deal
of time describing Lancelot’s appearance in detail; and his reference to his
hero’s deviating characteristics is sufficiently ambiguous to be read either posi-
tively or negatively, as is in fact pointed out in the narrative. Moreover, there is
a noticeable divide between innate and acquired behaviour: Lancelot’s
ancestry means his noble character is fully shaped and the author points out
that although he has a tutor to teach him how to be a ‘gentil home’, he does
not really need one. Other men, less able-bodied, may still learn noble behav-
iour but they may never reach the same level of worth as one in whom both
noble qualities are naturally lodged. Ramon Llull, as we saw above, went
much further to exclude everyone not conforming to the idea of the ‘whole’
body from the ranks of knighthood.73
Other authors point out the ontological necessity of knights to be noble
and reiterate that there is no such thing as an ignoble knight. As we saw, both
Raoul de Hodenc and Ramon Llull urge knights to think on the name of
knighthood and to expel anyone who fails to live up to the standards of
nobility and honour which are its requirement. Again, it is only those men
with a noble background who are most suitable to be members of the knight-
hood, not the nouveaux riches, the bourgeoisie or ‘peasant upstarts’.
The position of the noble body within the ideal aristocratic identity comes
even more to the fore in the assertion that noble character lies enshrined in the
heart. Again, this does not come as a surprise, but it leads to an intense valori-
sation of the body as a suitable shrine for a precious treasure – as for example
Ramon Llull and Henry of Lancaster point out – and it collapses the meta-
phorical into the physical, testified by Lancelot’s large heart as well as the
motif of the heart exchange and its actualisation, the eaten heart, in different
literary genres. The notion of the noble heart within the noble body therefore
becomes the ideal which binds together the aristocratic group.
73 Lancelot do Lac, pp. 39, 141–2; Lancelot of the Lake, pp. 27, 51; Kennedy, ‘Quest for Iden-
tity’, p. 74; for Ramon Llull, see above p. 47.
All this points to a real concern with the perceived threat of the perme-
ability of social boundaries and a drive to exclude new members, which seems
part of the developments in government administration allowing non-
aristocrats to build a career, and part of the growing importance of towns and
urban communities threatening the exclusive position of the landholding aris-
tocracy. It is evident also in peripheral members imitating the cultural habits
of those closer to the centre of the group and the communal adherence to the
idea of knighthood even when a great number of aristocrats would not be
engaged in active warfare or would never have been knighted, as was the case
in the later thirteenth century.
As we shall see in the next chapter, the adherence to a communal image of
knighthood and nobility becomes evident in the aristocratic patronage of reli-
gious houses, their insistence on exclusive burial rights within monastic
compounds and, again from the mid thirteenth century onwards, a greater
emphasis on the idea of knighthood as a signifier of social difference in the
shape of the knightly effigy.
Chapter 3
Here Lies Nobility:

Aristocratic Bodies in Death
In this chapter and the next, I shall explore the ways in which the noble body
was perceived both in death and in funerary practices.1 Firstly, I will look at
where and how aristocrats were buried and how they were represented after
death. Secondly, I shall examine in greater detail the practices surrounding the
dead aristocratic body, in particular the role of embalming and multiple
burial.2
Funerary practices such as multiple burial should be seen in a wider context
of aristocratic presence in a local setting and the role of religious houses in
maintaining the image of nobility and status upon which a successful local
lord was dependent. Perceived in real and metaphorical terms as superior to
the people he lorded over, the aristocrat was reliant on presenting himself as
noble towards his tenants, peers and ecclesiastics, all of whom were part of an
intricate status- and honour-related network of socio-economic relationships,
which in general excluded the peasantry; in other words, one only had to be
noble towards one’s peers and superiors. As the Limousin troubadour Bertran
de Born reminded his aristocratic audience: it will not do to rule by fear and
extortion, but rather nobility should be used to attain one’s goal.3 Although it
1 A shorter discussion of this subject has previously appeared as D.M. Westerhof, ‘Cele-
brating Fragmentation: The Presence of Aristocratic Body Parts in Monastic Houses in
Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century England’, in Sepulturae Cistercienses, ed. J. Hall and C.
Kratzke. Citeaux: Commentarii cistercienses Studia et Documenta 14 (Forges-Chimay, 2005),
pp. 27–44.
2 I will refer to this practice as ‘multiple burial’ to indicate that the dead person received more
than one burial of parts of their body, although I am aware it is used in archaeological scholar-
ship to indicate the burial of more than one person in the same grave. The alternatives are ‘sec-
ondary burial’, which implies the sequencing of burials of the whole body over a longer period
(cf. Hertz, Death, passim), ‘multi-stage burial programme’ which is rather elaborate and
suggests a degree of premeditation not always evident from surviving evidence, or ‘partial
burial’, which conjures up a variety of meanings. See E. Weiss-Krejci, ‘Restless Corpses:
“Secondary burial” in the Babenberg and Habsburg Dynasties’, Antiquity 75 (2001), pp.
769–80; B. Gittos and M. Gittos, ‘Motivation and Choice: The Selection of Medieval Secular
Effigies’, in Heraldry, Pageantry and Social Display in Medieval England, ed. M. Keen and P.
Coss (Woodbridge, 2002), pp. 143–67, at p. 146.
3 See above, p. 45.
may in reality not always be the case that lords acted nobly towards each other
or towards their inferiors, the idea was certainly present in the aristocratic
mentality. It is this idea of nobility, which as we saw was located in the heart
and was enshrined by the body, which comes to the fore in aristocratic rela-
tions with religious houses and their burial practices.
Religious benefaction and burial practice: the Earls of Cornwall
On 13 March 1271, a shocking event took place which caused outrage in

England and Italy. As he was attending mass in Viterbo during peace negotia-
tions with the exiled Montforts, Henry of Almain, King Henry III’s nephew,
was brutally murdered by his cousins Guy and Simon de Montfort, sons of the
late Earl of Leicester, apparently in retaliation for their father’s ignominious
death in 1265. Henry had not been present at the Battle of Evesham, but had
played a duplicitous role during the baronial uprising before siding with his
royal relatives.4 The horror of the murder was highlighted in Dante’s Inferno,
where Guy’s soul is positioned in Phlegeton, the River of Blood, all ‘by itself to
one side’ in abject isolation as punishment for the murder: ‘That one cleft, in
the bosom of God, the heart that still drips along the Thames.’5
After his death, Henry’s body was swiftly prepared for its journey home.
His entrails and flesh were interred in the church of Santa Maria dei Gradi in
Viterbo, ‘between two popes’ according to the Hailes Chronicle, while his
heart and bones were returned to England. After their arrival, on 15 May his
heart was placed close to the shrine of Edward the Confessor in Westminster
Abbey, apparently encased in a golden cup. Six days later, his bones were given
their final resting place before the high altar at Hailes Abbey, founded by his
father Richard Earl of Cornwall in 1246.6
Henry’s momentous and tragic return to England was by no means
4 N. Vincent, ‘Henry of Almain (1235–1271)’, ODNB, online edition (Oxford, 2005); R.

Studd, ‘The Marriage between Henry of Almain and Constance of Béarn’, Thirteenth Century
England III: Proceedings of the Newcastle upon Tyne Conference 1989, ed. P.R. Coss and S.D.
Lloyd (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 161–79; Ann. Hailes, p. 78; Wykes, p. 241; Foedera, 1: 501–2;
De antiquis legibus liber: Chronica maiorum et vicecomitum Londoniarum, ed. T. Stapledon.
Camden Society first series 64 (1864), pp. 133–4.
5 Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno. Ed. R.M. Durling (Oxford,
1996), 190–1 (Canto XII). See also, P.H. Brieger, ‘A Statue of Henry of Almain’, Essays in
Medieval History presented to Bertie Wilkinson. Ed. T.A. Sandquist and M.R. Powicke (Toronto,
1969), pp. 133–8, at 133–4. J. Maddicott, ‘Guy de Montfort (c.1244–1291/2),’ ODNB,
online edition (Oxford, 2006); F.M. Powicke, ‘Guy de Montfort (1265–1271)’, TRHS fourth
series 18 (1935), pp. 1–23.
6 Ann. Hailes, p. 78; Wykes, p. 244; Ann. Oseneia, p. 244; Flores Historiarum, 3: 22; N.
Denholm-Young, Richard of Cornwall (Oxford, 1947), p. 151. Brieger discusses an Italian
tradition which maintains that a statue was made of Henry holding in his hand a cup
containing his heart pierced with a dagger; ‘A Statue of Henry of Almain’, pp. 133–8.
HERE LIES NOBILITY 59
exceptional in the thirteenth century. Embalming, or in his case, excarnation,
was a practical means of preserving bodily remains for transport between the
site of death and the site of preferred interment. His case highlights the
emotional value of repatriating bodily remains for burial in familiar surround-
ings, which doubtless underlay some known cases of multiple burial. His
father’s foundation of Hailes provided a suitable space for his bones; only a
year later, Richard himself was interred before the high altar beside his son.
His stepmother Sanchia had been buried at Hailes in 1261, while one of
Henry’s half-brothers who died in infancy in 1246 had been transferred as
soon as the abbey church had been consecrated. Hailes was therefore clearly
intended as a focal point for family commemoration and burial.7 Moreover,
Henry’s case points to the valorisation of the heart in its own right as a body
part which could be interred separately in a container of precious metal and
without compromising one’s corporeal integrity. Westminster Abbey, and in
particular the area around the Confessor’s shrine, became the preferred burial
site for a number of royal children; in addition, Henry may have followed
Henry III, his uncle, in holding the Confessor in special esteem.8 Before
looking into these issues in greater detail, it may be useful to contextualise
Henry’s burial in light of his family’s benefaction and burial preferences.
Cistercian Hailes in Gloucestershire was evidently the centre of the family’s
religious patronage, although away from their base of landholdings in the
Home Counties.9 Founded in 1246 on terra Normannorum and populated
from John’s foundation of Beaulieu in Hampshire, Hailes was the first of
Richard of Cornwall’s foundations, followed in the early 1250s by a Trini-
tarian friary in Knaresborough in Yorkshire, and in 1266 by an Augustinian
nunnery at Burnham in Buckinghamshire.10 In 1270, Richard’s second
surviving son, Edmund, donated a vial of the Holy Blood to Hailes in a
splendid ceremony which included a procession from nearby Winchcombe
with Edmund carrying the vessel and formally donating it at the high altar at
Hailes. Building work on the church in 1272 necessitated by a fire, included
the construction of a majestic polygonal apse, or chevet, modelled on that of
7 Ann. Hailes, pp. 61–2. The dedication of the church took place on 9 November 1251. See
also Ann. Oseneia, p. 128. For Sanchia’s death and burial see below.
8 J.D. Tanner, ‘The Tombs of Royal Babies in Westminster Abbey’, JBAA third series 16
(1953), pp. 25–40. Edward the Confessor’s remains had been translated on 13 October 1269 in
the presence of Henry III, who was himself temporarily interred in the old shrine after his death
in November 1272. P. Binski, Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets: Kingship and the Repre-
sentation of Power 1200–1400 (New Haven, 1995), pp. 98–9. Henry’s only known religious
donation concerned money to finance candles before the Confessor’s shrine. Vincent, ‘Henry
of Almain’.
9 See Denholm-Young, Richard of Cornwall, Appendix 2.
10 CChR 1226–1257, pp. 288, 294; C. Holdsworth, ‘Royal Cistercians: Beaulieu, her Daugh-
ters and Rewley’ in Thirteenth-Century England 4: Proceedings of the Newcastle upon Tyne
Conference 1991, ed. P.R. Coss and S.D. Lloyd (Woodbridge, 1992), pp. 139–50, at 144.
Westminster Abbey, which was largely paid for by Edmund and which was to
house a shrine to the Holy Blood. After the work was completed in 1277, he
continued to endow the abbey with several manors and advowsons.11 In 1301,
his skeletal remains were interred at Hailes in a ceremony attended by the king
and queen, and several aristocratic and ecclesiastical dignitaries. Alongside
Edmund’s own foundations, Hailes appears to have been the only one of his
father’s foundations and patronage to have received the younger Earl’s special
consideration.12
Apart from founding and supporting Hailes, Knaresborough and
Burnham, Richard’s and Edmund’s patronage could certainly be considered
generous. During Richard’s stays in the Low Countries and the Rhineland
after he had been consecrated King of the Romans in 1257, he confirmed the
privileges of religious houses made by his predecessors and in his will he left
500 marks to the Dominicans in Germany. Richard also made donations of
property and rents to his father’s foundation of Beaulieu in 1235 and 1240.13
After the death of his first wife Isabella in 1240, he granted £10 each to the
Knights Templar and Hospitaller, and he instituted a chantry at Wallingford
with an endowment of five marks to pray for his wife’s soul. Moreover, he was
one of the main supporters for the canonisation of Edmund of Abingdon and
visited his shrine in Pontigny in 1247 and 1250.14 Edmund, Richard’s son
named after the saint, followed in his father’s footsteps and founded a chapel
in honour of his patron saint at Abingdon in 1288. Following a wider social
and religious interest in the work of the mendicant orders, Richard also made
financial donations to the Dominicans and Franciscans, and in 1272 his heart
was buried in the church of the Oxford Grey Friars ‘under a sumptuous
pyramid’.15 His crusading dream was kept alive by a donation of 8000 marks
upon his death to support another attempt to liberate the Holy Land, money
11 W. Bazeley, ‘The Abbey of St Mary, Hayles’, TBGAS 22 (1899), pp. 257–71, at 267; N.
Vincent, The Holy Blood: King Henry and the Westminster Blood Relic (Cambridge, 2001), p.
137–53, 206–8; VCH Gloucester, 2: 97; J. Denton, ‘From the Foundation of Vale Royal Abbey
to the Statute of Carlisle: Edward I and Ecclesiastical Patronage’, in Thirteenth Century England
4, ed. Coss and Lloyd, pp. 123–38, at 125; L.M. Midgeley, Ministers’ Accounts of the Earldom of
Cornwall 1296–1297, 2 vols. Camden Society third series 66–67 (1942, 1945), 1: x–xi.
12 Ann. Hailes, pp. 114–15; N. Vincent, ‘Edmund of Almain (1249–1300)’, ODNB, online
version (Oxford, 2004); Midgeley, Ministers’ Accounts, 1: xi. Holdsworth calculated from the
Taxatio Nicholai of 1291 that the income for Hailes was £106, £29 of which was donated by
either Richard or Edmund. ‘Royal Cistercians’, p. 147.
13 Richard’s contribution to Beaulieu came to £47 out of a total of £286 in 1291. Holdsworth,
‘Royal Cistercians’, p. 146.
14 Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, 4: 646–7, 5: 111.
15 A. Wood, Survey of the Antiquities of the City of Oxford, ed. A. Clark, 2 vols. (Oxford,
1889–90), 2: 384; A.G. Little, The Grey Friars of Oxford (Oxford, 1892), p. 25. N. Trivet,
Annales sex regum Angliae, ed. T. Hog (London, 1845), p. 279. Urns and pyramids were a
common feature in French funerary sculpture associated with heart and viscera burials. See M.
Desfayes, ‘Les tombeaux de cœur et d’entrailles en France au moyen âge’, Bulletin des musées de
France 12 (1947), pp. 18–20, at 18.
which was in the meantime to be kept at the New Temple Church in
London.16 Lastly, he set aside money to found a college in Oxford, realised as
the Cistercian abbey of Rewley by Edmund to be a studium for Cistercian
monks coming to Oxford.17 This was followed in 1291 by another studium for
Trinitarian friars whom Edmund provided with a house and chapel in
Oxford.18 Edmund’s other major foundation was that of a college of
Bonhommes at Ashridge in 1282, dedicated to the Holy Blood, a portion of
which had already been granted to Hailes. In addition to this relic, the
convent also received the heart of Bishop Thomas Cantilupe of Hereford,
who had died in Italy in the same year and whose remains had been trans-
ported back to England for interment at Hereford Cathedral. Edmund’s own
heart was buried at the convent in January 1301 in the presence of Edward
Prince of Wales, Bishop Antony Bek of Durham, Bishop Walter Langton of
Coventry and Lichfield, Guy de Beauchamp Earl of Warwick and many
others. His entrails had been interred here immediately after his death in
September 1300.19
Richard was married three times (Fig. 1). His first wife was Isabella
Marshal, formerly married to Gilbert de Clare Earl of Gloucester, and
daughter of William Marshal Earl of Pembroke and Isabella of Striguil. Before
her death during childbirth in 1240, she granted land worth £10 to Tewkes-
bury Abbey where Gilbert was interred, a collection of relics, 40 marks in
silver and liturgical objects. She had also left 100s to Markyate for a perpetual
chantry in her first husband’s memory before she remarried.20 According to
the author of the Tewkesbury annals, she had arranged to be buried with her
first husband. Instead, Richard decided that her remains should rest at
Beaulieu Abbey before the high altar, but he did grant her heart to Tewkes-
bury (‘the best part’ according to the annals). Since she died at Berkhamsted,
her entrails were buried at Missenden Priory, perhaps with her still-born
infant.21
In November 1261, Richard’s second wife, Sanchia, the Queen’s sister,
died at Berkhamsted. With Hailes Abbey having been dedicated, the natural
choice was for her to be interred there, despite the fact that her relations with
Richard appeared remarkably cold by this time.22 There is hardly evidence for
16 Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters.
13 vols. (London, 1893–1955), 1: 621.
17 In 1291, Rewley’s income was listed as £38, which was completely derived from gifts made
by Edmund. Holdworth, ‘Royal Cistercians’, p. 147.
18 CPR 1281–1292, pp. 132–3; Midgeley, Ministers’ Accounts, 1: xi–xii, xiv–xv, 148.
Holdsworth, ‘Royal Cistercians’, pp. 140, 142.
19 Midgeley, Ministers’ Accounts, 1: xiii–xiv; Ann. Hailes, p. 114; Monasticon, 6: 517.
20 Ann. Tewkesbury, pp. 113–14.
21 Ibid., p. 113.
22 Ann. Hailes, p. 78; Wykes, p. 244; Ann. Oseneia, p. 244; Denholm-Young, Richard of
Cornwall, pp. 112–13. Before her death on 9 November, her executors were given control over
Fig. 1: Richard Earl of Cornwall and his family
John* = 2. Isabella of Angoulême
Henry III* Richard Earl of Cornwall (1209–1272)*

= 1. Isabella Marshal (d. 1240)*
John Isabella Henry* Nicholas

(b.d. 1232) (b.d. 1234) (b. 1235–d. 1271) (b.d. 1240)
= 2. Sanchia of Provence (d. 1261)?
Richard Edmund*
(b.d. 1246) (b. 1250–d. 1300 s.p.)
= 3. Beatrice of Falkenburg (d. 1277)

KEY
* Multiple burial certain
? Multiple burial not certain
her making religious donations on her own, although she was thanked by the
Franciscan Adam Marsh for her generosity towards the Grey Friars in Oxford.
In addition she is known to have made a gift of a hermitage to John of Apulia
near the Tower, and she left £100 to Cirencester Abbey in her will.23 Despite
the latter generous donation it is a little surprising to find a reference to the
separate interment of her heart at Cirencester in an account of the
sixteenth-century antiquarian John Leland. Unfortunately, he is the sole
source of this information and, as yet, it has not been possible to ascertain the
exact relationship between the earls of Cornwall and Cirencester Abbey,
although evidence from the surviving cartulary suggests it was a predomi-
nantly acrimonious and otherwise indifferent affair.24 The source of conflict
her will, which strongly suggests she was in a coma from which she was considered unlikely to
recover. This uncertainty may also account for the fact that although Richard had visited her a
few days before her death, he was in London the day she died.
23 Monumenta franciscana, ed. J.S. Brewer, 2 vols. RS 4 (1858), 1: 292; Denholm-Young,
Richard of Cornwall, p. 51; The Cartulary of Cirencester Abbey 3, ed. M. Devine (Oxford, 1977),
p. 808 (no. 283).
24 John Leland, The Itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535–1543, ed. L.
Toulmin-Smith, 5 vols. (London, 1964), 1: 129.
centred on the manor of Lechlade in Gloucestershire, which had been granted
to Richard and Sanchia in 1252 upon the death of Isabella de Mortimer. On
at least two occasions, the abbot successfully contested Richard’s encroach-
ment of his judicial liberties in the manor; Richard’s other involvement with
Cirencester was limited to witnessing charters issued by his brother Henry III,
while the abbey’s cartulary does not contain any evidence that Edmund had
any further relations with the community. In 1300, however, he granted
Lechlade Manor to Hailes for £100 in farm fee.25
Of Richard’s third wife, Beatrix of Falkenburg, we know very little. A
member of the Rhineland aristocracy, she and Richard married in June 1269,
after which he took her to England. When Richard died in 1272, it is possible
that she organised his heart burial at the Oxford Franciscans, where she was
buried herself in 1277. Between these years, Beatrix all but disappears from
the records. She was a receiver of royal gifts in 1273 and 1276; her stepson
Edmund, in the meantime, disputed with her over part of Sanchia’s dower,
which appears to have been settled in February 1276.26 If the surviving donor
portrait of her, now in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow, is indeed from the
Franciscan church in Oxford, it would be an indication of her considerable
benefactions to the order. Other than this, she has left no trace of religious
donations.27
What we can observe from the above information is that, first of all, burials
clustered around one favoured religious house, founded by the pater familias.
Before Richard founded Hailes, Beaulieu and Reading Abbeys had been
chosen as burial sites for his first wife and two of their children, presumably
because these were founded by his ancestors.28 After the dedication of Hailes,
several members of his family including himself were buried there. Secondly,
in some cases, the heart received separate interment, either because of a partic-
ular devotion to a saint (Henry) or attachment to a house founded by the
donor (Edmund). Thirdly, Richard’s young widow Beatrix seems to have had
25 The Cartulary of Cirencester Abbey 1–2, ed. C.D. Ross (Oxford, 1964), 1: 39 (no. 44/8), 42
(no. 49/36–7); 2: 548–9 (no. 650); Cartulary of Cirencester Abbey 3, pp. 847–8 (no. 378); D.A.
Carpenter, ‘A Noble in Politics: Roger Mortimer in the Period of Baronial Reforms and Rebel-
lion, 1258–1265’, in Nobles and Nobility, ed. A. Duggan, pp. 183–203; VCH Gloucestershire, 2:
125; for Edmund’s donation see CChR 1257–1300, p. 349; CChR 1300–1326, p. 2.
26 CCR 1272–1279, pp. 268, 299, 319; Ann. Oseneia, p. 274; F.R. Lewis, ‘Beatrice of
Falkenburg: The Third Wife of Richard of Cornwall’, EHR 52 (1937), pp. 279–82;
Denholm-Young, Richard of Cornwall, pp. 141, 153.
27 Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries, Burrell Collection 45/2; for an image see P. Coss, The
Lady in Medieval England, 1000–1500 (Stroud, 1998), p. 48. The legend in the panel reads
‘Beatrix de Valkenburgh Regina Allemannie’. See also S.H. Steinberg, ‘A Portrait of Beatrix of
Falkenburg’, The Antiquaries Journal 18 (1938), pp. 142–5.
28 Beaulieu was founded by John; Reading was reinstated as a regular community by Henry I,
who was also buried there. After this, the abbey seems to have become a mausoleum for junior
members of the royal family. Monasticon, 4: 40 (Reading), 5: 680–4 (Beaulieu). Also,
Holdsworth, ‘Royal Cistercians’, pp. 140–1.
little reason to feel particularly attached to her English in-laws and instead of
Hailes, she chose to be buried with the heart of her elderly husband at the
Grey Friars in Oxford. Likewise, Isabella had indicated a strong preference for
Tewkesbury Abbey rather than a house associated with her husband’s family,
but in this she appears to have been overruled. Instead, only her heart was sent
to Tewkesbury, which the community there obviously chose to interpret as an
act of devotion to her first husband. Lastly, there was a clear physical separa-
tion of the entrails from the heart. In both references to entrail burials, we find
that they were inhumed at the nearest suitable location and with little cer-
emony. In Edmund’s case, we find that there was a deliberate delay in the
funerary proceedings to accommodate a grand funeral for his heart, separately
from his other interior organs which were disposed of immediately after his
death. This also indicates a clear premeditation to inter the heart separately
from the rest of the body.
The burial pattern therefore shows a strong focus on burial amongst family
members on the one hand and on a concern with religious piety on the other.
Moreover, the preference for one’s own foundation for interment created a
strong bond which would aid commemoration, while at the same time
impressing one’s secular presence on the religious community not only
through the usual signs of ‘ownership’, such as the display of heraldry on
windows, walls or floor tiles, and the sponsorship of building works, but also
through the physical presence of the aristocratic body and the funerary art.29
Aristocratic patronage and burial
Religious patronage was an important aspect of aristocratic burial practices; it

not only ensured spiritual comfort during life and thereafter, but also gave the
patron or benefactor political status and influence. To the aristocracy, the
foundation and continued support of religious houses formed a significant
aspect of their lordship, which could be continued independently of particular
family connections, for example when the title and estates moved from one
family to the next.30 Religious communities, however, became apprehensive
about such patronage, while welcoming the social and financial rewards it
might bring. Founders, patrons and benefactors often wished to become part
of the familia of a religious community; they desired burial within the
monastic precinct for themselves and their family; they exercised the right of
advocacy; and they frequently demanded money in exchange for a ‘gift’ of
29 For signs of secular lordship at Hailes, see Bazeley, ‘The Abbey of St Mary, Hayles’, pp. 262,
268–9.
30 See for example the case study of the Clare benefactions in J.C. Ward, ‘Fashions in Monastic
Endowment: The Foundations of the Clare Family, 1066–1314’, Journal of Ecclesiastical
History 32 (1981), pp. 427–51.
land.31 Religious patronage was regarded as a means of enhancing or consoli-
dating one’s social status, for example by persuading tenants to surrender
income to a favoured house or by being able to proclaim ownership.32 In addi-
tion, the alienation of rents, lands or use of facilities required the approval of
whoever held the fee. Great landowners such as Gilbert I de Clare Earl of
Gloucester or Ranulph III Earl of Chester could therefore be regarded as
donors even if they did not make donations in person.33 Patronage could
render visible dynastic continuity of a social position, while maintaining the
well-being of one’s soul. Having close relationships with a monastic commu-
nity offered the opportunity of exclusive burial while creating a focal point of
familial commemoration, to which a monastery might oblige by creating a
family genealogy, as for example at Llantony Secunda or Walden Abbey.34
Religious patronage also created a divide between aristocrats and non-
aristocrats, which was further underscored by the use of funerary tombs and
effigies, ostentatious funerals and the practice of burial of body parts at more
than one site, which reached a peak after 1200.
The advantages of religious patronage and benefaction for the aristocracy
are evident. Often on the doorstep of important administrative centres
within lordships, religious communities provided spiritual guidance, prayer
and fraternity for the lord, his relatives and his tenants.35 It is therefore not
surprising that there was a pattern to aristocratic patronage depending on
shifts in political and social fortune, advice by members of a particular order,
31 S. Wood, English Monasteries and their Patrons in the Thirteenth Century (Oxford, 1955); E.
Mason, ‘Timeo barones et donas ferentes’, in Religious Motivation: Biographical and Sociological
Problems for the Church Historian, ed. D. Baker (Oxford, 1978), pp. 61–75; C. Holdsworth,
The Piper and the Tune: Medieval Patrons and Monks (Reading, 1991), p. 5, for his discussion of
the difference between patrons and benefactors; E. Cownie, Religious Patronage in
Anglo-Norman England, 1066–c.1135 (Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 152, 172–3.
32 For example, Hugh d’Avranches Earl of Chester persuaded his baronial tenants to join him
in the endowment of St Werburgh Abbey in Chester. Tenants were also able to make their own
arrangements with other religious houses: William Fitz Nigel donated to St Werburgh, but also
to Bridlington and Nostell; Cownie, Religious Patronage, pp. 176, 178, 181. They were not to
give lands exceeding 100s rent per annum, but were allowed to offer their remains for burial in
the abbey precinct provided they parted with an additional third of possessions held of him.
Ranulph III Earl of Chester, in his charters to Dieulacres, which he founded, proudly proclaims
ownership over its community: e.g. CEC, nos. 377, 379, 381, 392 (abbatia mea … monachi
mei; abbati et monachis meis de Deulacres). Cf. B. Golding, ‘Burials and Benefactions: An Aspect
of Monastic Patronage in Thirteenth-Century England’, in England in the Thirteenth Century:
Proceedings of the 1984 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. W.M. Ormrod (Grantham, 1985), pp.
64–75, at 68–9.
33 Mason, ‘Timeo barones’, p. 71; Ann. Tewks, p. 76 for Gilbert I de Clare’s benefactions; for
Ranulph III see Westerhof, ‘Celebrating Fragmentation’, pp. 30–1 and references there. The
patronage of the earls of Chester in fact eclipsed that of the original founders of Poulton Priory,
whose community was moved to Dieulacres by Ranulph III.
34 Dugdale, Monasticon 4: 133–49; 6: 127–40.
35 Holdworth, Piper and the Tune, pp. 17–19; M.W. Thompson, ‘Associated Monasteries and
Castles in the Middle Ages: A Tentative List’, Archaeological Journal 143 (1986), pp. 305–21.
or just individual preference.36 Moreover, new foundations could appear on

estates which were under contested ownership or which had escheated to a
baron or the king as a result of the death or punishment of the previous
owner. Hailes Abbey, as we saw, was founded on an escheated manor which
Henry III donated to Richard in 1245, while after acquiring the contested
manor of Lechlade as a marriage portion for Sanchia in 1252, Richard
exerted his lordship by granting the hospital on the estate the right to chose
their own prior. Robert II Earl of Leicester allowed his steward Ernald de
Bosco to found a daughter-house of Garendon Abbey on land to which he
held an uncertain claim, and reverted to this way of eliminating contested
ownership on other occasions as well.37
The options for aristocratic endowment and benefaction of religious
houses were obviously more varied than the choice of where someone wished
to be buried. Traditionally, burial amongst relatives was seen as the norm,
although it was expected that one would respect the wishes of the dying if they
decided otherwise.38 With regard to aristocratic burial practices, it is clear
from surviving records that where the body was laid to rest was as important as
how it was disposed of. Frequently, the choice of burial site coincided with the
preference shown in benefactions, which themselves were the result of
familial, political and personal factors. Aristocratic burials tended to cement
the relations between families and religious houses: once a benefactor or
patron was received for interment, the community could look forward to
further financial benefits from surviving relatives, while they would provide
the spiritual support for the deceased and their families.
This desire to be associated with particular monasteries or churches is also
evident from a preference to be buried with other members of the family
(usually ancestors or predeceased children, rather than extended family
members). This clustering took place for example at Hailes Abbey (earls of
Cornwall), Tewkesbury Abbey (earls of Gloucester), and Llantony Secunda
(earls of Hereford), to name but a few.39 Moreover, it was not just the
geographical location which mattered, but also the topographical space within
36 For the royal preference for Cistercian monasteries, see Holdworth, ‘Royal Cistercians’.
37 For Hailes and Lechlade see above, pp. 59 and 63; for Biddlesden Abbey, founded by
Ernald: J. Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain 1000–1300, Cambridge Medieval
Textbooks (Cambridge, 1994) pp. 73–4. Garendon Abbey was also founded during the course
of a dispute over ownership.
38 Gratian, Decretum, C.13, Q.2, c.2–3. Corpus iuris canonici, ed. E.A. Friedberg and E.L.
Richter, 2 vols. (Graz, 1959; 1879), 1: 717, 720–2. Cf. E.A.R. Brown, ‘Authority, Family and
the Dead in Late Medieval France’, French Historical Studies 16 (1990), pp. 803–32, at 807.
39 For Hailes, see above; for Tewkesbury, see Ann. Tewks, pp. 76, 113–14, and 169;
Monasticon, 2: 55. Also, Golding, ‘Burials and Benefactions’, pp. 68–71; id. ‘Anglo-Norman
Knightly Burials’, in The Ideals and Practice of Medieval Knighthood: Papers from the First and
Second Strawberry Hill Conferences, ed. C. Harper-Bill and R. Harvey (Woodbridge, 1986), pp.
35–48, at 41.
the monastic precinct. As Christopher Daniell has argued for parish churches,
there was a distinct spatial hierarchy which reflected social stratification.40 The
same is observable in monastic spaces, where there is a distinct preference for
the area close to the high altar or the chapter house. For example, four genera-
tions of Ros lords of Helmsley were buried in front of the high altar and the
space between the presbytery and ambulatory of Kirkham Priory, despite the
occasional issues between the priory and its patrons. William I (d. 1258) was
buried ‘coram summam altare’; Robert III (d. 1285) ‘ex parte australi’ in a
marble tomb; William II (d. 1316) was buried on the north side and his son
again to the south of the high altar. Prior to this, Rievaulx Abbey, also in the
patronage of the Ros family, had received two generations plus the founder
Walter Espec for burial in their grounds. However, considering that Rievaulx
Abbey only allowed the burial of its lay benefactors in the Galilee porch at the
west entrance, rather than in the church itself, it is possible that Kirkham was
chosen because it would allow church interment.41 Moreover, around 1300 a
major rebuilding of the choir was started to provide a more ostentatious
setting for the tombs of the Ros family, while the gatehouse front was redeco-
rated with the heraldry of several aristocratic families, including the Ros.42
The chapter house, which more than the high altar signified the political
influence of the patrons over the monastery, was a favoured location of the
Bohun earls of Hereford from the moment they acquired the earldom through
marriage to the heiress of Miles of Gloucester. With the earldom came the
patronage of Llantony Secunda, founded by Miles. Ordinarily, the chapter
house was reserved for abbatial burials and was not available to lay benefactors.
The fact that the Bohuns were able to secure this space for successive earls and
their wives is evidence of their powerful presence within the monastery.43
Similarly, Ranulph I Earl of Chester decided to have the remains of the
founder of St Werburgh, his uncle Hugh, transferred from the cemetery to the
chapter house in 1129 and he was buried there himself soon afterwards.44
Several benefactors, moreover, were keen to stress the continuity of
patronage associated with their family or with a lordship. One way was to
shift their burial preference, as happened at Tewkesbury Abbey with the
Clares inheriting the earldom of Gloucester and, after 1314, with the
Despensers, or at Llantony Secunda. Another way was to move the remains
of the founder from their original location to a new, more prominent space.
40 Daniell, Death and Burial, pp. 96–101.

41 For Kirkham see J.E. Burton, Kirkham Priory from Foundation to Dissolution. Borthwick
Paper 86 (York, 1995), p. 23; G. Coppack, S. Harrison, and C. Hayfield, ‘Kirkham Priory: The
Architecture and Archaeology of an Augustinian House’, JBAA 148 (1995), pp. 55–136.
42 Burton, Kirkham Priory, p. 23; Coppack, Harrison and Hayfield, ‘Kirkham Priory’, p. 108.
43 Monasticon, 6: 135; see also I.J. Sanders, English Baronies: A Study of their Origin and Descent
1086–1327 (Oxford, 1960), pp. 91–2 for a corrected genealogy of the Bohun earls.
44 CEC, p. 47 (no. 29).
The translation of Hugh d’Avranches has just been mentioned, but a similar
fate befell Robert Fitz Hamon, founder of Tewkesbury in 1241 and Henry
de Ferrers, founder of Tutbury Priory in 1165.45 A more dramatic move of
ancestral remains occurred in 1283 at the request of Henry de Lacy Earl of
Lincoln, when several generations of Lacy ancestors were translated from the
uninhabitable site of Stanlaw in Cheshire to a new monastery at Whalley in
Lancashire.46
The monuments of those requesting interment in front of an altar or
within the chapter house would have been relatively simple. Considering the
exclusivity of burial locations, the interment sites were either common knowl-
edge, or there were lists, maps or visual signs in the fabric of the building to
indicate locations, as there appear to have been for monastic cemeteries. Addi-
tionally, genealogical lists and local chronicles would often include informa-
tion on the burial location of the main benefactors and patrons.47 For
instance, the Clares were buried in a row in front of the high altar, which
would suggest a simple grave slab to avoid anyone being hindered by trip
hazards. Early Cistercian statutes, for example, clearly indicate that funerary
monuments should be flush with the floor in the cloisters and it seems
unlikely that similar restrictions were not in place in other heavily used areas.48
In other instances, aristocratic patrons were content to be buried further away
from the high altar, or to use the sides of the ambulatory and presbytery walls
for entombment which would allow for more ostentatious funerary monu-
ments. Moreover, not all burials needed floor space. Many hearts, for
example, were buried close to walls or inside wall niches which could then be
covered with a vertical grave marker, such as Giles de Coberley’s heart monu-
ment or that of Bishop Aymer de Valence.49
An aspect of aristocratic patronage that has not been discussed so far is the
shift in preference towards the mendicant orders, which becomes particularly
pronounced towards the end of the thirteenth century. Headed by members
45 Ann. Tewks. 76; The Cartulary of Tutbury Priory, ed. A. Saltman (London, 1962), pp. 66–7;
Golding, ‘Knightly Burials’, p. 42. The translation of Robert Fitz Hamon’s remains occurred
while Richard de Clare was still a ward of the king. It is possible that the community of Tewkes-
bury wished to anticipate the young Richard de Clare’s seisin of his inheritance and, by implica-
tion, his patronage of the abbey. On the other hand, it could have been instigated by Richard of
Cornwall, who had been married to Richard’s mother Isabella.
46 Monasticon, 5: 647–8.
47 Gilchrist and Sloane, Requiem, pp. 47–52. Brian Golding rightly points out that these lists
and chronicles, possibly compiled to ensure the continuation of endowments, do not always
provide accurate information. The Bohun genealogy compiled at Llantony Secunda is a case in
point. Golding, ‘Knightly Burials’, pp. 38–9.
48 C. Kratzke, ‘Bestatten – Gedenken – Repräsentieren: Mittelalterliche Sepulkraldenkmäler
in Zisterzen’, Sepulturae Cistercienses, ed. Hall and Kratzke, pp. 9–25, at 14–16.
49 Gittos and Gittos, ‘Motivation and Choice’, p. 154; R. Horrox, ‘Purgatory, Prayer and
Plague: 1150–1380’, in Death in England: An Illustrated History, ed. P.C. Jupp and C. Gittings
(Manchester, 1999), pp. 90–118, at 100.
of the royal family, aristocrats occasionally diverted considerable endowments
to the Grey and Black Friars, and sought burial in their convents.50 The
Beauchamps of Worcester, for example, were keen to shift their attentions to
the Franciscan friary of that town, although the cathedral had been their tradi-
tional object of benefaction. William III and his son William IV both
preferred to be interred with the Franciscans, a decision which was met with
great indignation by the cathedral community. In the end, only William IV
succeeded in getting his burial with the friars, leaving not a single penny to the
cathedral in his will.51
This necessarily short survey, therefore, reveals that aristocratic burial was
predominantly organised around ancestral interments inside the monastic
space, although a conscious break from this could be effected by changes in
the fortunes of the patronal family, by the lordship shifting to a new family
through inheritance or royal gift, or by changes in preference for a religious
order. Moreover, aristocrats generally wanted the best locations for themselves
and their family, which influenced where they chose to be buried and
commemorated. From all this, it is evident that physical presence played an
important role in the establishment of spiritual and socio-economical rela-
tions between aristocrats and ‘their’ religious houses. For the aristocracy, the
clustered interment of ancestors strengthened their position in the locality,
while a move to a new monastic community upon the acquisition of an
earldom or lordship could help to establish a new presence. For religious
houses, the extra income which burials would bring was often exceedingly
welcome, even if it was not in the spirit of monastic rule.52
‘Hic jacet corpus nobilis’: funerals and funerary monuments
If it mattered where the aristocratic body was laid to rest, it was consequently
also important to bury it properly and to mark the grave sufficiently for
targeted spiritual intercession and commemoration. Although death was the
great leveller, the social hierarchy was strictly maintained during the funeral
obsequies and of course in the choice of burial site. The fact that the bodies of
founders could still be identified in cemeteries or elsewhere inside monastic
buildings certainly suggests that there were grave markers or a site plan.53
50 Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders, p. 120; cf. C.L. Kingsford, The Grey Friars of
London: Their History with the Register of their Convent and an Appendix of Documents
(Aberdeen, 1915), pp. 134–44 for a register of burials.
51 Mason, ‘Timeo barones’, pp. 66–7, 72–3; Golding, ‘Burials and Benefactions’, pp. 65–6.
52 See J. Hall, ‘The Legislative Background to the Burial of the Laity and other Patrons in
Cistercian Abbeys’, in Sepulturae Cistercienses, ed. J. Hall and C. Kratzke, pp. 373–417.
53 Isidore of Seville argued that ‘monumentum’ shared the same etymology as ‘memoria’; a
monument admonishes the mind to remember the dead. Etymologiae, XV.11.1.
However, it is hard to ascertain how much an aristocratic funeral would cost

in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in the absence of wills specifying sums
of money to be left for specific actions or of systematic household accounts
which would specify actual expenditure.54 Moreover, their physical and
symbolic presence did not prove to be enough for aristocratic donors. Increas-
ingly in the thirteenth century patrons and benefactors requested a more
enduring indicator of their individual and familial presence than a simple
grave marker. Heraldry became more common at burial sites, as did figurative
monuments displaying the aristocratic dead in all their worldly glory.
The surviving references to the costs of the funeral and funerary monu-
ments for Eleanor of Castile in 1291–92 are exceptional both in terms of their
specificity but also in what it entailed.55 After she died, Edward I commis-
sioned an elaborate programme of funerary architecture and sculpture which
included three effigies for the three sites at which parts of Eleanor’s body were
buried, twelve crosses for each overnight station of the funerary cortège from
Lincoln to Westminster Abbey where her body was interred. A separate
funeral was staged for her heart at the Black Friars in London, after the inter-
ment of her body. In addition, Edward founded chantries in every part of the
country.56
In other cases, calculating expenditure is more a matter of guesswork. In
addition to costs of transport, the preparation of the body, the mortuary fee
and the fair distribution of one’s estate, other costs would have to be taken
into account, such as alms to the poor, legacies to one’s favourite religious
houses, food and drink for the guests, the payment of debts, the purchase of
funerary objects and clothes, the tomb and of course commemoration.57 For
example, Roger de Clifford left a will in 1284 in which he specified some
projected expenditure related to his funeral and commemoration. He stipu-
lated that his warhorse trappings or 30 marks should be donated to Abbey
Dore (Herefordshire) where he wished to be buried; for the funeral and alms
(not further specified), £40; £100 for ten chaplains celebrating mass for his
soul for three years. Further payments were to be made to various religious
54 This is different for the later medieval period, although there was no consistency on how
much should be spent on the funeral. Cf. C. Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual in Early
Modern England (London, 1984), p. 25; C.M. Woolgar, ed. Household Accounts from Medieval
England 2, Records of Social and Economic History ns 18 (Oxford, 1993), pp. 679–82
detailing the funeral expenses for Thomas of Lancaster, Duke of Clarence who was killed in
France in March 1421 and buried the following September; the total came to c. £125 14s 6d.
55 See Manners and Household Expenses of England in the Thirteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
Illustrated by Original Records, ed. T.H. Turner (London, 1841), pp. 93–146; J. Hunter, ‘On
the Death of Eleanor of Castile, Consort of King Edward the First, and the Honours paid to her
Memory’, Archaeologia 29 (1842), pp. 167–91.
56 J.C. Parsons, Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in Thirteenth-Century England (New
York, 1995), pp. 206–8; Binski, Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets, pp. 107–8.
57 Daniell, Death and Burial, pp. 44–8, 52–61.
houses (£16) and 50 marks were set aside for one man to go to the Holy
Land.58
Although Roger’s concerns appear to focus on spiritual benefits more than
the pomp of a funeral service, sometimes we do catch a glimpse of more
secular interests, belied by the emphasis on spiritual welfare expressed in wills
and charters, which reveals a level of display and pride of social position antici-
pating the lavish aristocratic and royal funerals of the late fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries.59 Although the Annals of Hailes do not enumerate the
expenditure for the funerals of Edmund Earl of Cornwall in 1301 at Ashridge
and Hailes, it is evident that they were elaborate and well-attended affairs,
including a funerary procession from Winchcombe to Hailes attended by
Edward I, his second wife Margaret and many other dignitaries to escort the
Earl’s body to its final resting place.60
It is possible that Edmund’s coat of arms would have been displayed and
that his horse would be included in the procession; Roger de Clifford’s dona-
tion of his ‘warhorse trappings’ certainly suggests a role for them during the
funeral proceedings. In 1269, William III de Beauchamp specifically
requested that one horse ‘completely harnessed with all military caparisons
precede my corpse’. A similar request was made by his son, and by Giles de
Berkeley of Coberley, who also donated one horse to Little Malvern where his
body was interred and his horse Lumbard to St Giles Coberley, the parish
church which received his heart.61 Although he requested the opposite, Otto
de Grandison’s (d. 1358) arrangements are equally revealing. Imploring his
executors to keep his funeral simple, he insists that:
No armed horse or armed man be allowed to go before my body on my burial
day, nor that my body be covered with any cloth painted or gilt, or signed with
my arms; but that it be only of white cloth marked with a red cross.
For this supposedly modest funeral, Otto set aside £20 and 10 quarters of
wheat; by contrast, one priest was to be paid £15 to celebrate mass for three
years after his death.62 Although he had become a Templar on his deathbed,
William Marshal’s thoughts did not turn towards simplifying his funeral.
Thirty years prior to his death, he had purchased some high quality fabric in
the Holy Land, which was to be draped over his body during his funeral.
Although he requested the cloth be given to the Templars after the proceedings,
58 Register Giffard, 2: 283; Roger’s father had been interred at Abbey Dore in the early 1230s;
the abbey was founded by his maternal great-grandfather Robert de Ewyas. See H. Clifford, The
House of Clifford from before the Conquest (Chichester, 1987), pp. 42–3.
59 Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, pp. 25–34.
60 Ann. Hailes, pp. 114–15.
61 Testamenta vetusta, 1190–1560, ed. N.H. Nicholas, 2 vols. (London, 1826), 1: 51–2;
Register Giffard, 2: 449–50. William IV also requested his heart to be buried wherever his wife
was to be interred, but there is no surviving evidence that this was carried out.
62 Testamenta vetusta, 1: 62.
William was also anxious to protect it at all costs from bad weather during the
funeral.63
The funerary procession, therefore, was the final moment in which the
deceased aristocrat could present his vision of status and spirituality to the
world. The body, although most likely hidden away from the public gaze,
would still have a role to play – as we saw in the first chapter, the idea of a
leaking and uncontrolled cadaver disrupting the funerary proceedings was
considered socially embarrassing and a blemish on one’s personal honour and
reputation. What is evident is the dual nature of the body as a signifier of
personal and communal identity. Reminiscent of Kantorowicz’s concept of
the ‘king’s two bodies’, the aristocratic body in death was representative of
more than one’s individual spiritual status; it also incorporated ideas about
nobility which defined the aristocracy as a group.64
Not only did heraldry start to make an appearance in the fabric of monastic
buildings, the late thirteenth century also witnessed an increase in the use of
heraldic motives in funerary art as well as the rise of aristocratic effigies, in
particular those displaying knights in full armour. Although the latter have
been regarded variously as statements of piety or as representations of the
deceased in the afterlife, their most striking aspect is their worldliness.
Marking mortal remains, these effigies were meant to be visual reminders for
prayer and identification of the individual and his or her family.65 Although
many knightly effigies have been rendered anonymous over time as paint or
accessories have disappeared, enough evidence survives to show that they
would have carried shields or surcoats bearing the symbolic family identity,
and anchoring the deceased firmly in the dynastic chain of ancestors and
(hopefully) descendants.66 High-status tombs, such as those for Edmund Earl
of Lancaster (d. 1297) and William de Valence (d. 1296) in Westminster
Abbey, show how heraldry was used to depict the wider vertical and horizontal
social network of these men, while projecting an image about themselves as
able-bodied knights in the effigies resting on the top of the tombs. Niches in
the sides of Edmund’s tomb, moreover, contained several small figures of
63 Histoire de Guillaume de Mareshal, 2: 413–15.

64 E.H. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology
(Princeton, 1997; 1957); cf. N. Llewellyn, The Art of Death: Visual Culture in the English Death
Ritual c.1500–c.1800 (London, 1991), p. 104 discusses the idea of the two bodies in relation to
late medieval and post-Reformation funerary sculpture.
65 See H. Tummers, Early Secular Effigies in England: The Thirteenth Century (Leiden, 1980),
which is still the most fundamental study of these effigies. Because his survey rests on surviving
effigies in parish churches, it is unsurprising that his conclusion seems to be that they were for
the most part associated with ‘knights of the shire’ rather than higher status individuals (p.
127). Since they would have been buried in monasteries, their effigies no longer exist on such a
large scale. A European overview can be found in K. Bauch, Das mittelalterliche Grabbild:
Figürliche Grabmäler des 11. bis 15. Jahrhunderts in Europa (Berlin, 1976).
66 Tummers, Secular Effigies, pp. 8, 18–20.
kings and queens. Although much of this has disappeared, early antiquarian
descriptions of the tombs suggest that the relations rendered visible were those
of ancestry, close family and comrades-in-arms.67
The first effigies of knights did not appear in England until the early thir-
teenth century. What is striking about them is that there is no difference
between magnates and local knights in the depiction of the body, which
strongly suggests a sense of shared values and ideas about communal identity.
For example, the effigy of William Longespee Earl of Salisbury (d. 1226)
created in 1240 for his tomb in Salisbury Cathedral is very similar to other,
often anonymous, knightly effigies found in parish churches or monasteries.
The Earl is depicted wearing full armour, reclining in peace and with his head
slightly tilted sideways. His shield displays his arms which have been cut into
the stone. By comparison, the anonymous knightly effigy at Tickenham,
Somerset, dated by Tummers as mid thirteenth century is an almost exact
carbon copy of the Earl’s effigy.68
In the majority of cases, as Rachel Dressler has pointed out, the corporeality
of the knightly effigy is in stark contrast to the cloaked royal, female and ‘civil-
ian’ effigies which obscure the bodily form almost completely.69 The sculpted
bodies of knights appear deliberately to emphasise the muscularity and strength
associated with ideas of knighthood, while their attitudes focus on either their
martial prowess (sword-handling, distorted facial features) or their virtue
(hands in prayer, peaceful gaze). Both prowess and virtue were associated with
ideals of knighthood and nobility as we have seen in the previous chapter, and it
is evident that these qualities were immortalised in the knightly effigy.
Together, the tomb and the effigy rendered visible the ancestral and social
network providing a symbolic boundary between aristocrats and non-
aristocrats, a boundary which transcended the obvious difference in wealth and
socio-political position.
Conclusion
Religious patronage and the privilege of burial in monastic houses were two
major strategies for the English aristocracy to assert their claims to social and
moral superiority. Both magnates and local landholders – often the tenants of
67 See Duffy, Royal Tombs, pp. 89–96; A.M. Morganstern, Gothic Tombs of Kinship in France,
the Low Countries and England (University Park, Penn., 2000), pp. 64–73.
68 See Tummers, Early Secular Effigies in England, pls 3 and 5.
69 R. Dressler, ‘Steel Corpse: Imaging the Knight in Death’, in Conflicted Identities and
Multiple Masculinities, pp. 135–67, at 151–3; Coss, The Knight in Medieval England, pp. 72–3,
who points out that the emergence of the knightly effigy is closely contemporaneous with the
first rolls of arms.
magnates – distributed some of their wealth among houses which had estab-
lished close connections with their family or with the lordships they held.
There were obvious advantages for monastic orders to associate themselves
with an aristocratic family and their social network, namely to secure a contin-
uing stream of endowments and other financial assistance; the downside was
the expectation of aristocrats to have control over official appointments, to
gain spiritual and material benefits in return for gifts and to proclaim owner-
ship. Moreover, newly instigated building programmes, often financed with
aristocratic wealth and sometimes initiated by individual aristocrats to
commemorate their ancestry or create the illusion of continuity between
different families holding a lordship, incorporated symbolic messages of
ownership into the fabric of the monasteries they patronised.
Last but not least, generations of the same family or holders of a lordship
were buried in the most prominent spaces within the monastic compound,
burials which were increasingly marked by tombs, effigies and brasses. These
monuments focused on anchoring the individual deceased into the line of
ancestors and descendants, while providing a commemorative focal point.
While on the one hand the preference for church and chapter house burial was
inspired by spiritual concerns and the fear of being forgotten, on the other
hand it produced a very clear signal to the monastic and local community that
the aristocracy were entitled to be buried here because of their social status.
Bodily presence was therefore extremely important. Already before burial,
the aristocratic cadaver was the centre of attention in elaborate funerary
proceedings which included, once again, the symbols of status such as the
warhorse, armour and heraldry preceding the bier in the procession to the
final resting place of the deceased. After the funeral, the presence of the phys-
ical body, or its more enduring representation, within the sacred space would
ensure continued commemoration.
As we saw in the previous chapter, the aristocratic body was valorised as the
shrine of the noble heart; the sculpted knight on his tomb represented there-
fore a more permanent image of the muscular, well-trained body fit to
harbour the virtues associated with nobility. However, the rise of the effigy in
the thirteenth century was accompanied by a rise in the separate interment of
the heart as a consequence of embalming practices. Both were exclusive to the
aristocracy and monarchy, and both arose from practical needs surrounding
the safe transport of dead remains from the site of death to the site of burial.
While religious patronage and monastic burial ensured continued commemo-
ration and established patterns of lordship and friendship, embalming and
multiple burial focused on the individual aristocrats themselves and the image
of supreme nobility of body and soul they wished to perpetuate.
Chapter 4
Shrouded in Ambiguity:
Decay and Incorruptibility of the Body
If aristocratic patronage of and burial in religious houses was to a large extent

influenced by ideas about social, economical and political status, how does the
concept of multiple burial fit in? Sometimes regarded as a means of increasing
the efficacy of prayers, multiple burial, I would argue, is also tied up with
issues of nobility and social status, and to some extent with secular lordship. I
will suggest that rather than enforcing decay and fragmentation, these prac-
tices were partly geared towards creating a fantasy of wholeness and incorrupt-
ibility suggestive of saintly corporeal preservation found in hagiography,
which served to underscore these ideas of nobility and social status. Both
embalming and mos teutonicus not only enabled a delay between death and
burial, but also served to avoid the premature putrefaction of the cadaver
during this period, decay which would reflect negatively on the deceased in
spiritual and social terms. In relation to this representational aspect of the
noble body, it will also become evident that the separate interment of the heart
or viscera was a means of asserting one’s personal nobility in relation to
communal ideas about identity, and also of proclaiming one’s personal spiri-
tuality while conforming to dynastic or social pressures. What we see, there-
fore, is a distinction in the perception of the body and its interior between
personal and communal identities, not too dissimilar from ideas about the
abstract and concrete body of the king discussed by Ernst Kantorowicz.1
Multiple burial: origins and context
There are several explanations for the sudden popularity of multiple burial
amongst the royalty and aristocracy of thirteenth-century Western Europe. In
the past, the practice has been connected to the crusades: people, knights in
particular, dying away from home would request (rather romantically) to have
1 See above p. 72.

their heart sent back to their loved ones.2 However, multiple burial is not just
associated with male aristocrats, as Appendix 1 shows, but included ecclesias-
tics and aristocratic women. Furthermore, between the twelfth and the
fourteenth centuries in particular, it was a practice associated with people in
positions of social and political power. Lastly, the majority of people
associated with multiple burial practices had far shorter post-mortem journeys
than is generally assumed, and recently Paul Binski has commented that the
practice had its roots in the ‘conflict between tribal loyalty, or group solidarity,
and individual piety’, in other words, there were social and religious reasons
for requesting multiple burial even if someone died close to the site of inter-
ment.3
Related to individual piety, another explanation for multiple burial has
been that the practice became popular as a means to increase the number of
prayers for one’s soul, although its rise coincided with the development of
chantry bequests which served the same purpose.4 For the majority of aristo-
crats in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it seems that this additional spiri-
tual intercession was a useful side effect of their decision to inter body parts
separately, which could have a variety of intents and purposes. Moreover, it
has to be borne in mind that the practice of multiple burial originated from
elaborate embalming practices which involved the removal and separate inter-
ment of the interior organs and which could be the reason behind a number of
multiple burials. In relation to this, there is some evidence that the interior
organs could also be interred with the body, perhaps for either one to be
removed at a later date for separate burial – Henry III’s heart was given, as he
had requested, to Fontevrault twenty years after his death when he was trans-
ferred to his final resting place in 1290; similarly, Edmund Earl of Lancaster’s
body was transferred to a tomb at Westminster Abbey, while his heart
remained in the convent of the Poor Clares where he had originally been
buried in 1297, having died in Gascony the previous year.5
I would argue that multiple burial, although to some extent rooted in reli-
gious concerns which accorded a greater involvement of the body in the
2 Cf. C.A. Bradford, Heart Burial (London, 1933), p. 42. See also the overview article by
Patrice Georges: ‘Mourir c’est pourrir un peu … Intentions et techniques contre la corruption
des cadavres à la fin du moyen âge’, Micrologus 7 (1999), pp. 359–82.
3 Binski, Medieval Death, p. 63.
4 Cooke, Mediaeval Chantries; Binski, Medieval Death, pp. 63–9, argues that multiple burial
was primarily intended to secure additional intercession. For a recent European-wide brief
survey of medieval and post-medieval practices, see E. Weiss-Krejci, ‘Excarnation, Evisceration,
and Exhumation in Medieval and Post-Medieval Europe’, in Interacting with the Dead: Perspec-
tives on Mortuary Archaeology for the New Millennium, ed. G.F.M. Rakita et al. (Gainesville Fla.,
2005), pp. 155–72.
5 Appendix 1; for later examples see Bradford, Heart Burial. Henry III’s mother, Isabella of
Angoulême was buried at Fontevrault, and it is possible that Henry had wished to stress his
Angevin ancestry in the face of French occupation.
SHROUDED IN AMBIGUITY 77
salvation process, was predominantly informed by social considerations. The
fact that people’s bodies were conserved for transport or for a delayed funeral
in the first place is evidence of their wealth and influence to make this
possible. Also, a number of men from a more modest background who
gained roles in local government and administration requested multiple
burial, perhaps as a sign of their changed social position.6 As we saw above,
aristocratic funerary practices centred foremost on displaying one’s social
position during and after burial. The embalming of a dignitary’s face under-
scores the idea of visibility and identification of the dead, and from this it is
only a small step to the complete embalming of the body inside and out, and
the practice of multiple burial.
Considering the dearth of early medieval sources which consider cadaver
conservation in more than a passing reference, it is extremely difficult to ascer-
tain whether this was a standard feature of burial customs or not. Although the
dead body was considered a source of pollution in Judaism and Roman reli-
gions, there were Biblical precedents, and there is some evidence to suggest
that in the later Roman Empire bodies were occasionally embalmed following
Egyptian custom.7 There are certainly many references to early Christian
saints and martyrs being treated to some form of embalming, even if it did not
involve evisceration.8 The external application of balm was known at the
Merovingian court and the single reference in Gregory the Great’s Dialogues
to evisceration as part of the corpse preservation process suggests that the prac-
tice was known to at least part of his audience. However, the earliest and most
explicit reference to evisceration in a Western European context concerns the
unsuccessful attempt to transport the remains of Emperor Charles the Bald
across the Alps in October 877.9
6 For example, Giles de Berkeley of Coberley and Paulin Peyvre. Unless indicated, all refer-
ences to specific multiple burials can be found in Appendix 1.
7 Several Middle Eastern and North African communities used external and internal
embalming. The Egyptian practice was described by Herodotus and there is some evidence that
the Myceneans practiced a form of body conservation. In Roman times, it was so uncommon
that Tacitus referred to the internal embalming of Nero’s wife Poppaea as a foreign custom.
Byzantine death customs are unclear about procedures. Von Rudloff cites a Byzantine court
physician on cadaver preparation, but this is for external embalming only. See E. von Rudloff,
Über das Konservieren von Leichen im Mittelalter: Ein Betrag zur Geschichte der Anatomie und des
Bestattungswesens (Freiburg, 1921), pp. 3–4, 23–4; D.B. Counts, ‘Regum externorum
consuetudine: The Nature and Function of Embalming in Rome’, Classical Antiquity 15 (1996),
pp. 189–202; G.T. Dennis, ‘Death in Byzantium’, Dunbarton Oaks Papers 55 (2001), pp. 1–7.
For early Christian attitudes towards the dead body, which inspired comment from
non-Christians because of its difference, see Brown, Cult of the Saints.
8 H. Leclercq, ‘Embaumement’, Dictionnaire d’archéologie Chrétienne et de liturgie, 15 vols.
(Paris, 1921), 8: 2718–23.
9 Gregory the Great, Dialogorum libri quattuor, PL 77 (Paris, 1862), col. 384. Gregory refers
to evisceration in the case of a man dying in Constantinople. See V. Thompson, Death and
Dying in Later Anglo-Saxon England (Woodbridge, 2004), pp. 20–1, for the Anglo-Saxon
rendering of this passage, which suggests that its translator was unfamiliar with the practice. For
Less than a century later, in May 973, Emperor Otto I’s body was eviscer-
ated prior to its final journey to Magdeburg and his viscera were buried in the
church of St Mary at Memleben.10 In January 1002, his grandson Otto III was
transported from Rome to Aachen; although his intestines would have been
removed soon after death, they were taken on the journey and buried at
Augsburg. Already there is a suggestion that multiple burial allowed for more
than the safe transport of one’s remains. In 1056, Emperor Henry III
requested the interment of his heart with the rest of his viscera at Goslar where
his daughter had been buried earlier, while his body was taken to Speyer for
burial alongside his father.11 Around the same time, it seems that the practice
of corpse preservation involving evisceration was becoming more familiar to
Northern France: in 1040, Count Fulk ‘Nerra’ of Anjou’s viscera were
interred separately from the rest of his body in a cemetery at Metz before his
body was taken to his foundation of Beaulieu-les-Loches. By the beginning of
the following century, Robert d’Arbrissel, founder of Fontevrault and Orsan,
could stipulate the separate interment of his body and heart to avert a conflict
between the two houses about where their founder should be buried.12 The
practical and socio-political dimensions of the separate burial of viscera and
body thus became increasingly intertwined, while at the same time the heart
came to be singled out as an organ worthy of a separate sepulchre, and, by the
end of the thirteenth century, of an elaborate funeral ceremony.13
Preserving the cadaver: embalming and mos teutonicus
Before looking in greater detail at the reasons for requesting separate inter-
ment of the heart, the practices of embalming and mos teutonicus should
perhaps be given some attention, in particular in relation to their objectives
and their cost. As we saw above, the average aristocratic funeral in the thir-
teenth century would have been as ostentatious and possibly as expensive as
those for which we have more detailed records; the costs of extensive
embalming were generally too prohibitive to be universally introduced, which
meant that it remained exclusive to the wealthy elite.
the Merovingians, see A. Erlande-Brandenburg, Le roi est mort: Étude sur les funérailles, les
sépultures et les tombeaux des rois de France jusqu’à la fin du XIIIe siècle (Genève, 1975), p. 27.
10 Schäfer, ‘Mittelalterlicher Brauch’, p. 479.
11 Ibid., pp. 480–1. From Otto III onwards, the Holy Roman Emperors died far from where
they wished to be interred. According to Erlande-Brandenburg, this is one of the reasons why
multiple burial did not catch on with the French monarchs in the eleventh and twelfth centu-
ries: they tended to die within reach of their intended sepulchre. Le roi est mort, p. 28.
12 Georges, ‘Mourir c’est pourrir un peu’, pp. 360–1. Metz was part of the Holy Roman
Empire at this time. For Robert d’Arbrissel see Bradford, Heart Burial, pp. 39–41.
13 For further examples in Germany and France, see Schäfer, ‘Mittelalterlicher Brauch’;
Erlande-Brandenburg, Le roi est mort; Brown, ‘Death and the Body’.
About the practice mos teutonicus – so called by the Florentine chronicler
Boncompagno who connected the procedure specifically to German aristocrats
wishing to be buried at home in Germany rather than in ‘foreign parts’ – we can
be quite brief in terms of cost and objective.14 It involved the dismemberment
and boiling of the dead body in water or wine until the flesh was cooked and fell
off the bones. The flesh and interior organs could be buried immediately, or be
preserved in the way animal meat might be for further transport. Stripped of their
perishable matter, the clean bones could be taken wherever the deceased had
wished to be interred. Depending on whether water or wine was used, it could be
practical, cheap, quick, and relatively hygienic. In 1270, it was the preferred
method for the conservation of Louis IX’s body after his death in Tunis – Muslim
territory and therefore not suitable for the burial of a saintly king of France –
which is perhaps understandable considering the time, effort and materials it
took to embalm a body.15
However, in more leisurely circumstances and with more money to spare,
embalming seems to have been the preferred option among English and
French aristocrats. The French royal surgeon Henri de Mondeville, in a
chapter on corpse preservation techniques in his Chirurgie (c. 1316), directly
connects the need for embalming to the social status and financial situation of
the deceased.16 He has little time for the corpses of the poor, since it is, he
states, not lucrative to embalm them. Instead, Mondeville devotes his atten-
tion to two groups of rich people – and note the similarity with Andreas
Capellanus’s social division in his treatise on love – the ‘middling class’
(homines mediocris status), such as knights and barons, and the ‘highest class’,
which includes kings, queens, popes and prelates. He makes this distinction
on the basis that the ‘highest class’ should lie in state with an exposed face,
whereas this is not necessary for members of the ‘middling class’. By restricting
embalming procedures to those who could afford it (and Mondeville advises
his readers to secure payment before commencing with the expensive treat-
ment), which in his perception of the social hierarchy is equal to being part of
the elite, Mondeville subscribes to the idea that nobility is marked by an
incorrupt body.
After establishing his social hierarchy, Mondeville discusses the different
14 See Schäfer, ‘Mittelalterlicher Brauch’, p. 493; Boncompagno seems to have lived around
1200. What has not been noticed before is that his description of the ‘German custom’ is decid-
edly negative. It occurs in a passage on the burial customs of the Jews and the Romans, both of
which seek to preserve and honour the dead body. The Germans (teutonici), on the other hand,
destroy the bodies of their most eminent people.
15 Brown, ‘Death and the Human Body’, pp. 231–2.
16 Die Chirurgie des Heinrich von Mondeville (Hermondaville) nach Berliner, Erfurter und
Pariser Codices, ed. J. Pagel (Berlin, 1892), pp. 390–3 (hereafter Mondeville, Chirurgie). The
section on preservation techniques follows on from one on the amputation of corrupt body
parts. For Henri’s social awareness, see M.C. Pouchelle, The Body and Surgery in the Middle Ages
(Cambridge, 1990).
methods of treatment based on the time between death and burial; on whether
the face should be exposed or not; and on whether there is a need for the corpse to
be prepared with greater security to disallow premature decay. He takes his infor-
mation predominantly from the discussion of corpse preservation of the Arab
medic Rhazes, whose works were translated by Gerard of Cremona in the late
twelfth century, but he also adds his own observations.17 All treatments required a
mix of herbs, spices and resins as well as the use of mercury or something similar to
constrict all bodily cavities, in particular those of the face if it was to be left
exposed.18
Although the list of ingredients of the embalming paste was not fixed, in
general, one needed salt or another sodium compound, coloquinth (used in
medicine as a purgative), camphor, rose water, vinegar and honey. These
would have been fairly readily available, and, in fact, there is contemporary
evidence for the use of salt in the preservation of cadavers.19 However,
although salt would be useful as a rough and ready means of preservation, it
was only really suitable for journeys or if the body was not to be on display.
More exotic ingredients were needed for display purposes; hence Mondeville’s
comments about status and wealth. For example, he recommends the use of
aloe, myrrh, frankincense, mastic and other resins of trees more commonly
found in the eastern Mediterranean. In addition, he suggests that the abdom-
inal cavity and the coffin are filled with sweet smelling flowers, herbs and
spices to obscure the dangerous fetid odours.20
When Edward I became seriously ill in the winter of 1306–07 and was
forced to stay at Lanercost Priory on his way to Scotland, his physician
decided to purchase not only the medicines needed to aid the king’s recovery
but also materials to be used for his embalming if he were to die. An amount of
£36 33s appears to have been spent on balsam, aloe, frankincense, myrrh,
musk and amber to fill the king’s bodily orifices and the inside of his body. By
contrast, £15 3s 4½d was paid for the cerecloth and spices used to embalm
Henry VI in 1471, while Henry Earl of Huntingdon in 1596 was embalmed
for the princely sum of £28 4s 1d. According to Claire Gittings, the average
cost for a gentleman to be embalmed in the sixteenth century would have been
£5.21 After his death in July 1307, Edward I’s body appears to have been elab-
orately embalmed and, upon the opening of his tomb in the late eighteenth
17 Von Rudloff, Über das Konservieren von Leichen, pp. 24–5, 28–9.
18 Mondeville, Chirurgie, p. 391.
19 E.g. Hugh de Grandmesnil in 1098: Orderic, 4: 336–7.
20 Mondeville, Chirurgie, pp. 391–2; Von Rudloff, Über das Konservieren von Leichen, pp.
28–35. Guy de Chauliac, a French surgeon connected to the papal court, wrote in 1363 that in
addition to these spices and resins, caraway, nutmeg and marjoram should be used while ideally
the dead are placed in a coffin made of cedar wood. The Cyrurgie of Guy de Chauliac, ed. M.S.
Ogden, EETS os 265 (1971), pp. 413–14 (hereafter Chauliac, Cyrurgie).
21 J. Litten, The English Way of Death: The Common Funeral since 1450 (London, 1991), p. 38;
Gittings, Death, Burial and the Individual, p. 104.
century, it was found to be very well preserved and tightly wrapped in
cerecloth.22 It also appears that his body was eviscerated. An admittedly late
witness, the Scot Walter Bower (fl. 1440s), refers to a tradition that Edward’s
viscera were interred at Holm Cultram, a Cistercian daughter-house of
Melrose Abbey in northern Cumberland, close to Burgh-on-Sands where
Edward died.23
The application of embalming mixtures and cerecloth was not enough,
according to Mondeville, who recommended wrapping the body in oxhides
and sealing it into a lead coffin. This, for example, accounts for the fantastic
preservation of a male body found at St Bees in Cumberland in the early
1980s, but also for the antiquarian accounts of examinations of lead coffins
which were found to contain skeletal remains immersed in a kind of aromatic
soup – a mixture of decayed matter and embalming products.24 The autopsy
of the St Bees man revealed that all internal organs were still in place, which
coincides with Mondeville’s description of a less invasive preparation of the
cadaver sufficient for a shorter period between death and burial.25
In contrast to France, where members of the royal family towards the end
of the thirteenth century began to request a specific interment for their
entrails, in England the usual arrangement was for the interior organs to be
discarded promptly without too much public ceremony and close to the site of
death. There were exceptions of course. According to one chronicle, Saer de
Quincy Earl of Winchester, who died at the Siege of Damietta in 1219, asked
for his cremated internal organs to be taken back to Garendon Abbey. The
excavated visceral remains at Lewes Priory, moreover, have been assigned
(without much argument or further evidence) to William III de Warenne,
who also died on Crusade.26
Generally, however, the entrails were regarded as ignoble and easily
corruptible. The early fourteenth-century Italian anatomist Mondino dei
Luzzi described the body as a hierarchical system in which the lower part was
inferior to the head and thorax. One of the reasons for this hierarchy was that
the viscera were likely to putrefy quickest because of their ‘confused’ state.
22 J. Ayloffe, ‘An Account of the Body of King Edward the First as it appeared on the Opening
of his Tomb in the Year 1774’, Archaeologia 3 (1786), pp. 376–413. I will address the
mythology surrounding Edward’s burial arrangements in an article on King Robert Bruce’s
heart request in a European context.
23 Walter Bower, Scotichronicon, gen. ed. D.E.R. Watt, 9 vols. (Aberdeen, 1989–98), 6: 332.
Holm Cultram held the advowson and fees of Burgh-on-Sands parish church. Being a vulner-
able border monastery with predominantly Scottish interests, it is possible that the monks
seized the opportunity to obtain Edward’s viscera to enhance their status in England. VCH
Cumberland 2 (1905), pp. 162–73. When Edward arrived at Lanercost in September 1306, it
was his intention to move on swiftly to Holm Cultram, where building work had been commis-
sioned to accommodate him and his household. Moorman, ‘Edward I at Lanercost’, p. 164.
24 Gilchrist and Sloane, Requiem, pp. 109, 119.
25 Mondeville, Chirurgie, pp. 391–2.
26 See Appendix 1 for references.
Therefore, Mondino argued, dissections should start with the removal of the
entrails and move gradually towards the more organised and nobler parts of
the body; in other words: the more the body part was thought to be organised
and in control of itself, the nobler it was.27 As we saw, Mondeville preferred
the extraction of the internal organs in the process of corpse preservation and
argued that this would yield a superior end result. The ambiguous quality of
the entrails is highlighted by frequent references to their interment at night
and soon after death. When Emperor Otto I died in 973 his body was eviscer-
ated the same night; his entrails were buried immediately afterwards. In
December 1135, Henry I’s entrails were extracted at night in the private
chambers of the archbishop of Rouen, while Edmund Earl of Cornwall, who
died before dawn (ante auroram) in September 1300, was eviscerated that
same night. In addition, the incorruptibility of saintly entrails was com-
mented upon by hagiographers as a miracle and a sign of God’s favour.28
Resting in pieces: aristocratic multiple burial
The reasons for separate interment of the heart (or heart and entrails together,
i.e. viscera burials) between c. 1130 and c. 1330 are predominantly related to
ancestral and individual benefaction and patronage (see Fig. 2). Nearly all of the
88 cases relate to establishing a physical presence in a site favoured during life.29
In 21 per cent of cases, the heart was buried at an ancestral or own foundation,
and many are connected to body interments in locations associated with the
family or lordship. For example, in 1232 Ranulph III de Blundeville Earl of
Chester donated his heart to his foundation at Dieulacres and his body to the
ancestral burial site at St Werburgh in Chester. Similar reasons appear to have
informed men such as William III de Percy (d. 1245) or William III d’Albini of
Belvoir (d. 1236) when they donated their heart to a favoured monastic commu-
nity. Although in general aristocratic men favoured houses associated with the
paternal family, in the case of Stephen Longespee, Seneschal of Gascony (d.
1269) there is a very clear preference for his maternal religious associations. His
body was buried in his mother’s foundation of Lacock; his heart was donated to
Bradenstoke Priory, which was founded by one of his mother’s ancestors.30
Only two known heart burials appear specifically rooted in concerns about
lordship. William de Mandeville Earl of Essex (d. 1226) was only distantly
27 N.G. Siraisi, Medieval and Early Renaissance Medicine: An Introduction to Knowledge and
Practice (Chicago, 1990), p. 109.
28 Schäfer, ‘Mittelalterlicher Brauch’, pp. 478–9; Orderic, 6: 450–1; Ann. Hailes, p. 114. For
saintly entrails see above, p. 29.
29 These figures are based on information provided in Appendix 1. (Percentages have been
rounded off to the nearest whole number.)
30 CP, 12.2: 171.
Fig. 2: Reasons for heart and viscera burials (c. 1130–c. 1330)
Reasons Number percentage

Ancestral foundation 10 11%
Ancestral benefaction 11 13%
Probable benefaction 14 16%
Certain benefaction 8 9%
Ecclesiastical 9 10%
Founder 9 10%
Lordship 2 2%
Proximity to death 16 18%
Special honour 1 1%
Spousal relationship 8 9%
Total 88 100%
related to the original Mandeville earls. Upon his acquisition of the earldom
William changed his surname to Mandeville and, when he died, he left his
heart to Walden Priory, while his body was interred at his father’s foundation
of Shouldham.31 King John’s viscera were interred at Croxton Kerrial, but
whether this was a natural consequence of his embalming being performed by
the abbot of Croxton or of a decision to establish a connection with a house
founded by an earlier Count of Mortain is debatable. The connection between
office and religious house becomes more evident in the case of ecclesiastical
multiple burial. Most known ecclesiastical examples relate to heart burials
either in the convent connected immediately to the office, or in a monastic
house founded by a previous incumbent.32
In addition, some of the heart burials in the category ‘spousal relationship’
are in fact men donating their heart to a house founded or patronised by their
wife’s ancestors. For example, Saer de Quincy Earl of Winchester (d. 1219)
donated his viscera to Garendon Abbey, founded by his wife’s grandfather.
Upon the death of Robert IV de Beaumont Earl of Leicester, Saer’s wife
Margaret inherited half of the estate, her elder sister obtaining the other half
with the title of Earl of Leicester.33 Robert III de Ros of Helmsley (d. 1285),
who had married Isabella d’Albini, heiress to the Belvoir estate, happened to
die at Belvoir Castle. His entrails were buried before the high altar and beside
the body of his father-in-law at Belvoir Priory, traditionally patronised by the
31 CP, 5: 126, 129–33.

32 See Appendix 1.
33 CP, 12.2: 745, 748–51; R. Oram, ‘Quincy, Saer de, earl of Winchester (d. 1219)’, ODNB,
online edition (Oxford, 2005).
Albini family. Robert’s heart, however, was taken to Croxton Kerrial where
earlier the heart of his father-in-law had been buried, while his body was
interred at Kirkham Priory.34
Lastly, the high incidence of cases in the category ‘proximity to death’ relate
to viscera burials and the burial of entrails almost immediately after death. In
only two instances does there appear to be a deliberate decision to inter the
internal organs in the church of a particular convent, which prefigures the
French custom of triple burials. Henry I’s internal organs (including his heart)
and brain, although extracted in the private chambers of the Archbishop of
Rouen, were interred at Ste Marie-des-Prées, which had been founded by his
mother. Richard I’s entrails were famously alleged to have been interred at
Charroux in Poitou to signify the treachery of the Poitevin barons.35 In all
other cases, the choice of interment site depended on where the preparation of
the body occurred (e.g. Eleanor of Castile at Lincoln) or where a person
happened to die.
While taking into account the devastation of the Dissolution which saw the
destruction and disappearance of many funerary monuments, the preference to
display the location of the heart and the body more prominently than the
entrails is evident from the very few monuments which still exist. Again in
contrast to France, where effigies of donors proudly displayed their ‘bowels in a
bag’ to indicate the interment of their internal organs, there are only four exam-
ples of tomb sculpture associated with the burial of entrails in the British Isles
that I know of: Bishop Walter de Kirkham of Durham’s viscera monument at
Howden (inscription only); Eleanor of Castile’s entrails which were marked by
a full-size effigy and a Latin inscription; a fourteenth-century effigy of a lady in
St Giles parish church in Coberley; and a diminutive effigy of a robed figure in
Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, which is said to be part of the original
tomb of Richard ‘Strongbow’ de Clare, Earl of Pembroke and Striguil.36
In terms of preference for religious orders, it is clear that the later
thirteenth-century vogue among aristocrats to be benefactors of the mendi-
cant orders is echoed in the number of heart burials received by both the
Dominicans and Franciscans. Although, as always, the numbers are to be
taken as estimates due to the fickleness of surviving records, it is possible to
discern a notable trend to donate the heart to the newer religious orders which
34 CP, 11: 95–6; Monasticon, 3: 289.

35 Orderic, 6: 448–51; Roger of Howden, Chronica magistri Rogeri de Houedene, ed. W.
Stubbs, 4 vols. RS 51 (1868–71), 4: 84.
36 Eleanor’s effigy is a nineteenth-century replica of the Westminster Abbey effigy, but earlier
images suggest that the two were always very similar. My thanks go to Dr Sophie Oosterwijk for
bringing the St Giles effigy to my attention. For the Strongbow effigy, see B. Gittos and M.
Gittos, ‘Irish Purbeck: Recently Identified Purbeck Marble Monuments in Ireland’, Church
Monuments 13 (1998), pp. 5–14, at 8 and fig. 3. There may of course be more, but there has
been no recent systematic survey of either entrails or heart burial monuments in the British
Isles.
Fig. 3: Distribution of known heart and viscera burials in England and the
Norman and Angevin territories c. 1130–c. 1330
Total religious
houses in England Percentage of
Religious Number of Percentage of in 1350 (except heart burials in
establishment heart burials total Templars)37 religious houses
Augustinian38 16 18% 260 6%
Benedictine39 26 30% 261 10%
Cistercian40 10 11% 75 13%
Dominican 10 11% 51 20%
Franciscan 8 9% 54 15%
Gilbertine 0 0 24 0%
Knights Templar 1 1% 45 (in 1216) 2%
Parish church 9 10% — —
Premonstratensian41 4 5% 36 11%
Uncertain location42 4 5% — —
Total 88 100% — —
advocated personal spirituality. As Fig. 3 shows, when taking into account the
actual number of foundations per order, apart from the mendicants the
Cistercians also received a slightly larger number of hearts than the Benedic-
tine and Premonstratensian orders, while the Augustinians only account for 6
per cent of the total. One reason is that the Benedictines and Augustinian
Canons are generally associated with ancestral interments in the sample:
together they received nearly 50 per cent of aristocratic bodies also associated
with heart and viscera burials (Fig. 4). The Cistercians, on the other hand,
were not more preferred either way in that they received 13 per cent of the
hearts and 15 per cent of the bodies.
In addition, most heart and viscera burials were individual occasions; if the
body was interred in a monastery associated with family or lordship patronage
and where associated burials had taken place previously, the heart and viscera
burials were usually not followed by those of other members of the family.
The exceptions are associated with a shift in the relationship between
37 Based on D. Knowles and R.N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses of England and Wales,
second edition (London, 1971), pp. 488–95.
38 Including alien priories, Bonhommes and conventual hospitals.
39 Including alien priories and Cluniac order in total number of houses.
40 Including Savigniac order in total number of houses.
41 Including dependencies and alien houses.
42 This refers to cases in which a heart or viscera burial is referred to but without, or doubtful,
indication of location.
Fig. 4: Distribution of bodies associated with heart and viscera burials

in England and the Norman and Angevin territories c. 1130–c. 1330
Religious houses Number Percentage

Augustinian 13 15%
Benedictine 29 33%
Cistercian 13 15%
Dominican 0 0%
Franciscan 1 1%
Gilbertine 2 2%
Knights Templar 1 1%
Parish church 1 1%
Premonstratensian 1 1%
Secular cathedrals 6 7%
Uncertain 1 1%
Unknown43 20 23%
Total 88 100%
monastery and the incumbents of a lordship, as in cases of devolving inheri-

tance through heiresses (e.g. Robert III de Ros) or in case of a succession of
unrelated individuals holding ecclesiastical office (e.g. the bishops of
Winchester).
Lastly, the nine heart and viscera burials in parish churches nearly all relate
to minor aristocrats who were more tied to a locality than the greater barons,
but who were either government administrators themselves or their relatives
held such office. Paulin Peyvre (d. 1251), for example, was a knight of modest
origins who had made a fortune for himself in Henry III’s government.
According to Matthew Paris, who is fairly critical of how Peyvre acquired his
lands, he spent most of his wealth on his manor at Toddington (Bedford-
shire), and it is therefore not very surprising that in aristocratic fashion, Peyvre
had his heart interred in the local parish church as a sign of his increased
status.44 For similar reasons were the hearts of Ralph de Stopham of Bryanston
(d. 1272) and Giles de Berkeley of Coberley (d. 1294) buried at their local
parish church, as were in all probability the hearts of Agnes of Narborough
and Maria de Meriet.45
43 ‘Unknown’ refers to cases in which a heart burial is known, but not the location of the body.
44 Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, 5: 242–3; VCH Bedfordshire, 3: 349–50, 446.
45 G. Dru Drury, ‘Heart Burials and Some Purbeck Marble Heart Shrines’, Dorset Natural
History and Antiquities Field Club Proceedings 48 (1927), pp. 38–58, at 38 (Ralph de Stopham),
54 (Agatha de Narborough); Register Giffard, pp. 449–50; Gittos and Gittos, ‘Motivation and
Choice’, pp. 153–5, 160.
Nobility as incorruptibility
The funerary practices of the aristocracy then show a great concern with the
interment location of their body, both geographically and topographically, in
the representation of social status, wealth and dynastic connections. To this
end, relations with religious houses could be established and fostered over
generations, while certain monastic communities became inextricably
connected to a lordship or office rather than a single family (although the two
obviously could coincide). What is evident from the discussion of multiple
burial is the clear separation of the body and the heart to represent different
aspects of the aristocratic identity. The body was clearly viewed as a manifesta-
tion of the individual within the dynastic continuum and as a representative of
the communal concept of nobility – further underscored by corpse conserva-
tion techniques engendered to halt putrefaction. The body’s post-mortem
‘behaviour’ was valorised as a mirror on the deceased’s personal spiritual
nobility as well as their physiological nobility.
As we saw earlier, Henri de Mondeville clearly associated elaborate
embalming practices to conserve the cadaver with the aristocratic elite and
some of his methods certainly relied on sufficient funds to pay for the materials
needed. Moreover, he calls attention to the possibility of preserving a cadaver
indefinitely by removing the internal organs and filling the abdominal cavity
with salt, spices and flowers. Although his own experience of embalming two
French kings was flawed by his own admission, his attitude towards the dead
body is respectful and delicate.46 A body may be conserved as if it were a side of
beef, but it was conducted with great care, as is evident, for example, from the
well-preserved state of Edward I’s remains in the eighteenth century: reminis-
cent of Egyptian mummies, his corpse was found tightly wrapped in many
layers of cerecloth with each finger treated separately.47 The extraction of the
internal organs may have been an unpleasant process, but, according to
Mondeville, the viscera should not be discarded lightly. Instead, because they
are part of the human body, they should be salted and covered in a mixture of
spices before being sealed in a jar of lead or silver.48
It is likely that the aristocracy was highly influenced by reports of saintly
incorruptibility, and with elaborate embalming techniques or mos teutonicus
46 Mondeville, Chirurgie, p. 392. He speculates that the kings suffered from a rare disposition
which hampered their post-mortem conservation, along with the failure of antiquated
embalming fluid. Also, as a caveat he points out that the method of cleansing the inside of the
body depends on the physical constitution of the deceased and their age: young people’s bodies
decay faster than those of the elderly whose bodies are drier and colder – a point also made by
Guy de Chauliac, who advises external embalming only for slim and dry men or those dying in
winter. Mondeville, Chirurgie, p. 392; Chauliac, Cyrurgie, pp. 414–15.
48 Mondeville, Chirurgie, p. 393.
they were able to imitate this incorruptibility until the body disappeared from
public view.49 However much aristocrats sought to imitate saints in their sense
of shared nobility, they did not seek to be on a par with them. The integrity
and imagined purity of the body were more important than the deliberate
fragmentation of body parts in the way that saintly bodies were dispersed. So
for the great majority of aristocrats undergoing multiple burial, this meant the
interment of the body or skeletal remains in one grave, and the flesh, heart and
entrails in others. Not one aristocratic body was dismembered for the separate
inhumation of, say, arms and legs. It significant, for example, that Philip IV of
France, whose actions sparked a debate in the 1280s on the position of the
body in terms of human salvation, did not wish to obtain part of his grandfa-
ther Louis IX’s skull for the Sainte Chapelle in Paris until well after his
canonisation in 1297.50 It is equally significant that in 1268 the podesta Pietro
de Vico from Viterbo specifically requested post-mortem dismemberment of
his body into seven pieces to signify the seven deadly sins; whether this also
meant seven different interment sites is unfortunately not entirely clear.51
As we saw in chapter 2, the heart represented humanity’s inner being. In it
were contained the core values associated with spiritual nobility and it was
therefore regarded as a valuable object to be treated with due reverence. It is
therefore not entirely surprising to find the aristocratic ideals of chivalric or
noble behaviour being lodged within the heart, recasting the body as a shrine
to its purity. The heart was the location of the interiorised spirituality advo-
cated by the new religious orders, which may explain the preference for heart
burials in mendicant convents in the later thirteenth century: aristocratic
donors could at the same time express their piety and their socially elevated
status by presenting their noble heart to an order which had centralised it as a
site of religious experience. However, this did pose issues about the integrity of
the body in relation to personhood and the resurrection, and although it is
clear that the aristocracy did not consider the separation of the body and heart
problematic, they were influenced by intellectual debate on this issue which
reached a high point in the later thirteenth century.
49 Bynum, Resurrection of the Body, pp. 208–10; Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages,
pp. 427–8.
50 For this debate see below, pp. 93–5. Permission to remove the skull from its tomb at St
Denis was granted by the French Pope Clement V in 1305. P. Duparc, ‘Dilaceratio corporis’,
Bulletin de la société nationale des antiquaires de France 1980–1981 (1981), pp. 360–72, at 365;
E.A.R. Brown, ‘Burying and Unburying the Kings of France’, in The Monarchy of Capetian
France and Royal Ceremony, ed. E.A.R. Brown (Aldershot, 1991), IX. 241–66, at 247.
51 A. Paravicini-Bagliani, ‘The Corpse in the Middle Ages’, in The Medieval World, ed. P.
Linehan and J.L. Nelson (London, 2001), pp. 327–41, at 331.
Debating the body: integrity and fragmentation
By 1300, all was not well in the world of aristocratic funerary practices. In
1299, Pope Boniface VIII issued his vitriolic condemnation of the practice of
mos teutonicus for reasons still debated amongst scholars today. The bull
Detestande feritatis, first issued in September 1299 and reissued in January the
following year, comprises a heated attack on the way in which the nobility
‘and other high dignitaries’ are accommodated in their burial practice, which
involves ‘savagely [truculenter]’ eviscerating the corpse and ‘horribly
[immanenter]’ dismembering it before boiling it. It is perverse and ‘driven by
sacrilegious concern’ with burial in a specific site far away from the location of
death.52 According to some, it was promulgated partly as a consequence of the
conservation of Cardinal Nicholas de Nonancourt’s corpse, which deeply
shocked Boniface who regarded the Cardinal as a friend. The reason why he
found it so abhorrent, it is argued, was because of his own ideas about the
integrity of the body and his fear of decay. One view has been that because
Italians and Northern Europeans held opposite ideas about the relationship
between the body and personal identity, Boniface found the practice incom-
prehensible and therefore reacted strongly against it. Others have looked at
Boniface’s troubled relations with the king of France to seek a political expla-
nation, and some have pointed out the similarities between the bull and the
arguments raised at a series of Quodlibets at the University of Paris in the
1280s and 1290s. In addition, the bull has been regarded as a statement
against the friars, considering they benefitted most from the donations accom-
panying heart burials.53
Part of the difficulty with the bull is that it is not entirely clear what is being
banned, nor is there evidence for a systematic condemnation. Does it include
embalming involving evisceration, or multiple burial? Does he indirectly
condemn the blossoming practice of anatomical demonstration at the Italian
universities? Perhaps Boniface was deliberately vague; in 1303 one of his
cardinals, Jean le Moine, felt the need to explain in a gloss to the bull that the
Pontiff had indeed meant evisceration under all circumstances, whether part
of mos teutonicus or not. Moreover, he reiterated Boniface’s solution to the
problem of geographical distance between death and burial, which was to
inter the body temporarily at the site of death before exhuming it after a year
for transport to the preferred burial location.54 Also in 1303, the Pope again
52 Corpus iuris canonici, 2: 1271–2.

53 A. Paravicini-Bagliani, Boniface VIII: Un Pape hérétique? (Paris, 2000), p. 233; Park, ‘The
Criminal and the Saintly Body’, pp. 1–33; ead. ‘The Life of the Corpse’, pp. 111–32; Brown,
‘Death and the Human Body’, pp. 221–70; ead. ‘Authority, Family and the Dead’, pp.
803–32.
54 Brown, ‘Death and the Human Body’, pp. 246–7, 250–1.
stressed his opinion that a cadaver should only be transported after a period of
inhumation and not be artificially reduced to ashes through cremation,
boiling or dismemberment, which left the option of embalming with eviscera-
tion wide open however.55
It is obvious that medical practitioners, religious authorities, and those
involved in funerary preparations were unsure how far Boniface’s prohibition
stretched. Henri de Mondeville suggests that to eviscerate the dead body, one
would need to obtain dispensation. Mondino dei Luzzi in his anatomical
demonstration (1316) only refers to the sin involved in cleaning certain bones
of the ear by boiling them, while Guido de Vigevano (1345) begins his treatise
with the statement that all anatomising is prohibited by Church authorities.
Despite this, however, he boasts of having been able to perform many autop-
sies himself.56 By 1363, Guy de Chauliac does not mention the need for
dispensation at all and suggests that popes themselves are subjected to elabo-
rate embalming procedures, which is likely to be the result of Pope Clement
VI’s perpetual dispensation for the French royal family issued on 20 April
1351. Towards the end of the fourteenth century, it seems evisceration had
become a standard procedure in the preparation of royal bodies for burial in
England as well.57
In the fifty years between Detestande feritatis and Clement VI’s reversal of
its condemnation, there was more confusion about the propriety of corpse
conservation, and the number of explicit references to heart burials certainly
lessened dramatically, although there are several indications that the aristoc-
racy was not prepared to give up this particular aspect of their funerary prac-
tices. Dispensations were sought for multiple burials by the French, including
the French queens of England, Margaret and Isabella, who both requested a
triple burial. No such dispensation seems to have been obtained for
Margaret’s husband Edward I, whose entrails are very likely to have been
buried separately; for Edmund Earl of Cornwall, whose body was probably
subjected to mos teutonicus; or for Edward II, whose heart was buried with
Isabella in the Grey Friars’ church in London in 1358.58 By contrast, Robert
Bruce’s executors were excommunicated and absolved in 1330 for extracting
55 Ibid., pp. 222–3.

56 Mondeville, Chirurgie, p. 392; E. Wickersheimer, Anatomies de Mondino dei Luzzi et de
Guido de Vigevano (Genève, 1977), p. 72; E. Grant (ed.), A Source Book in Medieval Science
(Cambridge, Mass., 1974), p. 739; R.K. French, Dissection and Vivisection in the European
Renaissance (Aldershot, 1999), p. 11.
57 Guy de Chauliac, Chirurgie, p. 415; Brown, ‘Death and the Human Body’, p. 261. Liber
regalis, ed. W.H. Bliss, Roxburghe Club (London, 1870), p. 37.
58 Calendar of Papal Letters, 2: 45 (Margaret), 235 (Isabella), 3: 168 (Isabella again). For
Edward I, see above pp. 80–1; for Edmund, p. 61 and for Edward II, Bradford, Heart Burial, p.
106.
the king’s heart to fulfil his crusading vow, as were John de Meriet in 1314 and
John ‘Brabanzon’ in 1317.59
In other cases, either the body was eviscerated surreptitiously or something
resembling Mondeville’s external embalming procedure was used. The St Bees
man, mentioned above, was found to have all his internal organs in situ, while
the length of time between death and burial of for example two Verdun lords
of Alton suggests some form of elaborate embalming which may or may not
have involved evisceration. Theobald I de Verdun died 24 August 1309 at the
family caput of Alton in Staffordshire and was not buried until 13 October at
nearby Croxden Abbey. Similarly, Theobald II died at Alton on 27 July 1316
and was buried at Croxden on 19 September. Despite the papal ban, it is
obvious that some form of corpse conservation had to be applied to preserve
their remains over the summer months.60 If the embalming had involved evis-
ceration, it is possible that the viscera were interred with the body, as occurred
in later times. Although Henri de Mondeville does not concern himself as
such with burial locations, the fact that he insists on the careful preservation of
the internal organs suggests that he held an opinion similar to that of the
Parisian secular masters Godefroid de Fontaines and Gervais de Mont-
Saint-Eloy, who both allowed evisceration as part of conservation procedures
as long as the viscera were buried with the rest of the body; because in some
cases it could be too dangerous to leave them in situ it was allowed to removed
the internal organs and transport them separately.61
The thorny issue of corpse preservation and multiple burial had its roots in
the pronouncement of the Fourth Lateran Council that soul and body
together constituted a person.62 This had led Thomas Aquinas to conclude, in
Aristotelian fashion, that the soul constituted the form of the body which was
nothing but uninformed matter without the soul’s presence. Moreover, after
death the soul would not be complete until it once again was united with
matter to form a body. As a consequence, the cadaver was to be regarded as
formless matter which gradually decayed to its natural state, and which of
itself did not have any participation in the formation of a person beyond
59 Calendar of Papal Letters, 2: 345; A. Theiner (ed.), Vetera monumenta Hibernorum et

Scotorum historiam illustrantia (Rome, 1864), p. 251; Gittos and Gittos, ‘Motivation and
Choice’, p. 160; Calendar of Papal Letters, 2: 161 (John ‘Brabanzon’). Thomas Randulph, Earl
of Moray, who was behind the request to absolve the Bruce’s executors, obtained an indult in
November 1329 for a separate interment of his heart; Calendar of Papal Letters, 2: 311; Theiner,
Vetera monumenta, p. 249. The indult very specifically states that Randulph’s body and heart
could be separated for burial in two different places ‘ex magna devotione’.
60 CP 12.2: 249–50, 372–4; Monasticon, 5: 661. I am grateful to Dr Jackie Hall who kindly
shared her findings on the relationship between the Verduns and Croxden Abbey with me. See
also J. Hall, ‘Croxden Abbey Church: Architecture, Burial and Patronage’, JBAA 160 (2007),
pp. 38–128, in particular 84–92.
61 See below p. 94.
62 Brown, ‘Authority, the Family and the Dead’, p. 814.
providing the raw material with which the soul could work. It also meant that
there was no sense of material continuity, which posed a problem with regard
to saints’ relics. Although the cadaver was seen as ontologically and theologi-
cally ambiguous, Aquinas’s theory of the unicity of form was roundly
condemned at Oxford and Paris, while at the latter university a spirited debate
ensued at the instigation of Pope Honorius IV in the 1280s which related to
the ontological status of the body between death and Resurrection.63
The trouble was that both sides of the debate could harness the same argu-
ments in favour of unicity or plurality of forms in relation to burial and the
spread of relics. If one followed Aquinas, one could conclude that it did not
matter – so to speak – where the body was interred or in how many pieces,
since body did not participate in the formation of personhood. On the other
hand, it did not matter where the body was buried, or in how many pieces a
saint’s body was divided, if there was a multiplicity of forms which together
made up the body without compromising its material continuity – an intri-
cate use of synecdoche as Caroline Bynum has pointed out.64
An additional difficulty was the status of flesh. According to Isidore, the
enfleshed body was ipso facto alive. Although there were many different
‘bodies’, not all of them could be considered alive because they lacked flesh
(‘caro’), such as grass or stones. As Elizabeth Brown and Katherine Park have
suggested in opposite arguments, one of the main concerns in medieval atti-
tudes towards death was the idea of a connection between soul and body
which was not entirely separated until after the decay of the flesh. For Kath-
erine Park, this was a feature of Northern European funerary practices and
ghost stories not found in Italian attitudes towards the dead. Elizabeth Brown
argued almost the reverse when she stated that the solution of Boniface VIII,
who was Italian, to the conundrum of burial away from the site of death
pointed towards a belief in the continued connection between soul and body –
an argument she based on Hertz’s studies of secondary burial practices.65 Flesh
was that which was responsible for change and decay – hence saintly cadavers
being either miraculously preserved to resemble heavenly bodies or being
reduced to the pure essence of skeletal remains and, as we saw in Chapter 1,
hence also the powerful imagery of the putrefying cadaver to signal moral
corruption and the depiction of ghosts as animated corporeal revenants.66
Boniface’s solution focused on the natural stripping away of the flesh, before
63 Bynum, Resurrection of the Body, pp. 256–78. Brown, ‘Authority, Family and the Dead’, pp.
816–17.
64 Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption, pp. 285, 290, 294.
65 Park, ‘The Life of the Corpse’, pp. 111–32; Brown, ‘Death and the Human Body’, p. 223.
66 For flesh rather than soul being responsible for sin see A. Boureau, ‘The Sacrality of One’s
Own Body in the Middle Ages’, Corps mystique, corps sacré: Textual Transfigurations of the Body
from the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century, ed. F. Jaouën and B. Semple, Yale French
Studies 86 (1994), pp. 5–17.
the body could be removed to its permanent sepulchre, which denied the flesh
any real participation in the Resurrection, but which also ensured the
complete separation of body and soul.
This was ultimately also the outcome of a series of debates held at the
University of Paris in the 1280s and 1290s, which originated as a response to
the burial arrangements of King Philip III of France (d. 1285).67 Initially, the
discussion centred on whether the wishes of the deceased regarding interment
could be changed by their executor. When Philip III died in the south of
France in October 1285, his body was prepared for the journey to St Denis
where he had wished to be interred. At the request of the Archbishop of
Narbonne, Philip’s flesh and entrails were buried in the cathedral, two days
after his death. His son, however, had originally promised these to the
Dominicans in the same city. After protests, he then decided to donate his
father’s heart to the order’s church in Paris. It was the latter which incensed
the monks of St Denis, who evidently had little care about the resting place of
the royal entrails and flesh; they argued that because Philip III had promised
his whole body to them, the heart could not be interred elsewhere, as this
would go against the wishes of the deceased.68 However, the discussion soon
focused on the nature of the body, the importance of burial in one grave and
the theological ramifications of multiple burial. In 1286, the three masters
involved in the debate, Henri de Ghent, Godefroid de Fontaines and Gervais
de Mont-Saint-Eloi, agreed that there was little religious justification for
multiple burial, although they did not condemn the practice. It was more
natural for the body to be buried in one location, but as a practical necessity
the separate interment of the viscera was allowed in certain cases. Both Gervais
and Godefroid agreed on this matter, and Godefroid referred to it as an
‘ancient’ custom practiced by the elite (secundum antiquam consuetudinem
maiores personae). As Henri de Ghent pointed out, was not Jacob’s body
embalmed ‘in the Egyptian manner’? Nevertheless, he maintained that
multiple burial was not sanctioned by the holy fathers, did not increase the
efficacy of prayer and in the end was a horrible and dehumanising practice.69
While Henri de Ghent draws upon the traditional view that anyone would
want to be buried amongst one’s relatives and rationalises this with reference
67 Elizabeth Brown has devoted two seminal articles to the debate. See her ‘Death and the
Human Body’ and ‘Authority, Family and the Dead’.
68 Brown, ‘Death and the Human Body’, pp. 235–7; ‘Authority, Family and the Dead’, p.
818. For a summary of the complaint see Henrici de Gandavo Opera Omnia 13: Quodlibet 9, ed.
R. Macken, Ancient and Medieval Philosophy; De Wulf-Mansion Series 2 (Leuven, 1983), p.
225 [hereafter Henri de Ghent, Quodlibet 9].
69 For Gervais, see Brown, ‘Death and the Human Body’, pp. 269–70; for Godefroid, see Les
quatre premiers quodlibets de Godefroid de Fontaines, ed. M. de Wulf and A. Pelzer. Les Philo-
sophes Belges, Textes et Études 2 (Leuven, 1904), pp. 28–9 [hereafter Godefroid de Fontaines,
Quodlibets]; Henri de Ghent, Quodlibet 9, p. 231. Brown, ‘Authority, Family and the Dead’,
pp. 818–19.
to the Pauline metaphor of the Church as body of Christ, Godefroid de

Fontaines is more emotive. According to him, heirs should spare no labour or
expense in honouring the wishes of the deceased and should ensure their inter-
ment in one piece where they had elected to be buried – suggesting that if
there is an absolute need for the body to be eviscerated, the entrails should be
carefully embalmed and buried with the body. Similarly, although Gervais
disagrees in principle with the ‘novel’ custom (!), he will make allowances for
the removal of the entrails, since they cannot be transported without danger to
other parts of the body.70
Unavoidably perhaps, because the debate touched upon a practice which
was proving lucrative to the mendicants, the Dominican Olivier de Tréguier
argued in 1291 that multiple burial was effective for the well-being of the soul
when its intention was to increase the number of prayers; moreover, he
pointed out the obvious belief that God would be able to reassemble all parts
of the body. In response to this, Godefroid reiterated his earlier arguments in
favour of integrity and proposed a two-stage burial programme which would
allow the flesh to decay naturally and leave the bones to be transported safely
to their final destination. The same, he argued, should be applied to the
remains of saints who could be divided because of their semi-public status, but
only after the flesh and other perishable parts had turned to dust. In fact, he
stated, in their drive to counter corruption, those who wished for multiple
burial were actually deliberately corrupting their body, because its natural
corruption was only accidental as a result of the first sin.71
The issue of the separate interment of the heart against the wishes of the
deceased therefore pointed to a more profound concern about the idea of
integrity in which entrails and flesh only played a secondary role. As Philip III
had requested the burial of his whole body (simpliciter, integraliter) with the
monks of St Denis, was it right for the Dominicans to hang on to the king’s
heart? The problem of changing one’s last will was still present, but became
entangled in the theological conundrum of the status of the body, as well as
issues with the burial activities of the mendicants. In the end, those opposed to
the practice could do nothing more than harness their emotive arguments
about the unnatural and irrational sentiments which underlay multiple burial
in the same way that Boniface VIII was to oppose it in strikingly similar terms
as those used by Godefroid. Although there is a real possibility that Boniface’s
bull was inspired by the debate, since he was in Paris in 1291 and suspended
Henri de Ghent from his position as university master as a consequence of his
opposition to the extended rights of mendicant orders, the similarity in
70 Henri de Ghent, Quodlibet 9, p. 230; Godefroid de Fontaines, Quodlibets, pp. 28–9;

Brown, ‘Death and the Human Body’, p. 270.
71 Brown, ‘Death and the Human Body’, p. 270; Le huitième quodlibet de Godefroid de
Fontaines, ed. J.A. Hoffmans, Les philosophes Belges 4: Textes et Études (Louvain, 1924), pp.
87–90, 97; Brown, ‘Authority, Family and the Dead’, pp. 820–3.
argument also seems to point to an unwillingness to engage in theological
debate – either because the arguments were weak, or because it was not felt to
be necessary in the context of what the bull sought to curtail.72 There was
much confusion about the scope of its contents, but it was phrased in a way
that made papal opinion abundantly clear to those not au fait with the intrica-
cies of the theological consequences of their funerary practices: mos teutonicus
was a horrible treatment of God’s creation.
Conclusion
One of the most significant aspects about this debate in the context of aristo-
cratic funerary practices is the status of the heart/viscera. Since it was regarded
as the seat of the soul, the ‘inner man’ of Isidore’s etymological episteme, the
heart was integral to the idea of personhood under the pronouncements of the
Fourth Lateran Council. It followed that for the aristocracy, there was no
ontological discrepancy between burial in one grave or separate interment of
the heart or the viscera: in both cases one’s individual identity was represented
by all parts.73 There was, however, as we have seen, an issue with the division
of skeletal remains, which as a consequence was never contemplated as an
option. Very clearly, the aristocracy saw the burial of skeletal remains in one
location, and the heart in another, as different expressions of communal and
personal identity; religious piety was a factor but it was superseded in many
cases by dynastic and individual socio-political considerations. Burial of body
parts became an expression of lordship, of familial identity, of the relationship
between family and monastery, of individual status.
The emphasis on the integrity of the aristocratic body – in the sense of
nobility and wholeness – in ideas of communal identity came to lie at the heart
of funerary practices and cadaver preservation. Moreover, as a result of the
association between the spiritual virtues of nobility and its physiological posi-
tion as ‘most worthy’ organ, the heart was considered a special part of the
noble body which carried the essence of one’s being. Its separate interment
therefore did not only signify the owner’s social status, in a sense it also was the
owner. The collapse of the metaphorical and ideological into the physical not
only had profound effects on burial practices; it came most acutely to the fore
in the treatment of aristocratic traitors.
72 Ibid.; Brown, ‘Death and the Human Body’, pp. 236–7; ‘Authority, Family and the Dead’,
pp. 820–1.
73 Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption, p. 295.
Chapter 5
Corruption of Nobility:
Treason and the Aristocratic Traitor1
On the vigil of St Bartholomew’s Day, 23 August 1305, amongst cheering

crowds, one of Edward I’s most persistent opponents was dragged by a horse
through the streets of London towards the site of his execution. Charged with
treason and a range of felonies, the Scotsman William Wallace, scion of a
minor landholding family, was subjected initially to personal humiliation
before being publicly killed in elaborate fashion. About a year later, on 6
September 1306, Simon Fraser was similarly put to death for treason and
other crimes and only two months later, John Earl of Atholl underwent the
same fate – the first earl, according to John Bellamy, to be executed since
Waltheof of Northumbria in 1075.2 For the next thirty years or so, aristocratic
men were unable to rely on their high social status if their political fortune
changed, but instead they could be subjected to a humiliating public punish-
ment which did not necessarily end with death. What had happened between
1075 and 1306 in the attitudes towards aristocratic treason and punishment?
How was treason defined in different political circumstances and why was it
thought more suitable for aristocrats to die rather than to be punished more
leniently?
In this chapter and the next, I will explore a different perspective on death
and its impact on the body. Where in the previous chapters the focus has been
on aristocratic funerary practices and the ways in which the body was
perceived in honourable circumstances, it is now time to see how, if one failed
to live up to the standards of aristocratic identity and the community,
dishonour was rendered visible within and upon the body. To pick up an
argument made in Chapter 2, it is nowhere clearer than in the treatment of the
1 Elements of this chapter and the next have appeared previously in Westerhof, ‘Decons-
tructing Identities’, and ead., ‘Amputating the Traitor: Healing the Social Body in Public
Executions for Treason in Medieval England’, in The Ends of the Body: Identity and Community
in Medieval Culture, ed. S. Akbari and J. Ross (forthcoming).
2 Ann. London, pp. 139–42; Flores historiarum, 3: 123–4; G.W.S. Barrow, Robert Bruce and
the Community of the Realm of Scotland, 3rd edn (Edinburgh, 1988), pp. 136–8, 155–6;
Bellamy, Law of Treason, p. 46.
CORRUPTION OF NOBILITY 97
aristocratic body in public executions how the body was perceived as a central
space in and upon which personal and communal identity interacted and
merged. It will also be clear from the discussion in the next pages that, as in
funerary practices, a significant aspect of ideas about treason and corporal
punishment involved issues of self-control or its absence in relation to a
perceived imbalance between the inner and the outer person. My focus will be
on the executions of aristocrats from the middle of the thirteenth century
onwards – executions which incorporated mutilation and/or division of the
body in a series of punishments designed for a variety of crimes but always
including a charge of treason. In this chapter, the focus will be on the nature of
treason in legal and political contexts, and how definitions of treason inter-
sected with ideas about nobility. In the next chapter, I shall concentrate on the
nature of the punishment of aristocratic traitors and suggest that aristocrats
came to be penalised more harshly as a result of the common ideology of
embodied nobility which collapsed perceptions of inner and outer person.
Scottish traitors and their treatment 1305–06
The capture and execution of the three Scotsmen in 1305–06 occurred in the
context of dramatic developments in the relations between England and Scot-
land. Before Robert Bruce claimed the throne of Scotland in the spring of
1306 it had appeared that Edward I had succeeded in submitting the kingdom
to his rule. In the political void which had started dramatically with the death
of a little girl destined to be queen of Scotland in 1290, Edward was able skil-
fully to manipulate the Scottish aristocracy into accepting him as their over-
lord in the proceedings determining the rightful heir to the throne. This
culminated in 1296 with John Balliol’s abdication in Edward’s court and the
English king effectively assuming political control, formalised by the forced
homage of the Scottish aristocracy at the Parliament of Berwick on 28 August
of that year.3 Nine months later, Scotland was back in turmoil with William
Wallace in Lanarkshire (having killed, and supposedly dismembered, the
sheriff of Lanark) and Andrew of Murray in the north rising against English
rule. In the south-west, a group of barons, including Wallace’s own lord James
the Steward and Robert Bruce the younger (the future king), collected an
army, although their resistance was to be short-lived. For a brief period,
Wallace and Murray were joint Guardians for John Balliol, who was still
regarded as the rightful king of Scotland. Murray died in November 1297
3 For the background to the Anglo-Scottish conflict and for what follows, see E.L.G. Stones
and G.G. Simpson, Edward I and the Throne of Scotland, 1290–1296: An Edition of the Record
Sources for the Great Cause, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1978); F. Watson, Under the Hammer: Edward I
and Scotland 1286–1307 (East Linton, 1998), pp. 6–29; Barrow, Bruce, pp. 39–53; M.
Prestwich, Edward I (London, 1988), pp. 356–76.
after being wounded at the Battle of Stirling Bridge, while Wallace was forced
to resign after a disastrous Scottish defeat at Falkirk the following year.4
During this period, Simon Fraser, a relative of William Fraser bishop of St
Andrews, and John of Atholl were in Flanders serving with the English army,
probably in exchange for release from English captivity. Fraser, who was
warden of Selkirk Forest under the English, remained loyal until September
1301; John of Atholl, who was a member of the Scottish Council from 1299,
first renewed his loyalty to the English in late 1303 but was present at Robert
Bruce’s inauguration in March 1306.5
It was not until the end of 1302 that Edward was able to devote his full
attention to the North again. By May 1303, he was in Berwick whence he
started a slow progress into Scotland with his army. The English king met
with some resistance but, in March 1304, he was able to hold a parliament at
St Andrews, where once again the Scottish aristocracy was summoned to
perform homage under terms of a general peace. John Comyn, who had led
the Scottish rebellion between 1298 and 1304 did homage for his lands and
swore fealty, followed by all magnates who had previously resisted Edward.
Excluded from this peace were William Wallace, Simon Fraser and the
Stirling garrison, which turned them into outlaws. John of Atholl, loyal to the
English since the previous year, was soon serving as justiciar in the North.6
Wallace and Fraser had rejected the initial peace terms offered to the Scots in
February, which isolated them in their military efforts. The Stirling garrison
held out until July 1304, during which time Fraser had thrown himself on
Edward’s mercy and had been accepted in the king’s peace. Wallace, however,
refused to surrender himself to the uncertainty of Edward’s temper and judge-
ment, which appears to have infuriated the English king. Immediately after
the fall of Stirling Castle, Edward ordered John Comyn, Simon Fraser and
others to capture Wallace to show their good faith towards him.7
The outlawed Wallace was finally captured in early August 1305, not by
Comyn and Fraser but by John of Menteith who was awarded 40 marks and
£100 in land for his service.8 According to the Annales Londonienses, which
provides the fullest account of Wallace’s trial and execution, he was taken to
London where he arrived on 22 August. The following day Wallace was led on
horseback from a house in All Saints Haymarket to Westminster Palace, in a
4 Barrow, Bruce, pp. 90–1. Documents Illustrative of Sir William Wallace, ed. J. Stevenson,
Maitland Club (Edinburgh, 1841), p. xvii; Ann. London, p. 140.
5 F. Watson, ‘Strathbogie, John of, ninth earl of Atholl (c. 1260–1306), magnate’, ODNB,
online edition (Oxford, 2004) and ead. ‘Fraser, Sir Simon (c. 1270–1306), rebel’, ODNB,
online edition (Oxford, 2004).
6 Watson, Under the Hammer, pp. 176–83, 186–9. Robert Bruce had already made peace
with Edward in 1302. Barrow, Bruce, pp. 121–4. Watson, ‘Strathbogie, John of’.
7 Watson, Under the Hammer, pp. 191–2.
8 Prestwich, Edward I, pp. 502–3; Documents illustrative of Sir William Wallace, p. 169 (no.
XX).
procession which included his guard John de Segrave, his judges, the
aldermen of London and ‘many others walking and riding’.9 In the Great Hall
in Westminster Palace, Wallace was seated on the ‘southern bench’ (scamnum
australe), probably indicating the King’s Bench, which was located at the
southern end of the Great Hall.10 Here he was accused of treason, which he
denied although he accepted the other charges against him.11 After this Peter
Mallore, a justice of the Common Bench, read out the writ of gaol delivery
which was followed by a list of Wallace’s crimes. These were presented as
beyond doubt, based on the king’s word. Because he had never been received
back into the English king’s peace, Wallace was considered an outlaw and
would be tried as such. This meant that he was not allowed to speak in his own
defence and after reading out his crimes, the judges immediately proceeded to
pass sentence.12
For his manifest treason (‘pro manifesta seditione’), for the plotting of felo-
nies (i.e. premeditated crimes) and planning to murder the king, for his
attempts to weaken the Crown and the dignity of the king, and for raising the
banner against his liege lord in battle, Wallace was drawn first from Westmin-
ster Palace to the Tower of London, then from the Tower, via Aldgate,
Cornhill, Cheap and Newgate, to the Elms at Smithfield. It is possible that he
was initially drawn to the Tower via the same route, which constituted the
main arterial road through the city and the market areas.13 As a consequence,
the first part of his punishment was intended to alert the Londoners to his
execution and thereby to increase Wallace’s public humiliation.
Upon arrival at the Elms, he was first hanged for the robberies and homi-
cides he had committed both in England and Scotland (‘in regno Angliae et
terra Scotiae’ – note the difference in status); after losing consciousness
9 Ann. London, pp. 139–42 for the following account. The Annales were probably written in
the 1320s by a chamberlain of the London Guildhall, called Andrew Horn. Based on an abbre-
viated version of the Flores historiarum the narrative is interspersed with the author’s own mate-
rial, which includes legal documents (such as Wallace’s writ of gaol delivery). J. Catto, ‘Andrew
Horn: Law and History in Fourteenth-Century England’, in The Writing of History in the
Middle Ages: Essays Presented to Richard William Southern, ed. R.H.C. Davis and J.M.
Wallace-Hadrill (Oxford, 1981), pp. 367–91, at 367–71, 374–6. A writ under the Privy Seal,
however, suggests the Tower as Wallace’s gaol. Documents illustrative of Sir William Wallace, p.
187 (no. XXVII).
10 My thanks go to Professor Mark Ormrod for pointing this out. See H.M. Colvin, History of
the King’s Works: The Middle Ages, 2 vols. (London, 1963), 1: 543–4. In the years 1305–18, the
King’s Bench was permanently at Westminster, although traditionally it only sat in the king’s
presence. During Edward’s earlier Scottish campaigns it travelled with him. A. Musson and
W.M. Ormrod, The Evolution of English Justice: Law, Politics and Society in the Fourteenth
Century (Basingstoke, 1999), pp. 17–19.
11 Ann. London, p. 139. In response to the treason accusation, Wallace responded that he had
never betrayed the king of the English.
12 Ann. London, p. 141; Bellamy, Law of Treason, pp. 34–8.
13 Ann. London, p. 141. For his route through London see The British Atlas of Historic Towns
vol. 3: The City of London, gen. ed. M.D. Lobel (Oxford, 1991).
(‘semivivus’), Wallace was taken down and beheaded ‘because he was an

outlaw’ and had not been received back into the king’s peace. Moreover,
because of sacrilege his heart, lungs and liver ‘and all his interior organs [omnia
interiora ipsius Willelmi] from which his perverse thoughts had emanated’
were extracted from his body and burned on the spot. Interestingly, because
his actions had not only affected the king but also the people of England and
Scotland (‘toti plebi Angliae et Scotiae’), his trunk was quartered for a promi-
nent display on the gallows in Newcastle, Berwick, Stirling and Perth, while
his head remained in London to be placed on London Bridge. The choice of
four northern towns for each of Wallace’s quarters was evidently meant to
deter others from rebelling against the English.14
The Annales Londonienses also provides a detailed account of the death of
Simon Fraser, although it lacks the transcripts of official documents similar to
Wallace’s trial. In addition, we have a contemporary poem which fills in some
of the gaps in the chronicle accounts while it corroborates other details. The
vernacular Song on the Execution of Sir Simon Fraser, found in MS BL Harley
2253 (c. 1340), not only provides details of Fraser’s execution, but also relates
how he was received in London prior to his trial and how his suspended
cadaver fared after the execution: it was guarded by twenty-four men every
night to stop the Scots from taking the body down. Since Fraser’s body was
taken from the gallows three weeks after his death, it seems that the poem was
composed in the period prior to this (Song of Simon Fraser, lines 209–16).
Moreover, since it is written in the vernacular it offers a fascinating insight
into the sentiments of a wider audience regarding the events in Scotland.15
In early September 1306, about six months after Robert Bruce’s inaugura-
tion as king of the Scots at Scone, Simon Fraser was brought to London after
his capture at the Battle of Methven on 19 June. He entered through Newgate
on horseback but with his feet fettered underneath and his hands tied. Like
Wallace, who was made to wear a laurel wreath in mockery at his trial, Fraser
wore a ‘crown of periwinkle’.16 The day after his arrival, two other Scottish
noblemen, Herbert de Morham and his squire Thomas de Bois were beheaded
in the Tower after receiving judgement by Ralph de Sandwich, the Constable
of the Tower. Subsequently, Fraser was summarily tried and sentenced to death.
Dressed in sackcloth, he was placed on an oxhide and immediately drawn from
the Tower through the centre of London to the gallows – according to the Song,
14 Ann. London, p. 142; Flores historiarum, 3: 123–4, also mentions that Wallace’s genitals
were cut off and that he was disembowelled before he was beheaded. John de Segrave was paid
15s for taking Wallace’s quarters back to the North. Prestwich, Edward I, p. 503.
15 Ann. London, p. 148; see also Flores historiarum, 3: 134; Brut, 1: 200–1. Song on the Execu-
tion of Sir Simon Fraser, in Historical Poems of the XIVth and XVth Centuries (New York, 1959),
pp. 14–21 [hereafter Song of Simon Fraser].
16 Song of Simon Fraser, lines 115–23; John Lydgate in the Fall of Princes associated periwinkle
with the condemned criminal: Lydgate, Fall of Princes, ed. H. Bergen, 4 vols. EETS extra series
121–24 (1924), 3: 678 (book 6 line 126).
at Smithfield – for his treason. He was hanged for robbery, then taken down
while unconscious, beheaded for homicide and disembowelled. Afterwards,
his body was returned to hang on the gallows in iron chains, while his head
was placed beside that of William Wallace on London Bridge.17
John of Atholl’s execution on 7 November followed a slightly different
pattern as a consequence of his status. Captured in August, he had been led
‘secretly outside the walls [occulte extra muros]’ towards London’s Postern
Gate beside the Tower, where he was incarcerated.18 Two days after his arrival,
he was tried at Westminster Palace by Roger de Brabazon and Peter Mallore,
the king’s justices.19 Instead of being drawn, he was allowed to proceed on
horseback to the gallows (which was fifty feet high) on account of his royal
blood. He was hanged for treason, and like Wallace and Fraser taken down
while unconscious to be beheaded. His remains (‘una cum carne et ossibus’)
were immediately burned in a fire which had been lit earlier. His head was sent
to London Bridge and put on display in the ‘highest position’ again because of
his exalted status as Edward’s distant kinsman.20 It appears there was some
unease mixed with self-righteous anger in the proceedings against the Earl of
Atholl. Unlike the triumphant entry of Wallace and Fraser, who had given
Edward and his henchmen a hard time in Scotland trying to capture them, the
Earl’s arrival in London was shrouded in secrecy. It was only after his judge-
ment that royal indignation was fully vented through the use of the high
gallows, the disgraceful funeral pyre as well as the fact that the earl’s head was
placed on London Bridge. John of Atholl’s treason was felt all the more
because of his high status and distant connection to the English royal house.
In each case, despite the similarities in the type of punishment, the accusa-
tions of treason differed as did the position of the men prior to their capture.
Wallace had been proclaimed an outlaw, which foreclosed access to a fair trial;
Fraser, although his exile had been commuted after Wallace’s capture, had
subsequently betrayed Edward again by fighting on the Scottish side. John of
Atholl, lastly, had played a dangerous and duplicitous role by openly adhering
to the English, but secretly throwing in his lot with Robert Bruce in the early
months of 1306. William Wallace was accused of a range of crimes, including
‘accroachment’ of royal power and crimes against the people of England and
17 Ann. London, p. 148; Flores historiarum, 3: 134; Song of Simon Fraser, lines 113–28,
153–216.
18 Flores historiarum, 3: 134–5; Ann. London, p. 149.
19 Mallore served on the Common Bench, but Roger de Brabazon was Chief Justice of the
King’s Bench. A. Musson, Public Order and Law Enforcement: The Local Administration of
Criminal Justice, 1294–1350 (Woodbridge, 1996), p. 88n; J.R. Maddicott, Law and Lordship:
Royal Justices as Retainers in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century England, Past & Present Publi-
cations, supplement 4 (1978), p. 16.
20 Flores Historiarum, 3: 135. John of Atholl was distantly related to the English royal house
through his mother, who was a granddaughter of one of King John’s illegitimate daughters; CP,
1: 305.
Scotland; by contrast, Fraser and Atholl were only accused of a breach of

loyalty towards the English king.
What all three had in common, however, was an idea of being subject to a
form of punishment which emphasised the complete destruction of the
human body through quartering or burning. At the same time, by displaying
the head or different body parts, the physical destruction of the traitor was
further underscored as a stark warning to others, aristocrats in particular. The
events of 1305–06, used as an illustration of the visceral corporeality of
punishment, highlight two main issues: what was considered treason, and why
were aristocratic traitors increasingly facing public humiliation and death in
the course of the thirteenth century?
‘Feloniously as a felon, traitorously as a traitor’ 21
The savagery of the punishment for treason in the late thirteenth and early
fourteenth century in England has puzzled scholars for decades. Maurice Keen
has pointed out that the trials of traitors did not conform to the usual proce-
dures for criminal persecution, and the majority of traitors appear to have
been convicted on the king’s record alone and under martial law – high-
lighting the fact that treason was generally committed during periods of open
war.22 For John Bellamy – following Pollock and Maitland’s assertion about
the nature of treason – the punishment for treason signified its difference in
status from lesser crimes, which led him to consider the development of a
specific law of treason connected to bloodier punishments. However, as the
discussion in the following chapters will reveal, the severity of punishments
hardly ever corresponded to the severity of accusations. Moreover, John
Gillingham has recently questioned this emphasis on the development of new
concepts of treason and instead suggests that the focus should be on the fact
that the punishments for treason changed in this period. In addition, he
argues that the use of harsher punishments for treason might indicate a decline
in ‘chivalric’ standards, which culminated in the civil unrest of the 1320s and
public execution of traitors.23
21 The Mirror of Justices, ed. W.J. Whittaker, Selden Society 7 (1895), p. 55.
22 Keen, ‘Treason Trials’, pp. 85–103.
23 Bellamy, Law of Treason, p. 20; F. Pollock and F.W. Maitland, The History of English Law
Before the Time of Edward I, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1968), 2: 511; J. Gillingham, ‘Killing and
Mutilating Political Enemies in the British Isles from the Late Twelfth to the Early Fourteenth
Century: A Comparative Study’, in Britain and Ireland 900–1300: Insular Responses to Medieval
European Change, ed. B. Smith (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 114–34, at 133–4. One aspect of the
debate has centred on the influence of Roman law on the changing attitudes towards punish-
ment. See for a brief discussion W. Childs, ‘Resistance and Treason in the Vita Edwardi
Secundi’, in Thirteenth Century England 6, ed. M. Prestwich, R.H. Britnell and R. Frame
(Woodbridge, 1997), pp. 177–91, at 180.
I would like to progress from Gillingham’s argument by suggesting that we
should see treason in light of aristocratic idealised self-definition of embodied
nobility and ask how this ideal impinged upon the complex socio-political
realities of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. As I pointed out
in my introduction, the communal set of values which formed the glue
holding the aristocracy together as a group was not fixed or interpreted one
way – all group members would have a vague idea of what it meant to be a
noble aristocrat, but its practical manifestation would differ from person to
person.
Like ideas of ‘chivalry’, the written circumference of the concept of treason
was ambiguous, an ambiguity which manifested itself in the lack of unity in
accusations and punishments. Often, treason would be conceptually inter-
changed with theft as both encompassed a degree of deliberate deception and
secrecy. For example, the armiger literatus attempting to kill Henry III in 1238
was described by Matthew Paris as a thief (ipse latro), whose body parts were
displayed on cruci latronali; Hugh Despenser the Elder (d. 1326) and Roger
Mortimer (d. 1330) were also both hanged on the common gallows ‘like
thieves’.24
Moreover, treason as a political concept was unavoidably related to specific
political circumstances. The ambiguity of the concept of treason provided
both king and aristocracy with a flexible interpretation of accusations of
‘seditio’, ‘proditio’ or ‘crimen laesae maiestatis’ and even the 1352 Statute of
Treasons incorporated a loophole with which any future actions and inten-
tions not specifically detailed in the Statute could be reinterpreted as trea-
sonous by king and parliament.25 In 1352, for the first time, a discussion
regarding the conceptual boundaries of treason entered the arena of executive
justice in an attempt to reconcile the theoretical ramifications of the concept
of treason with actual accusations of treason in practice. Significantly, the
Statute was engendered in a context of concerns about forfeiture rather than
about addressing the unstable boundaries of the concept of treason. As far as
both Edward III and the commons were concerned, the financial implications
outweighed the judicial, political and social interpretations of the crime in
question.26
24 Paris, Chronica majora, 3: 498; Adae Murimuth Continuatio chronicarum, ed. E.M.
Thompson, RS 93 (1889), p. 49; Geoffrey Le Baker of Swinbroke, Chronicon Angliae
temporibus Edward II et Edward III, ed. J.A. Giles. Caxton Society 7 (1847), p. 112. This
connection is also found in the Anglo-Saxon Dooms: cf. VI Athelstan 1.1–5 or II Cnut 4.6. See
Neal, ‘Masculine Identity’, pp. 184–5. Neal argues that in later medieval court cases the term
‘thief’ was used as an umbrella term to indicate any manifestation of ‘trickery, deception and
oversubtlety’.
25 Statutes of the Realm, 1: 319–20 (25 Edward III 5.C.2). For this loophole being used, see
Bellamy, Law of Treason, pp. 180–1.
26 Bellamy, Law of Treason, pp. 59–87; cf. I.D. Thorney, ‘The Act of Treasons, 1352’, History
6 (1921), pp. 106–8; S. Rezneck, ‘The Early History of the Parliamentary Declaration of
In order to effect the correct distribution of forfeited property, however, a

working definition of treason had to be espoused. Therefore, a distinction was
made between high and petty treason, whereby the former was limited to
crimes against the king and his government and entailed the forfeiture of
goods to the crown. Petty treason involved acts against one’s lord, husband or
master, whereby goods were forfeited to the lord of the fee. The Statute is not
particularly concerned with the latter (only killing one’s lord, husband or
master is mentioned), but provides a list of what constitutes high treason,
pertaining directly to the body of the king and his family, the political body of
government and its representatives, and the social body. The latter included
open rebellion and adhering to the king’s enemies but emphatically excluded
felonies committed under cover of secrecy such as homicide, robbery or
kidnapping in the context of private warfare. Forms of high treason directed
against the king and his government included the act and intention of
assaulting the king, his wife, his heirs, his government officials or members of
the king’s council, forging the royal seals, and coin clipping and forgery. Even
if the Statute failed to include the most elusive of accusations, viz.
‘accroaching royal power’, or did not address issues of judicial process or forms
of punishment, it certainly focused the idea of treason on the concrete betrayal
of the king and the crown.27
The most fundamental element of any accusation of treason involved a
breach of trust, oath or loyalty.28 Although considered a particularly heinous
crime in Anglo-Saxon law, which could not be compensated by payment and
which threw a man on to the king’s mercy, treason was not different from
other felonies such as arson, homicide or theft.29 Nevertheless, a distinction
could be made as, for example, in Alfred’s law code, which specifies that
‘hlafordsearwe’ (betrayal of one’s lord) is the only crime for which the king
ought not to show mercy and it is only in very exceptional circumstances that
one may break one’s oath to one’s superior, which includes deserting one’s
lord in times of war.30 Edmund, Alfred’s grandson, equally stresses the impor-
tance of his men swearing an oath of loyalty: ‘since a man should be loyal to his
Treason’, EHR 42 (1927), pp. 497–513; W.M. Ormrod, The Reign of Edward III (Stroud,
2000), pp. 29–31.
27 Cf. Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, p. 258 for a late thirteenth-century opinion on the
scope of treason.
28 See also Bellamy, Law of Treason, pp. 1–22 for a discussion of the theory of treason which,
however, excludes the Anglo-Saxon Dooms.
29 Cf. III Edgar 7.3, II Aethelstan 4, in Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen, ed. F. Liebermann, 3 vols.
(Halle, 1898–1916); Leges Henrici Primi, ed. L.J. Downer (Oxford, 1972), c. 12.1a; 13.1, 13.7,
13.12. The author of the Leges uses the English terms for the felonies in 12.1a – including
breach of loyalty – but reverts back to Latin terminology in 13.1 (infidelitas et proditio). See also
F. Lear, Treason in Roman and Germanic Law (Austin, Texas, 1965), pp. 181–95.
30 Alfred 4.
lord, without any dispute [controversia] or betrayal [seductione].’31 In the
following century, Archbishop Wulfstan of York powerfully condemned
disloyalty as a particularly shameful act in the Sermo lupi ad Anglos:
‘hlafordswice’ is defined as betraying the soul of one’s lord, killing him or
driving him into exile. The particularity of the latter two crimes is the conse-
quence of relatively recent events which Wulfstan refers to: the killing of King
Edward ‘the martyr’ in 978 and King Aethelred’s exile in 1013. For the Arch-
bishop, however, betrayal is only one of the many crimes the English have
succumbed to and for which they are being punished with the presence of the
Vikings.32
Later legal treatises, such as Glanvill and Bracton (c. 1180–1220), incorpo-
rated the Roman concept of lese-majesty, which was used as a kind of
umbrella term for any act which could be construed as being contemptuous of
royal authority.33 Betrayal of the king’s person (‘seditione personae domini
regis’), his army or his kingdom, was not different from any act which
disturbed the king’s peace (the usual felonies).34 For Bracton, lese-majesty was
the most serious of public crimes and in its definition the author focuses
specifically on acts of betrayal and conspiracy, whereby intention is as culpable
as the act itself.35 Both authors, however, agree that the punishment should be
death or mutilation. They also agree on an aspect of the accusation which was
to be popular during the reigns of Edward I and Edward II, namely that a
suspected traitor could be brought to justice on account of public notoriety.
In two legal texts written during the reign of Edward I, we find that the
definition of treason is more or less encapsulated by the punishment for it.
Although Britton broadened the scope of treason by suggesting that treason
was ‘any mischief [damage], which a man knowingly [escient] does, or procures
to be done, to one to whom he pretends to be a friend [a cely a qi hom se fet
ami]’, the author specified that for treason the criminal should be drawn,
while ‘suffering death for the felony’.36 Fleta, moreover, argues that treason
(referred to as lese-majesty – which demands ‘penalties beyond death’) is the
31 III Edmund 1.
32 Sermo Lupi ad Anglos, ed. D. Whitelock, Methuen’s Old English Library (Oxford, 1939),
pp. 31–2.
33 H.G. Richardson and G.O. Sayles, Law and Legislation from Aethelberht to Magna Carta
(Edinburgh, 1966), pp. 71–4. The term lese-majesty refers to the semi-sacerdotal nature of
kingship, which is further highlighted by the frequent pairing of treason and sacrilege. See for
example John of Salisbury’s comments: Policraticus, 2: 73 (ed. Nederman, p. 137) and Vita
Edwardi Secundi: The Life of Edward the Second, ed. W.R. Childs (Oxford, 2005), pp. 142–3,
whose author refers specifically to Boniface VIII’s De poenis in which sacrilege is called treason.
34 G.D.G. Hall (ed.), Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Anglie qui Glanvilla vocatur
(London, 1965), pp. 3–4.
35 Henry Bracton, On the Laws and Customs of England, ed. G.E. Woodbine and trans. S.
Thorne, 4 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), 2: 334–7.
36 Britton: The French Text Carefully Revised with an English Translation, Introduction and
Notes, ed. F.M. Nichols, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1865), 1: 40–1.
most serious crime which ought to be dealt with first ‘lest a penalty should be
extinguished or wrongdoings remain unpunished’.37 Treason, according to
Fleta, is any act against the king: such as plotting his death or his abdication, or
to betray him and his army (referred to as ‘seduccionem’). The French Mirror
of Justices, also compiled in the reign of Edward I, adds to this list sexual assault
of the queen, their eldest daughter or the ‘nurse suckling the heir of the king’.
Moreover, unlike the other texts, the Mirror emphatically asserts that treason
is sacrilege and that traitors are mortal sinners who should be purged from the
community.38
It is obvious, therefore, that before the change in attitudes towards the
physical punishment of aristocrats in the later thirteenth century, legal litera-
ture such as Leges, Glanvill and Bracton had already insisted on the death
penalty and mutilation of traitors, although they did not always specify in
detail how this should be effected. Moreover, with the exception of Glanvill,
who used lese-majesty as an overarching concept for both treason and felonies,
later legal authors use the type of punishment (i.e. execution) as an umbrella
concept whereby lese-majesty is considered the most serious crime, despite its
similarities to felonies.39 Both Britton and Fleta, compiled as the changes in
attitude were taking place, are more reflective on the specifics of the punish-
ment and Britton in particular mirrors what became a standard treatment of
convicted traitors.40
These attitudes to treason were not just found in the writings of legal theo-
rists. Political theory, in the person of the twelfth-century scholar John of
Salisbury, was equally critical of betrayal and went even further in its condem-
nation of treason.41 In the eyes of John of Salisbury, the traitor was not only
corrupt in himself, but he also symbolised corrupt matter which had to be
expelled from society in the way a surgeon would cut away diseased limbs. In
Ciceronian spirit, John saw harmony as the fundamental precept of successful
government; without a state of equilibrium in which each member of the body
politic was assigned its proper place, rebellion and injustice would prevail.42
37 Fleta, ed. H.G. Richardson and G.O. Sayles, 4 vols. Selden Society 62 (1955), 2: 56. This
very much echoes the sentiments of the compiler of the Leges Henrici Primi, for whom scalping
or disembowelment of the traitor is not nearly enough punishment. Instead, the traitor should
wish to die before he died. Leges, 75.1.
38 Fleta, 2: 56; Mirror of Justices, pp. 13, 15, 21.
39 Cf. Britton, 1: 98–9.
40 For example, William de Marisco’s sixteen accomplices were all drawn and hanged in 1242.
Also, chronicles occasionally refer to ‘proditio’ and lese-majesty as distinct crimes (cf. Chron.
Buriensis, p. 79; Flores historiarum, 2: 231.
41 John of Salisbury, Policraticus, ed. Webb and trans. Nederman. He sets out his political
vision in Books IV, V and VI, where he draws an elaborate metaphor of the body politic. For the
development of this metaphor in political theory see T. Struve, Die Entwicklung der
organologischen Staatsauffassung im Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 1978). The following is derived from
Westerhof, ‘Amputating the Traitor’.
42 C.J. Nederman, ‘The Physiological Significance of the Organic Metaphor in John of
Drawing upon widely circulating ideas about health and the prevention of
disease, John described crime as an imbalance within the body politic which
could be redressed by the ruler as ‘medicus rei publicae’ administering the law
like a medicine (‘medicinaliter’).43 Occasionally, the crime would be so severe,
he argued, that the only way of purging society would be to ‘amputate’ the
corrupted criminal. This is thrown sharply into relief in John’s discussion of
treason, informed by then current legal theory. In his view, treason constitutes
anything which intends to disrupt society and he goes so far as to state that it is
sacrilege to commit treason, since both lead to the spiritual death of the perpe-
trator.44 Although he maintains that the ruler by ordination is ‘a sort of deity
on earth, and that any attack on him is an attack on God’, he argues that as a
consequence of the interdependence of head and members, ‘a blow to the
head [lesio capitis] … is carried back to all the members and a wound unjustly
inflicted upon any member whatsoever [i.e. outside the bounds of legitimate
violence] tends to the injury of the head.’45 Invoking Christ’s metaphor of
removing offending members from the community of the faithful, John
concludes that in order to preserve the safety of the body, the corrupt body
part ought to be removed:
[T]his is to be observed by the prince with regard to all of the members to the
extent that not only are they to be rooted out, broken off and thrown far away
[Matt. 18:8], if they give offence to the faith or public security, but they are to be
destroyed utterly so that the security of the corporate community may be procured by
the extermination of the one member (my italics).46
The medical practice of amputating corrupt and deadened body parts thus
takes on a decidedly moral dimension in John’s vision of ideal society.
Although it should be used in moderation, harsh punishment is particularly
needed for repeat offenders, or for those who commit crimes which endanger
the moral and political health of society.47
Salisbury’s Policraticus’, History of Political Thought 8 (1987), pp. 211–23; H. Liebeschütz,

Mediaeval Humanism in the Life and Writings of John of Salisbury (London, 1950), p. 80. Cf.
Policraticus, 1: 282–3. For the dissemination of his ideas, see A. Linder, ‘The Knowledge of
John of Salisbury in the Late Middle Ages’, in Studi Medievali 3rd ser. 18:2 (1977), pp. 315–66;
W. Ullmann, ‘John of Salisbury’s Policraticus in the later Middle Ages’, in Geschichtschreibung
und geistiges Leben im Mittelalter: Festschrift für H. Löwe, ed. K. Mordek and H. Mordek
(Cologne, 1978), pp. 519–45.
43 Policraticus, 1: 262.
44 Policraticus, 2: 73–7.
45 Ibid. Trans. Nederman, p. 137.
46 Policraticus, 2: 79; trans. Nederman, pp. 140–1. Cf. Marcus Tullius Cicero, De officiis. On
Obligations, ed. and trans. P.G. Walsh (Oxford, 2000), iii.6 and Gerald of Wales, De principis
instructione, in Opera 8, ed. G.F. Warner, RS 21 (1891), pp. 34–5. Cf. Arnold de Villanova (c.
1300), who was a physician and theologian, asserts that the rich cause gangrene to the social
body and ought therefore to be removed to prevent further damage. Ziegler, Medicine and Reli-
gion, p. 75.
47 Note the similarities with excommunication rituals. One twelfth-century Ordo excom-
Giles of Rome, who wrote a practical treatise on government for the future
Philip IV in c. 1275, takes a similar view on renegade members of the polity.
He agrees with John that society is ideally based on co-operation and
harmony: just as the body needs different members doing different things, so
the kingdom needs different offices to function ‘perfectly’ in its goal towards
the common good.48 The concept of the common good is all pervasive;
members may on occasion sacrifice themselves to maintain the safety of the
polity, although this relies heavily on the moral and political strength of the
ruler.49 When members go against the common good within the body, Giles
argues, this will reveal itself in disease and corruption of humours, for which
the only remedy is phlebotomy. Healthy blood was a source of life and regen-
eration; corrupt blood, by contrast, was a sign of death – of degeneration.50 By
draining the body of excess humours, which would otherwise continue to
fester and endanger the whole body, it could be healed and protected from
further disruption. Although less explicit than John’s metaphor of amputa-
tion, the idea of corruption of blood within the body politic and within the
traitor became more current in later medieval treason accusations, since as a
concept it not only implicated the perpetrator but also his family. One of the
earliest references occurs in Britton in relation to the punishment of felonies.
The author states that the heirs of the felon will be disinherited, since the
felon’s blood is ‘attainted by judgement [le saunc al feloun atteynt par
jugement]’.51 In practice, although it was not used as a phrase in the judgement
of Roger Mortimer in 1330, the concept is referred to in the petition to clear
his name in 1354 (‘son Sang desheritez’), while in the fifteenth century it
became a standard phrase in parliamentary acts of attainder.52
municationis instructed the excommunicator to proclaim: ‘membrum putridum et insanible …

ferro excommunicationis a corpore Ecclesiae abscidamus’. Cited by F.D. Logan, Excommunica-
tion and the Secular Arm in Medieval England: A Study in Legal Procedure from the Thirteenth to
the Sixteenth Century (Toronto, 1968), p. 13. The difference is that excommunication was
meant to be a cure for the sinner, whereas in treason executions it was society which was in need
of a cure. Cf. R. Arbesmann, ‘The Concept of “Christus Medicus” in St Augustine’, Traditio 10
(1954), pp. 1–28, at 21.
48 The edition of the De regimine principum used here is the Trevisa translation: The Gover-
nance of Kings and Princes: John of Trevisa’s Middle English Translation of the ‘De regimine
principum’ of Aegidius Romanus, ed. D.C. Fowler, C.F. Briggs, and P.G. Remley (New York,
1997), p. 300. The text was initially written in Latin but was translated into French in 1282 and
from then on circulated widely among the European aristocracy. See C.F. Briggs, Giles of Rome’s
‘De regimine principum’: Reading and Writing Politics at Court and University, c. 1275–1525
(Cambridge, 1999).
49 Giles of Rome, Governance, p. 32.
50 Ibid., p. 429; P. Camporesi, Juice of Life: The Symbolic and Magic Significance of Blood (New
York, 1995), pp. 28–32. See also Pouchelle, Body and Surgery, p. 77 for an exemplum of a man
who punished his unfaithful wife by having her bled to purge her blood of the evil she had
committed.
51 Britton, 1: 37.
52 Rotuli parliamentorum, 2: 255. See for example Jack Cade’s attainder and that of William de
la Pole, Earl of Suffolk: Ibid., 5: 224, 226.
Connected to metaphors of moral and physical corruption in legal and
political texts, it is evident that treason was diametrically opposed to the ideas
inherent in the concept of nobility and chivalry. It was strongly associated
with theft, which entailed the dimension of secrecy and deception also found
in acts interpreted as treason. Nobility, and its avatar chivalry, as I argued in
chapter 2, was predicated on the intrinsic balance of the inner and the outer
person: one could ‘read’ one’s body and know their character. It is therefore
not difficult to see how the occurrence of deception and secrecy forced society
to rethink its cultural parameters and to find a solution to the disruption in
the balance of inner and outer person. However, before examining how the
aristocratic community responded to (perceived) traitors in their midst, we
should see what these men were accused of and in what terms.
Against king and kingdom:

treason accusations between 1238 and 1330
In a summons to parliament in 1283, after the capture of David ap Gruffydd,

Edward I set out his indignant accusation against the Welshman in anticipa-
tion of his conviction. Not only has David spurned the gifts of his rightful
lord, he has also committed numerous crimes: ‘suddenly, treacherously
[proditionalibus], [he] burned our towns, slew and burned many of our
subjects [fidelibus nostris] and committed others to prison, invaded our castles,
spilling vast quantities of innocent blood’. Ten years later, a fellow Welshman,
Rhys ap Maredudd, was similarly accused of rebellion and a series of heinous
crimes which broke the king’s peace, while William Wallace in 1305 was said
to have committed several serious crimes against the innocent people of
England and Scotland.53 The great majority of treason accusations in the
period between 1238 and 1330, in fact, involve direct references to breaking
the king’s peace through felonies (see below, Fig. 5), which is hardly surprising
in the increasingly tempestuous political arena of late thirteenth- and early
fourteenth-century Britain.54 Despite this focus, the concept of the king’s
peace was itself not entirely consistently defined. Originally, it meant a code of
behaviour in the king’s presence, which gradually extended to those who were
on the king’s business or travelled on the roads.55 However, by the time of
William de Marisco, the king’s peace extended to all parts of the king’s realm
and incorporated all the king’s subjects with the exception of outlaws.56
53 CChR 1277–1326, p. 281, Foedera, 1.2: 630 (David); CCR 1288–1296, p. 267 (Rhys);
Ann. London, p. 140 (William Wallace).
54 Although some of these accusations are closely related, these figures are based on explicit
references in sources either as an allegation or as a reason for a particular punishment.
55 Cf. Leges, c.10.2.
56 Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, 2: 463.
Disclaimer:

2: William de Marisco’s broken inverted shield, lance and sword.

© British Library Board. All Rights Reserved (Royal 14C VII, f. 133v)
Crimes against the king’s peace, moreover, were now considered to be felo-
nies, including forms of betrayal. Matthew Paris when describing William’s
crimes in the Historia Anglorum refers to them as ‘robberies and pillaging
[rapinis et praedis]’, but his symbolic drawing of William’s downfall – a shield,
sword and banner broken in half – is captioned ‘arma Willelmi de Marisco de
proditione convicti’ (ill. 2).57
Similar accusations occur throughout: treason (either ‘proditio’ or ‘seditio’
and only very rarely ‘crimen maiestatis lesione’) forms part of a complex of
criminal activities and intentions which are perceived to be worse because they
were part of an act of treason.58 Of the full list of William Wallace’s crimes
only his rebellion and assumption of royal powers in Scotland could be
considered acts of treason.59 Following from Edward’s outburst in his writ of
summons to the parliament which convicted David ap Gruffydd, the chroni-
cles of Dunstable and Bury St Edmunds reflected on David’s crimes in terms
of sacrilege, felonies, ‘proditio’ and lese-majesty.60 In 1326, the Despensers
57 Matthew Paris, Historia Anglorum, 2: 462.

58 Thomas de Turberville is an exception with a single accusation of spying (i.e. adhering to
the king’s enemies). John of Powderham, the son of an Exeter tanner, was accused of
accroaching royal power in 1317 after claiming he was the rightful heir to the throne. See W.
Childs, ‘ “Welcome, my Brother”: Edward II, John of Powderham and the Chronicles, 1318’
in Church and Chronicle in the Middle Ages, ed. I. Wood and G.A. Loud (London, 1991), pp.
149–63. The Chronicle of Bury St Edmunds accused David ap Gruffydd of ‘proditione, regie
maiestatis lesione ac sacrilegio’. Chron. Buriensis, p. 79.
60 Ann. Dunstaplia, p. 294; Chron. Buriensis, p. 79.
were similarly accused of robbing the church and the people, of orchestrating
the deaths of innocent people and of ‘accroaching’ royal power.61 Earlier,
Thomas of Lancaster and Andrew Harclay had been convicted in more
general terms for betraying the king and the kingdom (‘proditore regis et
regni’).62 The conviction of traitors was deliberately presented as being to the
benefit of the whole polity.
As in John of Salisbury’s twelfth-century ideas about treason as an all-
inclusive and sacrilegious crime against the body politic, in thirteenth- and
fourteenth-century England, treason allegations similarly emphasised the real
and potential damage to the whole of society as a consequence of criminal
intentions and activities. Apart from the ambiguity about what constituted an
act of treason, these accusations also reveal the extent to which monarch and
government felt the need to appeal for communal approval for their actions.
Notoriety, and subsequent conviction on the king’s record, became instru-
ments with which the government could quickly and legally dispose of its
most dangerous opponents – the all-inclusive charges against traitors served to
bolster the royal position on the punishment of treason by appealing to the
common weal.
This comes very blatantly to the fore in the judgement of Hugh Despenser
the Younger by Queen Isabella and Roger Mortimer in early November 1326.
In this case, the king was extremely unlikely to sanction the execution and the
queen had to be circumspect in the way Despenser and other supporters of
Edward II were dealt with. One way in which this was achieved was by
appealing to the people of the realm – a strategy repeated during the parlia-
ment which deposed Edward II in January 1327.63 Several copies of
Despenser’s judgement have survived and it was edited twice from different
base texts.64
In essence, Despenser was represented as a notorious traitor and enemy of
the realm.65 This was a consequence of his activities and increased royal favour
after Boroughbridge, but also refers to his earlier parliamentary trial in 1321
which saw him and his father convicted of felonies, ‘accroaching’ royal power
and depriving heirs of their inheritance. For this they were sent into exile, after
61 Ann. Paulini, pp. 317–18; Taylor, ‘Judgement on Hugh Despenser the Younger’, pp. 70–7.
62 Rotuli parliamentorum, 2: 3; Foedera, 2: 509.
63 See N. Fryde, The Tyranny and Fall of Edward II, 1321–1326 (Cambridge, 1979), p. 199;
C. Valente, ‘The Deposition and Abdication of Edward II’, EHR 113 (1998), pp. 852–81.
John Stratford bishop of Winchester first sermonised on II Kings 4: 19 ‘My head pains me’ to
indicate that the king was not fit to govern. After the decision was made to depose Edward in
favour of his son, the Archbishop of Canterbury delivered a sermon on the text ‘vox populi vox
dei’ (ibid., pp. 871–5).
64 Holmes, ‘Judgement on the Younger Despenser’, pp. 261–7; Taylor, ‘Judgement on Hugh
Despenser the Younger’, pp. 70–7.
65 Ibid., p. 73. This is echoed in the Annales Paulini, in which his crimes are described as
notorious and manifest (‘per ipsum factis et procuratis clam et palam’), p. 319.
which the younger Despenser had turned pirate in the English Channel.66 In
this trial and judgement, the magnates followed the precedent set by the
Ordainers in their dealings with Piers Gaveston in 1310. Gaveston, who was
accused of accroaching royal power and of abusing his position as the king’s
favourite, was exiled and was to be treated as an outlaw if he returned without
consent.67
The 1326 judgement of Despenser the Younger repeated the 1321 accusa-
tions and suggests that he had returned to England without the consent of
parliament, in other words, he could be regarded an outlaw. Significantly, in
order to bolster their intention to execute Despenser, the judges presented
their case in such a way that they became the representatives of a unified aris-
tocratic community removing a corrupt element from their midst, and he was
sentenced with the approval of the ‘bones gentz du Roialme, greindres et
meindres, riches et poures’, i.e. the polity had given its full consent.68 More-
over, Despenser’s crimes were not just against the law of the country, but also
against reason and the order of chivalry. The latter accusation is particularly
significant if we remember the vehement condemnation and anathematis-
ation of treacherous aristocrats in, for example, the Policraticus or Ramon
Llull’s book on chivalry. He had conspired without ‘pity or mercy’ to have
many barons unlawfully murdered – referring to the executions of 1322; he
had provided evil counsel to the king and plotted against the queen; he had
taken money from the Church.69 What is more, his crimes were almost exclu-
sively framed as acts undermining the common weal of the realm by assuming
royal prerogatives. In other words, the majority of charges centred on
Despenser’s inappropriate behaviour as an aristocrat, abusing his position
rather than actualising the noble qualities which ought to have been innate
and natural.
As Fig. 5 shows, the betrayal of the kingdom (in the sense of breaking the
king’s peace) features strongly in treason accusations (76 per cent), closely
followed by betrayal of the king (64 per cent), referred to in sources as
‘proditio’ – in the sense of spreading lies, making false claims and accusations,
but also spying. The accusation of adhering to the king’s enemies (mentioned
in 28 per cent of the 53 cases) is obviously closely related to ‘proditio’, but
involved more than providing information, as Andrew Harclay’s judgement
shows. In 1323, a year after his victory over the rebels at Boroughbridge for
which he was made Earl of Carlisle, Harclay was found guilty of entering into
negotiations with the king’s enemy, Robert I King of the Scots, without royal
consent. With this, Harclay had not only betrayed the trust of the king of
66 Vita Edwardi Secundi, pp. 192–5; Gesta Edwardi secundi, in Chronicles of the Reigns of
Edward the First and Edward the Second, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols. RS 76 (1883), 2: 65–73.
67 Vita Edwardi Secundi, pp. 34–7.
68 Taylor, ‘Judgement of Hugh Despenser’, p. 76.
69 Ibid., p. 73.
Fig. 5: Treason accusations 1238–133070
Type of accusation Number Percentage

Plotting to kill or harm the king 12 23%
Rebellion 4 8%
Adhering to the king’s enemies 15 28%
Displaying one’s banner against the king 13 25%
Accroaching royal power 10 19%
Breaking the king’s peace 40 76%
Betraying the king 34 64%
Sacrilege 10 19%
England and broken his formal ties with Edward II, but he had endangered
the whole kingdom in his manifest attempt to break the peace and quiet of the
people of the realm (‘les piers et le people du roialme’). It is doubtful whether
the people in the Anglo-Scottish borders would not have welcomed some
stability which a truce would bring, but it is interesting to note that once again
an attempt is made to include all subjects of the realm.71
Conclusion
In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century, although legal practice was
catching up with legal and political theory with regard to the definition of
treason, as a concept it remained flexible and multifarious, perhaps deliber-
ately so. More aristocrats were accused and sentenced for treason in this
period, which no doubt related to the difficulties the English monarchs were
experiencing in Wales and Scotland as well as in England with baronial
factions seeking to restrain royal control over financial, judicial and political
matters including royal favouritism.
Legal and political texts increasingly viewed the concept of treason as being
a corruption of society. Both John of Salisbury and Giles of Rome, whose trea-
tises were read by the aristocracy, strongly condemned treason as something
which could potentially harm the whole polity. Employing surgical meta-
phors of phlebotomy and amputation, these authors argued that it was better
to remove the corrupted member from the social body rather than to leave it
to fester. Legal theorists concerned themselves with providing a working
definition of the concept of treason which focused initially on the person of
70 Figures are based on 53 cases. For further details in this table and the next see Appendix 2.
71 Foedera, 2: 504, 509.
the king but gradually came to refer to the whole kingdom in tandem with the
widening of the concept of the king’s peace.
The increasing number of accusations against aristocrats in this period
should be seen in the context of the communal ideology of nobility and chiv-
alry which stressed the embodied moral and social superiority of the aristo-
cratic group. According to the chivalric manuals and romances, as noble men
aristocrats were expected to adhere to the strict values of honour, loyalty,
largesse, prowess, and protecting the socially and economically less fortunate
members of society. Although in general the aristocratic group may have been
aware of the fact that this was an ideal rather than reality, we find that in cases
of accusations of treason the subversion of the ideal is highlighted in the
tainted behaviour of the aristocratic traitor: instead of acting like a noble man,
he is ignoble, and therefore a corruption of the ideal. Ramon Llull condemned
felons and traitors to the expulsion from the order of chivalry, even condoning
the killing of a treacherous knight by his peers. How the corrupted nobility of
the aristocratic traitor was dealt with in practice will be the subject of the next
chapter.72
72 Ramon Llull, Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry, p. 49.

Chapter 6
Dying in Shame:
Destroying Aristocratic Identities
One of the surprising aspects of the 1352 Statute of Treasons is the total
absence of a discussion on corporeal punishment for treason. Although king
and commons are concerned about the division of escheats and forfeitures, the
fate of the traitor is cloaked in silence, which suggests a common agreement on
the propriety of the punishment. On the basis of this, it is difficult to disagree
with Gillingham’s observation about the introduction of harsher punish-
ments for aristocratic traitors.1 Edward I’s attitude towards men he considered
to be traitors was radically different from previous reigns (although a prece-
dent was set by Henry III’s treatment of the anonymous knight and William
de Marisco in 1238 and 1242 respectively), and his array of punishments for
them was generally accepted by English sources as just and valid, mainly
because the convicted traitors were Welsh or Scottish, or had conspired with
the king’s enemies of the time. Moreover, many of them had been ‘repeat
offenders’, pushing the boundaries of the king’s displeasure by persisting in
their rebellion after Edward’s initial judicial reticence. Men such as David ap
Gruffydd, Simon Fraser or John of Atholl, after a first rebellion against him,
had been accepted back into Edward’s peace, which they subsequently
spurned. William de Marisco and William Wallace had been outlawed, while
in 1312 and 1326, Piers Gaveston and the Despensers could be executed for
treason partly because they were perceived to have broken the terms of exile
imposed upon them on an earlier occasion.2 Taking this into account, it will
seem obvious that there were similarities between what was propounded in
political treatises and how traitors were seen in practice. On the surface of it,
therefore, it appears to have become more acceptable to kill aristocrats where
previously they had been able to call upon chivalric codes of interpersonal
conduct. Although in the 1320s status could still be invoked, it was only to
receive a less humiliating death. That there was a change in attitudes towards
the punishment of aristocratic traitors seems beyond doubt. But, rather than
1 See above, p. 102.

2 The only English traitor convicted during Edward’s reign, Thomas de Turberville, was only
drawn and hanged. For Piers Gaveston and the Despensers see above p. 112.
viewing this predominantly as a decline in chivalric mores as Gillingham has

argued, could this change not be interpreted as a substantial shift in perspec-
tive on what it meant to be an aristocrat?
The notion of treason, no matter how its details were filled in, was opposed
to the idea of nobility as embodied by aristocrats. Nobility was a means as well
as an end of aristocratic conceptions of personal and communal identity,
which consequently raised the stakes considerably in terms of honour and
dishonour.3 True nobility meant a constant pressure to maintain an image of
moral, physical and political superiority, in particular for those men new to
the community. It meant that lapses from the ideal could be severely criticised
or punished, which would result in public humiliation. As nobility of birth
came to be interpreted as a sine qua non for nobility of character in the course
of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, so treason or breach of loyalty increas-
ingly came to be perceived as a corruption both of character and of lineage. As
a consequence, those of the highest birth were considered to be the most
corrupt if they were found to be guilty of treason.4 In other words, because
aristocrats were thought to embody nobility, it became acceptable to punish
them with death and mutilation. Their moral and social nobility obliged them
to exercise rationality over lower impulses; a breach of loyalty towards one’s
king by indulging in harmful and amoral behaviour could therefore be
regarded as contrary to nature.
In this chapter I will put the punishment of aristocratic traitors in the wider
perspective of the signification of mutilation and death as social indicators of
shame and dishonour and locate the rise of the public execution of aristocrats
in the need to expose the inner corruption of nobility as well as that of society.
As a consequence of this expositional drive, during the public execution the
traitor’s body was gradually alienated from both individual and society and
manipulated to display both the origin and the outcome of corruption. This
process was not a matter of external political or judicial forces imposing their
ideological programme on to the unsuspecting masses but a careful negotia-
tion of common symbols and values between those in power and the rest of
society.5 For example, rather than being a passive audience, urban spectators
3 See above Chapter 2.

4 Cf. the comments about John of Atholl in Flores historiarum, 3: 135. French law codes held
that the closer to the king the traitor was, the more severely he ought to be punished. See S.H.
Cuttler, The Law of Treason and Treason Trials in Later Medieval France (Cambridge, 1981), p.
23.
5 This goes against Michel Foucault’s model of state punishment set forth in Discipline and
Punish and followed by a number of early modern studies on capital punishment. Cf. P.
Spierenburg, Spectacle of Suffering: Executions and the Evolution of Repression: From a
Pre-Industrial Metropolis to the European Experience (Cambridge, 1984); R.J. Evans, Rituals of
Retribution: Capital Punishment in Germany 1600–1987 (Harmondsworth, 1997). Katherine
Royer provides a useful critique of early modern studies of capital punishment and argues
rightly that many interpretations of the medieval practices are informed by a sense of reading
DYING IN SHAME 117
of executions were expected to participate in a display primarily intended for
the traitor’s social equals. Given the tensions between aristocracy and the
urban bourgeoisie in aristocratic literature it is significant that these execu-
tions of aristocratic traitors were carried out in urban settings. In addition,
although the information on public executions may depend on sources
skewed in favour of the authority behind the punishment, there is enough in
them to suggest that some of the practices informing treason executions were
accepted and adopted by other social groups.
Display and stigmatisation: corporeal punishment in context
Although legal theory and political treatises advocated the forceful and perma-
nent removal of traitors, in practice aristocrats were generally exempt from
capital punishment or bodily mutilation. Before 1238, when Henry III
ordered the drawing, hanging, beheading and quartering of the anonymous
knight sent to murder him, rebellious barons were fined, exiled or imprisoned.
Although their possessions could be forfeited, they did not suffer bodily harm
in the way their followers might. After the rebellion of 1123–24, for example,
Henry I spared the leading magnates and imprisoned them while three minor
players were blinded because they had broken their oath to the king.6 In 1138,
Stephen hanged the whole garrison of Shrewsbury Castle after their surrender,
but spared Geoffrey de Mandeville although he was suspected of double-
dealing. Nevertheless, when Stephen threatened to hang him and Ranulph
Earl of Chester on separate occasions, both men submitted themselves and
their estates to Stephen without delay – an indication that neither wished to
call Stephen’s bluff.7 Henry II similarly chose leniency over capital punish-
ment in 1173, although two earls were imprisoned and several castles were
demolished in the year following the rebellion. Moreover, the king was said to
have kept lists of those who had betrayed him.8
There were exceptions of course. The Anglo-Saxon Earl Waltheof of
backwards. However, she appears to fall into the same trap by adopting Foucault’s view that
public executions were meant to be judicial spectacles asserting government control. See ‘The
Body in Parts’, pp. 320–3.
6 Orderic, 6: 352–5; D. Crouch, The Beaumont Twins: The Roots and Branches of Power in the
Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 14–24 for the background and outcome of the unsuc-
cessful Norman rebellion which was led by Amaury of Evreux and Waleran of Meulan. See also
C.W. Hollister, ‘Royal Acts of Mutilation: The Case Against Henry I’, Albion 10 (1978), pp.
330–40, at 330–1.
7 Orderic, 6: 520–3; Gesta Stephani, pp. 162–3; 195–9.
8 H.L. Warren, Henry II (London, 1973), pp. 117–41. M. Strickland, ‘Against the Lord’s
Anointed: Aspects of Warfare and Baronial Rebellion in England and Normandy, 1075–1265’,
in Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy: Essays in Honour of Sir James Holt,
ed. G. Garnett and J. Hudson (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 56–79, at 58. Henry’s sons escaped with
fines, but their mother was also imprisoned.
Northumbria was executed for his involvement in a rebellion against William

the Conqueror in 1075, despite the fact that he was married to one of the
king’s nieces. His co-conspirators, however, escaped with exile and imprison-
ment. According to Orderic this was because of the difference between
Norman and English customs, but considering that it was Waltheof’s second
association with an attempted rebellion and that he was the only Anglo-Saxon
earl left, it is possible that William had lost patience with him.9 Similarly,
while William Rufus was advised leniency in 1088, a few years later William
de Alderi was sentenced to death and his cousin William of Eu was blinded
and castrated.10
As Anglo-Saxon and later law codes make clear, death and mutilation were
standard punishments for a range of felonies, and the gallows was commonly
referred to as the ‘cross of thieves’.11 In 1124, forty-four alleged thieves were
hanged and six were blinded and castrated in Leicestershire by Ralph Basset,
Henry I’s justiciar. Henry I held no compunction about killing, dismem-
bering or blinding money forgers, thieves and even members of his own court
pillaging the countryside without permission. As Hollister has argued, Henry
I’s punishments should be seen primarily as attempts to keep the peace and
secure his rule, which was also the case for later monarchs.12 Late twelfth-
century surviving eyre records testify to large numbers of thieves and homi-
cides being sentenced to death, while Henry II in the Assize of Northampton
(1176) instructs judges to implement hanging or the amputation of limbs and
subsequent exile for anyone found guilty of committing felonies.13 According
to Richard Fitz Nigel, author of the Dialogus de Scaccario (c. 1178), some
9 Orderic, 2: 322–3; J. Gillingham, ‘1066 and the Introduction of Chivalry into England’, in
Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy: Essays in Honour of Sir James Holt,
ed. G. Garnett and J. Hudson (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 31–55, at 41–2, 47. For the background
see F.S. Scott, ‘Earl Waltheof of Northumbria’, Archaeologia Aeliana fourth series 30 (1952),
pp. 149–213.
10 Orderic, 4: 130–3, 284–5. William Rufus was apparently told that ‘the man who does injury
today may perhaps serve as a friend in the future.’ The leader, William’s uncle Odo of Bayeux,
was sent into exile and disinherited. F. Barlow, William Rufus (London, 1983), pp. 89–93;
William of Malmesbury, Gesta regum anglorum, 4: 319.2. William of Eu, according to Orderic
was ‘publicly found guilty of treason’, and blinded and castrated at the instigation of Hugh
d’Avranches Earl of Chester, whose sister he had married and had been unfaithful to.
11 See K. O’Keeffe, ‘Body and Law in Late Anglo-Saxon England’, Anglo-Saxon England 27
(1998), pp. 209–32 for examples of judicial mutilation in the late tenth and early eleventh
centuries. She argues that the act of mutilation inscribes the crime upon the body of the culprit,
allowing others to read the guilty body as a deterrent. Cf. K. von Eickels, ‘Gendered Violence:
Castration and Blinding as Punishment for Treason in Normandy and Anglo-Norman
England’, Gender and History 16 (2004), pp. 588–602.
12 Hollister, ‘Royal Acts of Mutilation’, pp. 335, 338.
13 F.W. Maitland, Pleas of the Crown for the County of Gloucester (London, 1884), pp. 21–2; F.
Barlow, The Feudal Kingdom of England 1042–1216, 4th edn (London, 1988), pp. 311–12;
Assize of Northampton, art. 1. Select Charters and Other Illustrations of English Constitutional
History, ed. W. Stubbs, ninth edition (Oxford, 1966), pp. 178–81.
DYING IN SHAME 119
criminals could escape the shameful death by hanging, and would instead be
mutilated to ‘become a public spectacle and a terrible example to discourage
the rash attempts of other offenders’.14 Ralph Diceto, commenting on Henry
II’s apparent difficulty to find honest judges, observed that although the
punishment for lesser crimes was dismemberment or hanging, only exile was
reserved for treason, a situation with which the chronicler did not appear
entirely at ease. Gerald of Wales, moreover, appeared horrified at the thought
that felons could be hanged and buried underneath the gallows without
proper funeral rites.15 This may have been the case on some occasions,
although there is also some evidence for hanged felons being given a Christian
burial in special cemeteries, as for example at St Margaret in Combusto in
Norwich.16
Despite the comment by Ralph Diceto, drawing and hanging was
becoming a more regular feature of the English judicial system in the late
twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. The Londoner William fitz Osbern was
drawn and hanged at Tyburn with his accomplices in 1196 after accusations
of inciting rebellion against Richard I.17 In 1225, a Richard son of Nigel was
drawn and hanged because he had falsely accused others of treason (plotting to
poison the king) and because it turned out that he was a convicted felon who
had escaped gaol on two occasions.18 A similar fate would have befallen the
Montfordians if the political circumstances had been different. According to
the Song of Lewes, Lord Edward insisted the defeated rebels would acknowl-
edge their treason by placing ‘halters around their neck and give themselves up
to us for hanging and for drawing’.19
During Edward’s reign, a great number of traitors was drawn and hanged
with, increasingly, more severe punishments reserved for more serious trea-
sonous offences. But before concluding that the later medieval period became
14 Richard fitz Nigel, Dialogus de Scaccario, ed. C. Johnson, rev. edn (Oxford, 1983), p. 88.
This is also the thought behind the prohibition on the death penalty in the early
twelfth-century Willelmi articuli retractati, c. 17 in favour of mutilation.
15 Ralph Diceto, Ymagines Historiarum, in Opera historica, ed. W. Stubbs, 2 vols. RS 68
(1876), 1: 434; Gerald of Wales, Gemma Ecclesiastica, in Opera, ed. J.S. Brewer, J.F. Dimock
and G.F. Warner, 8 vols. RS 21 (1861–91), 2: 116. However, elsewhere he came down harshly
on traitors: De principis instructione, pp. 34–5.
16 B. Ayers, ‘Norwich’, Current Archaeology 122 (1990), pp. 56–9; Daniell, Death and Burial,
pp. 102–4; R.B. Pugh, ‘The Knights Hospitallers of England as Undertakers’, Speculum 56
(1981), pp. 566–74. For a case in which the body of a hanged felon was buried underneath the
gallows, and eaten by dogs and vultures, see Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, 4: 490.
17 Ralph Diceto, Ymagines Historiarum, p. 143; R. Bartlett, England under the Norman and
Angevin Kings (Oxford, 2000), pp. 344–5; Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, 2:
507.
18 Curia Regis Rolls 1225–26, pp. 215–16; The Dunstable annalist refers to the alleged crime as
crimen laesae majestatis; Ann. Dunst., p. 97. See below for further examples.
19 The Song of Lewes, ed. C.L. Kingsford (London, 1890), lines 250–2; D.A. Carpenter, ‘From
King John to the First English Duke’, The House of Lords: A Thousand Years of British Tradition
(London, 1994), pp. 28–43, at 32. See also below for a discussion of Simon de Montfort’s fate.
DYING IN SHAME 120
Fig. 6: Punishment for treason 1238–133020
Type of punishment Number Percentage

Drawing 43 84%
Hanging 44 86%
Beheading 18 35%
Evisceration 8 16%
Quartering 8 16%
Burning 9 18%
Display21 14 27%
more barbaric with regard to the punishment of aristocratic traitors, it should

be noted that of all those accused of treason in the period between 1238 and
1330, only five or six men were subjected to the full range of physical punish-
ments involving drawing, hanging, beheading, evisceration (sometimes
including emasculation), quartering and display.22 Others were punished with
fewer elements from this range, but the great majority were drawn and hanged
(Fig. 6).23 Moreover, despite the fact that it became possible to execute aristo-
cratic traitors in this cruel and humiliating fashion, this does not mean that it
was universally accepted or that it was not accompanied with a sense of
unease. The execution of David ap Gruffydd, for example, was a cause of
outrage for the author of the Osney annals and the problems sparked by the
death of Thomas of Lancaster, whose sentence was commuted to beheading
only, are only too well-known.24 Simon de Montfort’s post-mortem dismem-
berment in 1265, although not the result of a formal judgement, bore the hall-
marks of an execution and was condemned by several chroniclers.25
20 Figures are based on 51 cases; see Appendix 2 for references.

21 This number could be higher; number refers to explicit references in the sources.
22 These were: David ap Gruffydd, William Wallace, Gilbert de Middleton, Andrew Harclay
and Hugh Despenser the Younger. William de Marisco is likely to have been beheaded for
display since he was quartered for the same purpose. Although these punishments were applied
separately for other crimes, it is only in relation to treason that they could be used together.
23 For example: Simon Fraser (whose body was burned), Bartholomew Baddlesmere and
Hugh Despenser the Elder.
24 Ann. Oseneia, p. 294.
25 See below pp. 131–4 for further discussion. Llewellyn, David’s brother, was killed in an
ambush in 1282. His head was taken to London and displayed, while his mutilated body
(truncatum et laceratum) was buried in Cwmhir Abbey; Bartholomaei de Cotton Historia
Anglicana (AD 449–1298), ed. H.R. Luard, RS 16 (1859), p. 163 [hereafter Cotton, Historia].
DYING IN SHAME 121
‘A horrifying spectacle for all nations’ 26
Public shaming was an integral part of most judicial punishments. As a conse-

quence of a criminal act, naming and shaming the offender would serve as a
future deterrent for the culprit and witnesses, while reaffirming the norms and
values of the community by exposing the offender as a norm-breaker and a
corrupted element within the community. Even relatively minor crimes
would typically involve the humiliation of offenders in a public location, such
as urban markets, by putting them in the stocks or pillory exposed to the
taunts and insults of the community. The centralised context of the punish-
ment would taint the reputation of the culprit by calling attention to their
crime as damage done to the community.27
Occasionally, convicts were drawn on a hurdle through the crowded
streets, as was the case with Richard Davy, a baker from London. In contrast
to the elaborate punishments inflicted on serious offenders, the more
common intention of the judicial system for smaller crimes was to induce a
temporary psychological pain of humiliation rather than to cause permanent
bodily harm. Richard the baker, after his degrading drag through the streets,
was able to stand up from the hurdle unaided and throw a bone at a bystander
who had accompanied him through the city on his shameful journey.28
In these punishments, the convict was often led in procession to the market
square dressed in distinctive clothing – usually a plain shirt or undergarment.
Where relevant, some symbol of the crime or the actual object with which the
crime had been committed would be attached to the convict or to the instru-
ment of restraint to inform spectators of the nature of the crime. Although the
intention was primarily to humiliate, physical abuse was probably envisaged as
being part of the punishment; through public exposure and temporary phys-
ical restraint the convict would be left vulnerable to the force of communal
indignation about the committed crime.
This indignation also found its expression in punishments led by crowds,
which imitated the judicial measures directed towards more serious crimes.
During the riots of 1326, for example, a crowd of Londoners led the wine-
merchant Arnold of Spain to ‘Nonemanneslonde’ to be beheaded for
imposing a new tax on wine and various other crimes. He was barefoot and
dressed in a pauper’s tunic.29 In the same period, the Chancellor, Bishop
26 Flores historiarum, 3: 134.

27 J. Masschaele, ‘The Public Space of the Marketplace in Medieval England’, Speculum 77
(2002), pp. 383–421, at 400–401, 405–6, 409, 418.
28 B.A. Hanawalt, ‘Rituals of Inclusion and Exclusion: Hierarchy and Marginalisation in
Medieval London’, in ‘Of Good and Ill Repute’: Gender and Social Control in Medieval England,
ed. B.A. Hanawalt (New York, 1998), pp. 18–34, at 28.
29 Ann. Paulini, p. 321; Fryde, Tyranny and Fall, p. 193.
William Stapledon of Exeter, was dragged from the church of St Paul’s, drawn
by horse to West Cheap and decapitated, after which his naked corpse was left
exposed for a day in the middle of the market.30 The similarities with the
public execution of traitors are obvious as is the level of crowd participation.
The public degradation of the aristocratic traitor often started before his
actual judgement, and crowds were actively encouraged to participate. The
alleged traitor would enter a town publicly, be dressed in simple clothes and
wearing a nettle, periwinkle or laurel crown while riding a nag. Occasionally,
his arms would be displayed in reverse, marking his social death. Thomas
Turberville, accused of adhering to the king’s enemies, was dressed in ‘poor
clothes’ and was taunted by men dressed like devils on the way to his judge-
ment – his hangman being one of them. William Wallace was led in proces-
sion to the Palace of Westminster accompanied by the very men who were to
pronounce his sentence, while Hugh Despenser the Younger was dressed in
sackcloth which displayed his reversed coat of arms and was made to wear a
nettle crown. People had come out to watch him and apparently there was a
lot of noise accompanying his entry into Hereford, including two trumpets
blowing in his ears. Before his actual judgement commenced, Andrew Harclay
was stripped of his title, his sword and his spurs, and branded a ‘knave’ instead
of a ‘knight’ by one of his judges – possibly with the intention of insulting him
but also to point out that Harclay was formally removed from the ranks of the
aristocracy. 31
The reversal of the traitor’s coat of arms was a particularly laden gesture.
According to the Brut, Despenser’s arms being reversed signified his undoing
‘for evermore’.32 The whole of the aristocrat’s essence and belonging was
condensed within the coat of arms: for those who could read it, it signified
familial and political connections and it was regarded as a badge of honour. By
reversing it in the context of the public execution, shame was brought not only
upon the individual but also upon his family. For Ramon Llull, the reversed
coat of arms signified dishonour – a sentiment also expressed by the reversal of
the arms of those who failed to deliver their ransom during the Hundred Years
War.33 The association of physical death with the degradation of one’s social
status is explicitly made with this reversal. Matthew Paris used reversed shields
metonymically in the margins of his chronicle to express the deaths of aristo-
crats, while he referred to William de Marisco’s public death, as we have seen,
30 Ann. Paulini, p. 316.

31 Cotton, Historia, p. 306; Ann. London, p. 139; Knighton, pp. 436–7; Chronique de Jean le
Bel, ed. J. Viard and E. Déprez (Paris, 1977), 1: 27; Brut, 1: 227, 240. For ‘knave’ as a term of
insult see E.J. Dobson, ‘The Etymology and Meaning of “boy” ’, Medium Aevum 9 (1940), pp.
121–54, at 129, 133–6, 139.
32 Brut, 1: 240.
33 Ramon Llull, Book of the Ordre of Chyvalry, p. 88; Keen, Chivalry, p. 175.
DYING IN SHAME 123
with his weapons and shield bearing his arms in reverse and broken in pieces
(see ill. 2 above).
After judgement, drawing formed the first stage of the execution proper
and served to humiliate the convicted traitor in a dishonourable reversal of the
usual noble display upon entering a town in a way befitting one’s elevated
status.34 Dragged by horses through the streets with often a hurdle or an
oxhide as the only protection from dust and dirt, the traitor was exposed to
jeering crowds on his way to the gallows, usually outside the urban area. The
Song of Thomas Turberville serves as a reminder of the defencelessness and
humiliation of the traitor: without protection of an armour and with hands
tied, his body was cut by stones ‘which made his blood flow’.35 The use of
oxhides highlights, like the reversal of arms, the conceptual connection
between physical and social death: the bodies of the dead were generally sewn
into freshly tanned hides and it was Henri de Mondeville’s specific recom-
mendation to use them in the process of embalming. Their use in public
treason executions therefore can be seen as the removal or degradation of the
traitor’s social status.
Hanging, moreover, was a slow and painful procedure before the imple-
mentation of the standard and long drop in the middle of the nineteenth
century. Rather than sudden death by breaking the convict’s neck, hanging
involved a process of slow asphyxiation, or the obstruction of the carotid
arteries, which induced the relaxation of muscles, including those of the
bladder and bowels; the traitor lost control over his bodily functions in public
as he was suspended between life and death. Marked by dirt from the streets as
well as his own urine and faeces, the traitor was thus gradually but forcefully
removed from his elevated position within society.36
34 It has been argued that drawing constitutes the first stage of an elaborate rite de passage to
separate the criminal from society: A. Blok, ‘Openbare Strafvoltrekkingen als Rites de Passage’,
Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 97 (1984), pp. 470–81. Although this interpretation partly fits the
treason execution, it is not so evident for other forms of capital punishment; nor is it possible to
point to a single social category of criminals at the end of the ritual. Drawing may have been
introduced as a punishment for treason under influence of Roman law, and was used in the late
Roman Empire as a punishment. See E.R. Varner, ‘Punishment after Death: Mutilation of
Images and Corpse Abuse in Ancient Rome’, Mortality 6 (2001), pp. 45–64, at 58.
35 Song of Thomas Turberville, in Anglo-Norman Political Songs, ed. I.S.T. Aspin (Oxford,
1953), pp. 49–57, at 52 (lines 44–52), translation on p. 54. Both Simon Fraser and Hugh
Despenser the Younger are said to have been wrapped in an oxhide. Song of Simon Fraser, line
163; Jean le Bel, Chronique, p. 27.
36 J. Glaister and E. Rentoul, Medical Jurisprudence and Toxicology, eleventh edition (Edin-
burgh, 1962), pp. 165–6. Asphyxia is a very slow process which initially induces a coma. The
numerous references to the traitor being taken down from the gallows semivivus as well as stories
about felons recovering from their hanging indicates that it was a well-known fact that hanging
did not immediately lead to death. Cf. H. Summerson, ‘Attitudes to Capital Punishment in
England, 1200–1350’, in Thirteenth Century England 8, ed. M. Prestwich, R. Britnell and R.
Frame (Oxford, 2001), pp. 123–33, at 133.
For the majority of traitors, the display of their post-mortem remains was
restricted to being left on the gallows until decomposed. Because decomposi-
tion occurs about eight times faster in the air than in earth, it is possible that
the body was treated in some way to prolong the display. Some of the remains
of traitors executed after Boroughbridge in 1322 were finally removed two
years later; with bodies quartered and beheaded for display, the period
between the execution and final removal of body parts from the public eye
could be even longer.37 Other traitors, such as Rhys ap Maredudd and Roger
Mortimer, were only suspended for three days before being buried, while
Simon Fraser’s remains were burnt after three weeks on the gallows. The Brut
relates, moreover, that Hugh Despenser the Elder’s remains were quartered
and fed to the dogs after hanging on the gallows for three days.38
Beheading served a two-fold purpose: it killed the traitor and it severed his
head for display or to provide proof of his death. Llewellyn ap Gruffydd’s
head was removed to be sent to Edward I, who ordered it to be displayed in
London ‘ad spectaculum populorum’. It was joyously received by the
Londoners, who paraded Llewellyn’s head around before it was displayed on
London Bridge for at least the following fifteen years.39 Similarly, when in
1328 Robert de Holland was captured and beheaded by men from Henry of
Lancaster’s entourage for his treacherous behaviour towards Henry’s brother
Thomas, his head was presented to the Earl of Lancaster as proof of his death.
The same happened with the head of William de Stapledon, Bishop of
Exeter, which was sent to Queen Isabella in Bristol in 1326 by the citizens of
London.40 Occasionally the punishment of beheading was specifically
connected to a particular crime committed by the traitor. William Wallace
and Thomas of Lancaster were sentenced to be beheaded as a consequence of
their outlawed status, while Hugh Despenser the Elder was decapitated for
his crimes against the Church.41 Most commonly, however, it facilitated
post-mortem display. The heads of ten out of the eighteen traitors who were
37 Glaister and Rentoul, Medical Jurisprudence, p. 120. Murimuth, p. 43. It is possible that as
decomposition progressed, body parts were reattached to the gallows after falling down or
placed in a gibbet. Cf. Spierenburg, Spectacle of Suffering, p. 58 citing a declaration from a 1461
council at Strasbourg.
38 Brut, 1: 240. Although this may seem a little unlikely, it is difficult to ascertain what
happened otherwise to the remains of the great majority of traitors, in particular when they
were quartered for display.
39 Calendar of Chancery Warrants: Privy Seals vol. 1: 1244–1326, p. 76. I owe this reference to
Barbara Wright. For other examples of Welsh captives being beheaded to provide evidence of
their death and secure a reward from the king, see F. Suppe, ‘The Cultural Significance of
Decapitation in High Medieval Wales and the Marches’, The Bulletin of the Board of Celtic
Studies 36 (1989), pp. 145–60, at 147–8.
40 Henrici Knighton Leycestrensis Chronicon, ed. J.R. Lumby, 2 vols. RS 92 (1889), 1: 449; Ann.
Paulini, p. 316.
41 For Wallace see above; Thomas of Lancaster: Rotuli parliamentorum, 2: 3–5; Despenser the
Elder: Ann. Paulini, p. 318.
DYING IN SHAME 125
beheaded (see Fig. 6) were most certainly displayed, while those of four men
were buried immediately with their body. Piers Gaveston’s head was allegedly
stitched back on to his body by the Dominican friars before they took his
remains to Oxford.42
Similarly, the process of quartering was either part of the punishment for a
specific crime or a practical means of ensuring the distribution of the traitor’s
body for the purpose of display. The crime mostly related to quartering was
betrayal of the king and kingdom by committing felonies and the subsequent
display of body parts in public areas can easily be seen as a metaphor for
communal redress for these actions. The fragments of the traitor’s body were a
physical testimony of his crimes and a continual memory of his dishonour.
William Wallace’s quarters, for example, were regarded by Peter de Langtoft
as a ‘memoria’ to his name signifying his and his family’s disgrace in the way
his banner had previously been a marker of his status.43 On the basis of the
limited number of traitors quartered in the period between 1238 and 1330
(only seven cases) it is difficult to establish a pattern in the choice of towns
selected for the display of particular body parts. London was the usual destina-
tion for traitors’ heads, but with the exception of the clear point behind
sending Wallace’s quarters to four Northern towns, two of which were strate-
gically important Scottish towns (Perth and Sterling), it is not easy to give an
explanation. Usually the choice involved a mixture of northern and southern
towns, with York, Newcastle and Bristol as relatively fixed destinations. In
two cases, no names of towns are given in the sources.44
It is certain that in some cases body parts remained on display until relatives
or supporters successfully petitioned the king to have them removed from
their public locations. While they were still visible, these corporeal remains
continued to serve as memoriae to the traitor’s crimes and therefore to his and
his family’s disgrace. As was noted earlier, Llewellyn’s head was displayed at
least fifteen years after his death and was still identified as such; Thomas de
Turberville was told that his body was to hang for ‘as long as anything of him
should remain’.45 At least one part of Andrew Harclay’s body could still be
seen five years after his execution at Carlisle Castle. In 1328, Harclay’s sister,
his only surviving relative, successfully petitioned Edward III’s government to
have her brother’s remains buried; in 1330, one of Edward III’s first acts as
independent ruler was to grant the burial of Hugh Despenser the Younger’s
42 Vita Edwardi Secundi, pp. 48–9. At Oxford, he lay unburied for over two years because he
was excommunicate; cf. pp. 100–3.
43 Pierre de Langtoft: Le règne d’Édouard Ier, ed. J.C. Thiolier (Créteil, 1989), p. 420.
44 These are the anonymous knight and William de Marisco. See Appendix 2 for references.
45 J.G. Edwards, ‘The Treason of Thomas Turberville, 1295’, in Studies in Medieval History
Presented to F.M. Powicke, ed. R.W. Hunt, W.A. Pantin and R.W. Southern (Oxford, 1948),
pp. 296–309, at 308.
remains. In other words, the punishment of the traitor was felt to continue for
as long as his remains were above ground.46
In some cases, the traitor was emasculated as well as quartered. Simon de
Montfort, William Wallace and Hugh Despenser the Younger were said to
have had their privy members removed after death. In only one of these cases is
there some explanation for this particular element in the punishment. For the
killers of Simon de Montfort it appears to have been a humiliating addition to
his dismemberment – apparently his penis was stuffed in his mouth before
being sent to Maud de Mortimer. William Wallace’s emasculation is
mentioned only as part of his evisceration. Jean le Bel, however, explains that
Hugh Despenser the Younger was emasculated because he was a ‘heretic and
sodomite’.47
We should very much read this statement in the context of Jean le Bel’s
pro-Isabella stance. Writing thirty years after the event, it is evident that Jean
is more sympathetic to her than to the disgraced royal favourite. He is unique
in connecting the act of emasculation to Despenser’s religious and sexual
activities, the latter of which was rumoured, the chronicler adds scandalised,
to have extended even to the king himself. Rather than taking this statement at
face value, as for example Claire Sponsler has done in her critique of Froissart’s
version of the event, the comment on Despenser’s alleged sexual relations with
the king serves to highlight Edward’s passivity and inability to control
Despenser, while at the same time it metaphorically emasculates the fallen
favourite.48
Although Edward’s favouritism was on occasion criticised as extending into
the realms of the sexual, we should not lose sight of the fact that both charges
of heresy and sodomy could be used as strategies to discredit one’s enemies;
like accusations of treason, these claims were aimed at the core of one’s being:
they were value judgements expressing deviation from the norm, which
exposed one’s character as impure. Both accusations, often in combination,
were applied to categories of deviant behaviour which were more generalised
than we might understand them to be.49 Moreover, the accusation of sodomy,
46 Foedera, 2.2: 748 (Harclay), 2.2: 804 (Despenser the Younger). See also J. Mason, ‘The
Tomb of Sir Andrew de Harcla’, TCWAS ns 26 (1926), pp. 307–11 and id. ‘Sir Andrew
Harclay Earl of Carlisle’, TCWAS ns 29 (1929), pp. 98–137, at 131; Fryde, Tyranny and Fall of
Edward II, p. 157.
47 Willelmi Rishanger, quondam monachi S. Albani … Chronica et annales regnantibus Henrico
tertio et Edwardo primo, AD 1259–1307, ed. H.T. Riley RS 28.2 (1865), p. 37; Flores
historiarum, 3: 124; Le Bel, Chronique, 1: 28. The following paragraph is based on Westerhof,
‘Deconstructing Identities’, pp. 93–4.
48 Sponsler, ‘The King’s Boyfriend’, pp. 143–67. Jean Froissart’s account of the 1320s,
including Despenser’s execution, is copied verbatim from Le Bel and therefore suggests very
little in itself about Froissart’s authorial intentions.
49 M.J. Ailes, ‘The Medieval Male Couple and the Language of Homosociality’, in Masculinity
in Medieval Europe, ed. D.M. Hadley (London: 1999), pp. 214–37.
DYING IN SHAME 127
as well as acts of emasculation, implied a lesser form of masculinity; sodomy
was described as an act in which ‘a man sins with another man in the manner
of a woman’, thus creating a category of masculinity deviant from the norma-
tive heterosexual virility of aristocrats, which was predicated on being ‘less
feminine’, ‘less boyish’ or ‘less old’ than other men.50 Emasculation was used
in a broader context than as punishment for alleged same-sex encounters
alone. Henry I blinded and castrated felons following the laws of his father,
and as late as 1615 we find a traitor being emasculated to indicate that his
offspring was tainted by his actions. Furthermore, a man could be castrated as
a result of illicit heterosexual encounters.51 If Despenser was emasculated as
part of his punishment, we should perhaps understand it, as well as Jean le
Bel’s comments, as symbolic of his inferior masculinity and disempowerment
as a result of his ignoble behaviour rather than as a statement concerning his
sexual behaviour per se.
Like emasculation, evisceration and the burning of the interior organs went
to the heart of what treason meant to the aristocratic community. The
ideology of nobility privileged the heart as the seat of knightly virtues and its
eradication with the rest of the interiora signified the destruction of the aristo-
crat’s innermost essence. Although it was sometimes a punishment associated
specifically with sacrilege (e.g. David ap Gruffydd, Gilbert de Middleton),
evisceration generally symbolised the perverse intention or premeditation of
treason which had originated in the interior of the body. Andrew Harclay was
told that because his treasonous thoughts had originated in his ‘heart, bowels
and entrails’ they were to be extracted and burnt to ashes, which would then
be dispersed. Both William Wallace and Gilbert de Middleton were eviscer-
ated so that the moral impurity of their intentions could be eradicated by
fire.52
The association with the death of Judas Iscariot, the Christian arch-traitor,
will be obvious. It was in Judas that treason and sacrilege intersected during
the symbolic eruption of his viscera from his body in the Field of Blood (Acts
1:16–19).53 The heart or viscera (the terms cor and viscera were sometimes
used interchangeably) was held to be the seat of judgement and was therefore
50 Hildegard von Bingen, Scivias, cited by Cadden, Meanings of Sexual Difference, p. 213.
Neal, ‘Masculine Identity’, pp. 177–8; Von Eickels presents a similar argument for Scandina-
vian and Norman attitudes towards masculinity; ‘Gendered Violence’, pp. 590–1.
51 Gesetze der Angelsachsen, 1: 488; Von Eickels, ‘Gendered Violence’, passim; C. Gittings,
‘Sacred and Secular: 1558–1660’, in Death in England: An Illustrated History, ed. P.C. Jupp and
C. Gittings (Manchester, 1999), pp. 147–73, at 149. One only needs to think of Abelard’s
castration as an example of punishing socially unacceptable forms of heterosexual contact.
52 Foedera, 2.1: 509; Ann. London, p. 142; G.O. Sayles (ed.), Select Cases of the Court of the
King’s Bench 4, Selden Society 74 (1950) , p. 78.
53 P.F. Baum, ‘The Mediaeval Legend of Judas Iscariot’, PMLA 31 (1916), 481–632. The
story was extremely popular in the medieval period.
responsible for the rational and emotional balance of the individual – a pure
heart would lead to salvation. This is why John of Salisbury equated the heart
to the Senate in his description of the body politic and why the Spanish theo-
logian and physician Arnold de Villanova (c. 1300) described the heart as
harbouring the principle of good and evil intention.54
By positioning the heart or viscera as the seat of individual judgement and
the physical, visible, expression of the inner ‘man’, an important distinction is
made between the traitor as the metaphorical corruption of the body politic
and the traitor as being corrupted in character. It is in the exposure of the inte-
rior of the traitor’s body that the impurity of character is metaphorically
exposed. Moreover, the evident need to burn the heart or viscera suggests a
drive to destroy an essential part of the traitor’s identity. The core of his being
is exposed and annihilated in an attempt to eradicate the dangerous essence of
corruption.
As was noted in Chapter 1, the undead – revenants – were often neutralised
by dismembering and burning their bodies, often after the heart had been
removed. One particularly persistent revenant in a Yorkshire narrative, when
he was questioned by a priest, spoke from ‘the inside of his bowels, and not
with his tongue, but as it were in an empty cask’. It seems that it is the sheer
force of his corrupted will which moved him to leave his grave every single
night to harass his neighbours. When questioned, his interior speaks, not his
tongue and it is the essence of his being, his inner ‘man’ which yearns for
salvation.55
After the systematic destruction of the aristocrat’s outer person, firstly by
degradation and secondly by fragmenting his body, the removal and burning
of the viscera signified the final stage of dismantling his personal identity and
exposing his ignobility. Considering the cultural and religious implications of
burning as purgation, it is not surprising that evisceration was reserved for
only few of the most serious traitors in this period (only 8 out of 51 cases).
Although all public executions could be considered a humiliating and
socially disgraceful end for aristocrats, it is instructive to address the question
of why some aristocrats were subjected to a more severe punishment in rela-
tion to ideas about nobility and honour.56 There was general agreement on the
fact that these executions served as a deterrent to others. Matthew Paris refers
to the execution of the anonymous knight as a ‘horrifying example’ to all who
may think of committing similar evils, while similarly, the judgement of
54 John of Salisbury, Policraticus, 1: 318; Ziegler, Medicine and Religion, p. 72.

55 Grant, ‘Twelve Medieval Ghost Stories’, p. 370. The Latin reads: ‘loquebatur in
interioribus visceribus et non cum lingua sed quasi in vacuo dolio’. James, ‘Twelve Medieval
Ghost Stories’, p. 418.
56 Matthew Paris specifically refers to William de Marisco’s death as an ‘ignoble’ one: Chronica
majora, 4: 196.
DYING IN SHAME 129
William Wallace refers to the edification and castigation of the Scots.57 Simon
Fraser’s head was displayed on London Bridge as a ‘very horrible spectacle’
while Andrew Harclay was told that his displayed quarters would serve as an
example illuminating the dangers of committing treason.58 What should be
borne in mind, however, is that even though these executions were enacted
before urban crowds and the traitors’ body parts were displayed in towns, the
real audience would be the traitors’ peers: i.e. other members of the aristoc-
racy. Rather than being passive onlookers, urban groups and visitors were part
of an all-inclusive display of punitive justice primarily intended to signal the
importance of loyalty and honour.
Also, among these severe executions there were three ‘foreign’ traitors
(David ap Gruffydd, William Wallace and Simon Fraser); one was newly
raised to the rank of earl (Andrew Harclay); while another could be regarded
as an avaricious upstart (Hugh Despenser the Younger); the fifth was an aris-
tocrat of middling rank (Gilbert de Middleton) as was William de Marisco,
who was most likely executed in a similar manner to these other men. The
other multiple punishments again concerned foreigners, ‘upstarts’ or men of
middling aristocracy. In other words, English aristocrats of old families were
treated with a greater degree of consideration even if they were to be put to
death. So, for example, Thomas Earl of Lancaster, Edmund Fitz Alan Earl of
Arundel and Edmund of Woodstock Earl of Kent were summarily beheaded
and buried almost immediately afterwards, while Andrew Harclay and Hugh
Despenser the Elder were given a more severe treatment, presumably partly
because they had only been elevated recently to their respective earldoms.
This difference in treatment is partially underscored by a comment made in
connection to Piers Gaveston in the Vita Edwardi Secundi: instead of being
drawn and hanged like a traitor and a thief, the king’s favourite suffered
punishment (i.e. beheading) like a nobleman (nobilis) on account of his
connection to the earl of Gloucester. However, in the context of the Vita it
seems that we should take this as ironic. Wendy Childs suggests that the
author was indulging in wordplay around capitalis, which seems further
supported by the author’s comments about Gaveston’s hubris and lowly
origins. Moreover, he consciously sets up the contrast between Gaveston, the
upstart earl, and Thomas Earl of Lancaster, who was the noblest man in
England after the king. Because Gaveston was the king’s favourite, his execu-
tion was risky – best to kill him like a nobleman, even though, as the author
implies, it would have been more appropriate to draw and hang him.59
In other words, there was little unanimity on the correct way of punishing
57 Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, 3: 498; id. Historia Anglorum, 2: 463 for his comments on
William de Marisco’s execution; Ann. London, p. 142.
58 Flores historiarum, 3: 134; Foedera, 2.1: 509. Cf. Ann. Dunstable, p. 294; Ann. London, p.
141; Brut, 1: 228.
59 Vita Edwardi Secundi, pp. 46–51.
aristocratic traitors which depended to a large extent on political circum-

stances. However, what is clear is that both the severe executions of new men –
and of foreigners and lower ranking aristocrats – and the beheading of estab-
lished members of the higher aristocracy can be regarded as a way in which the
group’s sociocultural boundaries could be re-established from within, as well
as a means of rendering visible the abstract ideology of the noble body. On the
one hand, titled aristocrats such as the Earls of Lancaster, Arundel and Kent
could be treated differently on account of their high status, they still died and
they died in public. The level of humiliation and degradation may therefore
have been different to the more severe executions of other traitors, but they
were still very much part of the punishment. The fact that they were buried
almost immediately after their death suggests that it was there was a level of
discomfort with the decision to kill them. After the humiliation of their public
death, therefore, the burial of these traitors would reinstate them into the aris-
tocratic community, although in terms of material forfeiture the shame of
their crime could linger on. Richard FitzAlan, for example, continued to peti-
tion Edward III to have his father’s name cleared and to be reinstated in title
and honours.60
On the other hand, the heavy punishment for treason committed by
foreigners, new men and middling aristocracy, although subscribing to the
same ideology of nobility, focuses predominantly on excluding corrupt
members from the aristocratic group and thus outlining the limits of nobility.
In the aristocratic communal representation there was no place for contradic-
tory treacherous nobility, although it appears to have been easier to exclude
these more or less marginal members of the aristocratic group by means of
harsher corporeal punishment.
The difference, I think, does not so much point to a sociocultural differ-
ence in attitude to nobility within the group but rather to a political awareness
of the difference in social status. All aristocrats subscribed to a version of the
same ideological principle of the nobility of body and soul; culturally, there
was no difference between an earl and a local lord committing treason. Poli-
tically, however, difference in status did matter. For example, the traitors
subjected to harsh punishments did not generally have the family or social
connections to rally together to avenge the traitor’s humiliating death,
whereas those men who were only beheaded did have politically active rela-
tives and friends or were members of the royal family. Wallace and Fraser had
been politically isolated before their death, while John of Atholl’s son and heir,
David, was an English hostage at the time of his father’s execution. Although
he submitted to the Scots in 1312, he returned to the English side shortly
60 Rotuli parliamentorum, 2: 5–7, 55–6, 226–7. Edmund FitzAlan’s lands were forfeited in
parliament after Edward III’s accession. Bellamy, Law of Treason, p. 84.
DYING IN SHAME 131
before Bannockburn.61 Post 1326, it would have been political suicide to
express support for the Despensers and it is significant that both Richard
FitzAlan’s first petition for his father’s posthumous reinstatement and the
request to reassemble Despenser the Younger’s remains were made after the
fall of Roger Mortimer in November 1330.
Us and them:
the social and metaphorical exclusion of aristocratic traitors
The fragmentation and destruction of the aristocratic traitor’s body signalled

the shattering of the carefully wrought ideology of embodied nobility which
formed the basis of aristocratic group and personal identity. The conceptual
connection between corporeal wholeness and identity was severed as the
corruption of nobility within the body was exposed and eradicated. The
execution of traitors can be read on two levels. First of all, it was meant to be a
punishment for the corrupted aristocratic traitor and his family by exposing
and destroying his inner core – in this sense the destroyed body was that of the
individual located within the familial network of ‘consanguini’. Secondly, it
was a structured process of removing the tumour of ignobility from the
aristocratic group by stripping the individual of his identity and corporeal
wholeness – in this sense, the body represented the organic metaphor of the
body social as well as its diseased limb. The elaborate execution of certain
aristocratic traitors – ringleaders in conspiracy or rebellion – was thus
embedded within a socio-political framework as a mechanism to expose the
boundaries of group identity by focusing on the tension within the aristo-
cratic traitor between the ideology of embodied nobility and the reality of its
corruption.
I started this chapter by pointing out the silence on corporeal punishment
for treason in the 1352 Statute as a sign of general acceptance that it was just,
and I would like to finish with an event to which I have only alluded so far, but
which I would argue is most significant in the way treason was perceived by
aristocrats.62 As is well known, the great majority of Simon de Montfort’s
followers, despite Prince Edward’s alleged sabre-rattling in the Song of Lewes,
were not physically punished or executed after their defeat in 1265. Instead,
they temporarily lost their estates and were given the opportunity, under the
terms of the Dictum of Kenilworth drawn up over the summer of 1266, to
reclaim them in exchange for a financial contribution to the royal coffer.
Moreover, Henry III was urged not to harbour any resentment towards those
61 See Watson, ‘Strathbogie, John of’.

62 The following is based on Westerhof, ‘Amputating the Traitor’.
Disclaimer:

3: Simon de Montfort’s death and mutilation on the battlefield at

Evesham. © British Library Board. All Rights Reserved
(Cotton Nero DII, f. 177r).
who had strayed, with the explicit exception of Simon de Montfort and his
immediate accomplices.63
The difference in attitude towards the rebels is significant in the context of
how de Montfort was treated after his death on the battlefield of Evesham on 4
August 1265. The outrage over his death and that of his eldest son, which
appears to have been premeditated murder, was exacerbated by the fact that
certain ‘anonymous knights’ dismembered, emasculated and beheaded the
Earl of Leicester’s corpse.64 Reminiscent of Matthew Paris’s drawing on
William de Marisco’s broken and reversed shield and sword (ill. 2), an early
fourteenth-century image in the Rochester continuation of the Flores
historiarum provides an arresting example of how treason and nobility were
thought to be conceptually opposed (ill. 3), and also of how the intention of
treason could be regarded as more fundamentally corrupting than following a
traitor.65 The image shows the dismembered corpse of the earl, identified by
63 Documents of the Baronial Movement of Reform and Rebellion 1258–1267, ed. R.F. Treharne
and I.J. Sanders (Oxford, 1973), pp. 317–37.
64 Robert of Gloucester refers to the battle as the ‘murder’ of Evesham; Metrical Chronicle, ed.
W.A. Wright, 2 vols. RS 86 (1887), 2: 764.
65 MS BL Cotton Nero D.II, f. 133v. With the exception of MS Westminster, Dean and
Chapter, W (c. 1306), which is extremely hostile towards the royal party, all other versions of
DYING IN SHAME 133
the arms on his shield and hauberk lying alongside his naked body, which is
sharply contrasted with the figure of his eldest son Henry, who is fully clothed
but disarmed, in a pose reminiscent of the cross-legged knightly effigies
discussed in Chapter 3 above. To the left of this central scene, a group of
knights is displayed in the act of ‘amputating’ the earl’s limbs and head.66 To
the right one can barely make out a number of bodies, presumably repre-
senting de Montfort’s associates, in a disorderly heap on the ground. The
image clearly emphasises de Montfort’s harsher punishment as a consequence
of his leading role during the rebellion, and although his family had supported
him they were not to be treated as severely, as Henry’s corpse seems to suggest.
An account discovered some years ago suggests that Prince Edward
instructed a ‘death-squad’ led by Roger Mortimer to find and kill de
Montfort.67 Significantly, after the fatal blow was struck by Mortimer,
according to this account, ‘all worthy nobles turned away from him [tote la
gent de value de luy se turnerent]’ as if to dissociate themselves from the
slaughter which followed, carried out by ‘certain others [puis autres]’, as well as
from the ignoble man de Montfort was perceived to be. When the younger
Simon de Montfort finally arrived on the scene, he was confronted with his
father’s head being carried around on a spear.68
Despite the condemnation of it in some sources, what is significant about
de Montfort’s post-mortem dismemberment, and its depiction in the Roch-
ester Flores, is that it strongly calls to attention the connection between treason
as corruption of society and the destruction of the aristocratic body. More-
over, the punishment is left to anonymous members of the aristocracy and
does not appear to have been sanctioned by Henry III or his son. Nevertheless,
this suggests that there was some shared understanding of how an aristocratic
traitor ought to be punished; the perpetrators never came forward and no one
appears ever to have been held to account for it, but it is evident that the royal-
ists regarded de Montfort as a traitor. Before the Battle of Lewes in 1264, both
Henry III and Richard of Cornwall had renounced the Montfordians as trai-
tors to the king and kingdom, and de Montfort himself was hailed by the royal
army as ‘old traitor’ before the Battle of Evesham. The Song of Lewes suggests
that the barons acted against the ‘peace and common customs’ of the kingdom
and were guilty of treason.69 The decision of the knights to dismember de
Montfort posthumously implies an awareness of the conceptual connection
the chronicle are more negative about the earl. His death and dismemberment elicit little
comment, while his sons are twice referred to as the offspring of Ganelon (Flores historiarum, 1:
xix; 3: 6, 22, 67).
66 The word amputation is used by William Rishanger, Chronica, p. 37 and Wykes, p. 173.
67 See O. de Laborderie, J.R. Maddicott and D.A. Carpenter, ‘The Last Hours of Simon de
Montfort: A New Account’, EHR 115 (2000), pp. 378–412.
68 Laborderie, Maddicott and Carpenter, ‘The Last Hours of Simon de Montfort’, p. 408;
Wykes, p. 175.
69 Flores historiarum, 2: 493–4; Ann. Oseneia, p. 170; Song of Lewes, line 604.
between disease and treason which was to be rooted out from the body politic.
In fact, de Montfort himself had hinted at this in a letter to Pope Alexander IV
in 1258, when he explained his actions as benefiting the common good of the
realm, which
is a sort of body, … and is driven by the command of the highest equity and
ruled by a kind of rational government, and it is not useful that in one body of
members there is discord.70
De Montfort was obviously arguing that his actions were commonly accepted
and were considered most profitable for the body politic, excepting some
dissenters who were keen to create discord. Unfortunately, by 1265 it seems
public opinion had turned against him and from this moment onwards, aris-
tocratic traitors were neither automatically exempt from the death penalty nor
from the dishonour brought upon them by the metaphorical disclosure of
their corrupted nobility.
Conclusion
That the punishment of aristocratic traitors changed in the course of the thir-
teenth century is beyond doubt. Moreover, it has become clear from this
discussion, no one questioned the increase in the number of shameful death
penalties exacted upon aristocratic traitors: the Statute of Treasons of 1352,
although showing concern with the distribution of forfeited estates, does not
discuss the nature of the traitor’s punishment or its appropriateness. In light of
the foregoing discussion about the role of the body in the communal percep-
tion of aristocratic identity it is perhaps not surprising that if the aristocrat was
found to fall short of the perceived ideal, his body would be the focus of
rendering his corruption visible.
Additionally, it is clear that the extreme form of punishment involving
‘multiple deaths’ was only reserved for the most notorious traitors, usually
foreigners or those of the middle to lower ranks of the aristocracy. This is
partly because it was easier to punish harshly when public opinion was in
favour of it or when the aristocrat in question was not one of the leading
magnates of the realm. A particular enlightening example of the ideas behind
the punishment of traitors is the case of Thomas of Lancaster: initially
sentenced to a range of punishments for his various crimes, these were
commuted to a sentence of beheading only on account of his noble ancestry.
On the one hand, what this reveals is a concern with the symbolic boundaries
of the aristocratic community rendered visible by men on the fringes of the
70 Matthew Paris, Chronica majora 6: 402–3; cf. Policraticus, 1: 282; ed. Nederman, p. 66:
‘For the republic is … a sort of body which is animated by the grant of divine reward and which
is driven by the command of the highest equity and ruled by a sort of rational management.’
DYING IN SHAME 135
social group; while on the other hand, it exposes a profound unease with the
execution of high-ranking aristocrats.
Furthermore, the analysis of the elaborate execution for treason shows that,
rather than just being a strategy to redress the balance of power in society
under the auspices of royal government, it was meant to exclude the culprit
symbolically and physically from the social order of aristocrats. To this end,
the crime of treason was constructed as one which harmed both the king and
the people of the realm; the treatment of the traitor’s body can therefore be
interpreted both as the disclosure of corruption within him and the expulsion
of corruption from the body politic. The example of Simon de Montfort’s
death and dismemberment, ostensibly enacted by his peers but perhaps given
royal sanction, shows that when it came to treason, both monarchy and aris-
tocracy interpreted it as a corruption of the precept of membership to the
social group, i.e. the nobility of character and the nobility of birth.
Conclusion:
Death and the Noble Body
As Marcel Mauss pointedly remarked in his call for a combined psychological

and sociological approach to the study of human behaviour: ‘the body is
man’s first and most natural instrument’ to give meaning to one’s social and
material environment.1 It is the pivotal site of interaction between person and
society, while it embodies notions of personal and communal identity: it is
with the body that we experience, perform, communicate. By contrast, the
lifeless and decaying body, the cadaver, typically evokes a sense of fear and
alienation – it is ambiguous, ‘matter out of place’ and thus abject, yet it force-
fully presents us with a premonition of our own fate. As an abject ‘other’, the
cadaver is a fluid category exposing the limitations of the human need to order
and control oneself and one’s environment, which can be manipulated to
express society’s innermost fears and anxieties. Like other categories of
embodiment, moreover, the opposition between living and dead body is never
absolute; it is near-impossible to identify the transition between the two states,
as Augustine had already acknowledged around AD 400. These days, with our
medical advances, the boundary has become even more blurred.2
During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the cadaver was constituted as
a location in which ideas about moral purity and impurity were rendered
visible. The image of putrefaction and corruption – a fragmenting and viscous
body – was a powerful instrument warning society about the dangers of sin,
while concepts of stasis and equilibrium were valorised as the essence of
primeval human being. Stories about restless revenants intent on evil circu-
lated widely, at the same time as reports of the miraculous conservation of
saintly bodies. Moreover, ideas of stasis and corruption were found in genres
as diverse as medical and political theory.
This collapse of metaphorical and physical notions of corruption also had
profound consequences for ideas about personal and communal identity.
Although, for example, the science of physiognomy was judged to be not
wholly reliable, the notion that the integrity of the soul would be transposed
on to a whole and healthy body was widespread. This is not only evident from
saintly post-mortem stasis and the premature putrefaction of the bodies of
1 Mauss, Sociology and Psychology, p. 104.

2 See above, Chapter 1.
sinners but also from ideas about nobility found in the self-definition of the
aristocratic community in this period. As the office of knighthood merged
with the social elite, the communal aristocratic ideal became lodged in the
knight’s well-regimented and controlled body as a suitable shrine for noble
virtues such as loyalty, generosity, gentility, valour, prowess, and honour. The
heart played a central role in the exploration of these virtues and was often
presented as a treasure house containing the noble soul, enshrined within the
castle of the body. Moreover, nobility became an ontological necessity for
acceptance into the aristocratic group.
The concept of nobility was grounded in, on the one hand, a sense of indi-
vidual worth; on the other hand, it was predicated by the idea of noble
ancestry. Despite emphasis on the former by some authors, aristocrats them-
selves were keen to stress the latter to create a division between themselves and
the rest of society. One of the strategies through which the sense of lineage and
dynasty was rendered visible was the patronage of monasteries and the insis-
tence on exclusive burial in the most sacred spaces within these, such as the
chapter house and the area around the high altar. Aristocratic patronage raised
expectations about ownership and control which together with the display of
pious donation added to the prestige of individuals and their family –
unsurprisingly monastic communities might respond by writing family gene-
alogies and by allowing signs of secular lordship to appear in the fabric of their
buildings in exchange for financial aid. The choice of interment site was often
informed by the prior burial of ancestors or relatives which thus created the
impression of a continuous dynastic line of power. Moreover, if the physical
presence of aristocrats was essential for the expression of family status, so was
the means by which the resting place of the individual’s mortal remains was
marked. The rise of the knightly effigy in thirteenth-century England runs
parallel with notions of the nobility of the body and the importance of noble
ancestry.
The appearance of knightly effigies also runs parallel with an increase in the
popularity of methods of corpse preservation and multiple burial. The idea of
death as something evil and sinful which translated itself in the putrefying
cadaver held the potential to dislodge forcefully the imagined integrity of the
noble body. If the post-mortem behaviour of the body signified the state of the
soul, then a decaying and viscous noble body was a contradiction in terms.
Practices such as embalming and mos teutonicus served to delay or remove the
possibility of the cadaver ‘misbehaving’ before interment and created the illu-
sion of stasis and bodily integrity associated with spiritual virtue. The swift
interment of perishable parts of the body such as the entrails, and flesh in the
case of mos teutonicus, equally points to the unease in the perception of the
decaying body. The separate burial of the heart, however, furthered the sense
of spiritual nobility inherent in the aristocratic ideal. Buried with a level of
ostentation to rival the funeral obsequies for the body, the heart represented
CONCLUSION 139
the aristocrat’s personhood, virtue and integrity; the body could be said to
render visible the ideals of aristocratic nobility relating to family and social
status, the heart was reserved for the display of piety and thus spiritual
nobility. My analysis of a sample of heart and viscera burials over the period
supports this idea. A great number of burials occurred as a result of
pre-existing interests in the monastery predominantly of the individual whose
heart was buried there or of the individual’s ancestors, whose bodies were
interred elsewhere. Although in relative terms a greater number of traditional
orders received the hearts of aristocrats, in light of the actual numbers of reli-
gious houses, aristocratic hearts were predominantly donated to the mendi-
cants and spiritual orders such as the Cistercians and Premonstratensians. The
majority of associated burials of bodies, however, typically involved interment
amongst relatives or occurred for other reasons mostly relating to the expres-
sion of lordship. These burials (perhaps unsurprisingly) took place mostly
among the traditional orders with the Cistercians receiving an equal share of
either body or heart.
The separate interment of body and heart/viscera was problematic for some
ecclesiastics and secular theologians who debated the consequences of
multiple burial in terms of identity and personhood, which only served to
underscore the importance of the heart and the body as participants in the
formation of identity as well as to strengthen the belief in the efficacy of saints’
relics. Although Pope Boniface VIII’s bull prohibiting mos teutonicus for
example resulted in a diminished number of openly acknowledged multiple
burials, dispensations were successfully obtained for the separate interment of
body and heart, while the sentence of excommunication was applied haphaz-
ardly and was of a non-permanent nature. Moreover, the practice of multiple
burial always centred on the separation of the heart and other internal organs
from the rest of the body – the division of skeletal remains, as happened with
saintly bodies, was not an option.
It is possible that the latter formed one of the foundations of the changing
treatment of some aristocratic traitors from the middle of the thirteenth
century onwards. The punishment for treason had become almost a standard
of drawing and hanging for non-aristocratic traitors, while aristocrats were
either exiled or fined. With the interiorisation of nobility as part of aristocratic
self-definition, it was almost inevitable that treason would become its concep-
tual opposite: in its most basic form, treason entailed a breach of loyalty,
which was one of the essential qualities of knighthood. It was thought to be on
a level with sacrilege which strengthens the idea of moral corruption. Several
authors commenting on the virtues of knighthood in texts intended for aristo-
cratic consumption specifically isolate treason as a crime contrary to nobility
and suggest that it gives the aristocratic community licence to dispose of the
corrupt member in their midst.
The elaborate punishment of aristocratic traitors, isolated incidents when
seen in the wider context of treason executions taking place in the late
thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, typically entailed the systematic
removal and destruction first of their material signs and symbols of status, and
secondly of their physical integrity. It was a processual event which culmi-
nated in the burning of the viscera and the quartering of the traitor’s body for
further display across the kingdom and which did not end until the bodily
remains were either buried or removed from public view. This form of execu-
tion and display served to expose and amputate the internal corruption of the
traitor, and revealed the pollution within and cure of the body politic. It did
not only harm the individual traitor, but also his family who were tainted by
association; his descendants were disinherited and his genitals might be cut off
to underscore the point. There appears to have been an unspoken agreement
between the monarchy and the aristocracy that this type of punishment was
appropriate; despite incidental disapproving remarks in ecclesiastical chroni-
cles, it was not a matter of general public debate and there are signs that it was
incorporated by other social groups as a means of exposing corruption. Since
the human body was medieval people’s ‘natural instrument’ with which they
defined themselves and the environment, it is understandable that it could be
destroyed on occasion for transgressing the boundaries of the metaphorical
social body as a consequence of the most fundamentally undermining crime,
namely treason.
Returning to the Middle English Otuel and Roland discussed at the begin-
ning of this book, the conceptual pairing of Roland and Ganelon by means of
their bodies makes a lot of sense. Roland is the epitome of spiritual and phys-
ical nobility. Ganelon not only betrays his secular lord but also God, and
therefore his treason is also sacrilege. As a consequence, Ganelon’s body is
destroyed to harmonise it with his inner corruption; by contrast, Roland’s
body – the privileged shrine of his noble heart – is lovingly conserved for
future burial as a symbol of his excellence. Having shown how the concepts of
nobility and treason were embodied by male aristocrats from the thirteenth
century onwards, it becomes easy to imagine later medieval aristocratic audi-
ences of Otuel and Roland approving of its ideological underpinning.
Appendix 1
This appendix provides a tentative list of multiple burials in England and the
Angevin territories; it excludes the heart burials of John Balliol (1269) and
Robert Bruce (1329). The information is generally drawn from chronicles,
genealogies and antiquarian sources, and builds upon (and occasionally
corrects) the lists provided by Hartshorne and Bradford. The latter’s work was
recently reprinted in unaltered form and still provides the most comprehen-
sive selection of heart burials from the medieval to the modern period for the
British Isles (with particular focus on England).1 Full references to sources can
be found in the list of abbreviations and the bibliography.
Date Name Body Heart Bibliography

1129 Walter Giffard, Winchester Waverley Abbey Gill, ‘Heart Burials’,
Bishop of Cathedral p. 11
Winchester
1135 Henry I King Reading Abbey Ste-Marie-des- Orderic, 6: 448–51;
of England Prées Huntingdon,
(Normandy) Historia, pp. 254–7;
[with entrails] Malmesbury,
Historia, pp. 26–31;
Monasticon, 6:
1099–1100
1137 Edith d’Oilly unknown Oseney Priory Monasticon, 6: 251
(post) (based on John
Leland)2
1 E.S. Hartshorne, Enshrined Hearts of Warriors and Illustrious People (London, 1861) should
be used with caution since it contains many inaccuracies; also, Bradford, Heart Burial; A.A.
Gill, ‘Heart Burials’, Yorkshire Architectural and Archaeological Society Proceedings 2 (1936), pp.
3–18; Dru Drury, ‘Heart Burials and Some Purbeck Marble Heart Shrines’, pp. 38–58. For
continental examples see Brown, ‘Death and the Human Body’, passim; Erlande-Brandenburg,
Le roi est mort; Schäfer, ‘Mittelalterlicher Brauch’, pp. 478–89; and recently: Weiss-Krejci,
‘Restless Corpses’, pp. 769–80.
2 For more information on the Oilly family and their patronage of Oseney Priory, see D.
Postles, ‘The Foundation of Oseney Priory’, BIHR 53 (1980), pp. 242–4; idem, ‘Patronus et
advocatus noster: Oseney Abbey and the Oilly Family’, Historical Research 60 (1987), pp.
100–2. Edith was one of Henry I’s mistresses before she married Robert d’Oilly, constable of
Oxford Castle.
142 APPENDIX 1

1138 Stephen Duke ? Bégard Abbey ? St Mary’s Chronicle of St Mary,
of Brittany and (Brittany) Abbey, York p. 112; Hartshorne,
Earl of Richmond Enshrined Hearts, pp.
39–40
1148 William de ? Laodicea in ? Lewes Priory Mantell, ‘A Few
Warenne III, the Holy Land [with entrails] Remarks’, p. 434
Earl of Surrey
1166 Geoffrey de Walden Priory ‘In a sacred Monasticon, 4: 140,
Mandeville II, place’ in Chester 142–3
Earl of Essex [with entrails]
1168 Robert de Ste Marie de Brackley CP, 7: 527–30;
Beaumont II, Pré, Leicester Hospital Crouch, The
Earl of Leicester Beaumont Twins, p.
95; Knighton, 1: 64
1183 Henry the Rouen Grandmont nr Howden, Gesta, 1:
Young King Cathedral Limoges 301; Diceto, 2:
(Limousin) 19–20; Agnellus,
Sermo de morte, pp.
265–73; Vigeois,
Chronica, p. 217
1189 William de Mortemer Walden Priory Monasticon, 4: 140,
Mandeville, Abbey 144–5
Earl of Essex (Normandy)
1197 William de ‘A Cistercian Ely Cathedral Gill, ‘Heart Burials’,
Longchamp, Abbey’ p. 11
Bishop of Ely
1199 Richard I King Fontevrault Rouen Howden, Chronica,
of England Abbey Cathedral p. 84; Ann.
Winchester, p. 71;
Wendover, 1: 282–4;
Way, ‘Effigy of King
Richard’, p. 202–16
1216 John King of Worcester Croxton Priory, Foedera, 1.1: 192;
England Cathedral Leicestershire Matthew Paris,
Historia anglorum, 2:
667–8; CChR
1226–1257, p. 463
1217 Robert de ? London Brackley CP, 12.2: 750–13
Quincy Hospital
1219 Saer de Quincy, ? Acre Garendon Ann. Wav., p. 292;
Earl of Abbey Monasticon, 5: 331
Winchester
3 For more information on the Quincy family, see S. Painter, ‘The House of Quency
1136–1264’, Mediaevalia et Humanistica 11 (1957), pp. 3–9.
APPENDIX 1 143
1220 Henry de Llantony ?London Monasticon, 4:
Bohun, Earl Secunda 139–41 (Walden),
of Hereford 6: 134–5 (Llantony
Secunda); Bradford,
Heart Burial, pp.
67–84
1221 William Wymondham ? Italy Ann. Wav., p. 294
d’Albini IV, Priory
Earl of Arundel
and Sussex
1226 William de Shouldham Walden Abbey CP, 5: 126–33;
Mandeville III, Priory Monasticon, 4: 140
Earl of Essex
1230 Maurice de St Augustine’s St Augustine’s Ann. Tewks., p.
Gaunt Abbey, Bristol Abbey, Bristol 77–8; Smyth, Lives
or Hospital of or Hospital of of the Berkeleys, 1:
St Mark or St Mark or 20; Lyte, Dunster
Dominicans Dominicans and its Lords, 39–41;
Bristol Bristol Hartshorne,
Enshrined Hearts,
pp. 92–3
1232 Christine de Shouldham Binham Priory CP, 5: 133; Golding,
Valognes Priory ‘Burials and
Benefactions’, p. 68.
1232 Ranulph III de St Werburgh Dieulacres Ann. Tewks., p. 87;
‘Blundeville’, Abbey Abbey Ann. Chester, p.
Earl of Chester 58–9; CEC, pp.
386–85
1235 Margaret de Garendon Brackley CP, 12.2: 750–4
Quincy, Abbey Hospital
Countess of
Winchester
1236 William de Newstead by Belvoir Priory Monasticon, 3: 285,
Albini III of Stamford 289; Nichols,
Belvoir Leicestershire, 2: 25–6
1237 Richard le Tarrant Durham Dru Drury, ‘Heart
Poore, Bishop Crawford, Cathedral Burials’, p. 40
of Durham Dorset
4 There is a lot of confusion about whether it was Henry de Bohun (d. 1220) or a Humphrey
de Bohun (d. 1234) whose heart was buried separately in London (unspecified location). The
Walden and Llantony Secunda genealogies provide different information in this regard, as well
as giving diverging accounts of when the earldom of Essex transferred to the Bohuns. See
Sanders, English Baronies, pp. 91–2 for what may be considered the correct genealogy.
5 See Westerhof, ‘Celebrating Fragmentation’, pp. 29–32.
144 APPENDIX 1

1238 Peter des Winchester Waverley Abbey Hartshorne,
Roches, Bishop Enshrined Hearts, pp.
of Winchester 76–8
1239 Henry de Unknown Normandy CCR 1237–1242,
Turbeville, p. 1656
Seneschal of
Gascony
1240 Edmund of Pontigny Abbey Soisy Matthew Paris,
Abingdon, Chronica majora, 4:
Archbishop 72–4; Life of St
of Canterbury Edmund, p. 156
1240 Isabella Beaulieu Abbey Tewkesbury Ann. Tewks., p.
Countess of Abbey 113–14; Golding,
Cornwall ‘Burials and
Benefactions’, p. 69
1241 Ralph Niger, St Paul’s Beeleigh Abbey Bradford, Heart
Bishop of Cathedral Burial, pp. 72–3
London
1241 Gilbert Marshal,
Temple Church, Hertford Priory Matthew Paris,
Earl of Pembroke
London Chronica majora, 4:
495
1241 Robert de Say Unknown Hertford Priory Matthew Paris,
Chronica majora, 4:
136
1242 William de Belvoir Priory Croxton Priory Baronage, 1: 115;
Albini IV of HMRC: Rutland, 4:
Belvoir 148
1245 William de Sawley Abbey Sandon Hospital Monasticon, 5:
Percy III 515–16, 6: 676;
VCH Surrey, 2: 118
1252 Paulin Peyore of ?Westminster Toddington, Matthew Paris,
Toddington Abbey ?parish church Chronica majora, 5:
242
1253/4 John de Mohun Bruton Priory Newenham Monasticon, 5:
of Dunster Abbey 692–3; CP 9: 21.
1256 William of Sugho, Spain Ely Cathedral Dru Drury, ‘Heart
Kilkenny, Bishop Burials’, p. 49.
of Ely
1258 Edmund de Stanlaw Priory Dominicans CP 7: 680–1;
Lacy, Earl of Pontefract Monasticon, 5:
Lincoln 271–3
6 Henry III paid 4 marks 60s for a ‘precious cup’ to contain the heart of his seneschal.
APPENDIX 1 145
1260 William III de Meaux Abbey Thornton Priory Chronica de Melsa, 2:
Forz, Count of 106.
Aumale
1260 Walter de Durham Howden Parish Gill, ‘Heart Burials’,
Kirkham, Cathedral Church [with p. 11.
Bishop of viscera]
Durham
1260 Aymer de Church of St Winchester Dru Drury, ‘Heart
Valence, Bishop Genevieve, Cathedral Burials’, p. 49–50.
of Winchester Paris
?1260s Matilda de St Mary Overy, Barnwell Priory Liber memorandum
Hastings Southwark ecclesie de Bernewelle,
p. 50
1261 Sanchia de Hailes Abbey Cirencester Ann. Oseneia, p.
Provence, Abbey 128; Leland,
Countess of Itinerary, 1: 129
Cornwall
1262 Richard de Clare, Tewkesbury Canterbury Ann. Tewks., p. 169;
Earl of Abbey Cathedral or CP, 5: 696–702
Gloucester Tonbridge
1263 Margaret Clifford Unknown Aconbury Priory Sheehan, The Will in
Medieval England, p.
313
1268 Peter de Hereford Aiguebelle ‘Will of Peter de
Aigueblanche, Cathedral collegiate Aigueblanche’ CS
Bishop of church, Savoie third series 37
Hereford (1926), pp. 1–9.
1268 Robert de Hospital of St Dominicans Ann. Tewks., pp.
Gournay Mark Bristol 77–8; Baronage, 1:
430–1
1268 William de ?Westminster Catesby Priory Baronage, 1: 399;
Mauduit IV, Abbey CP, 12: 367–8
Earl of Warwick
1269 Stephen Lacock Abbey Bradenstoke Baronage, 1: 177;
Longespee, Priory CP, 12: 171
Seneschal of
Gascony
1270 ? Maud Countess Unknown ?Chichester Dru Drury, ‘Heart
of Arundel Cathedral Burials’, p. 52.
1270 Ralph Fitz Unknown Franciscans, Hartshorne,
Ranulph of Richmond Enshrined Hearts, p.
Middleham 87; Gill, ‘Heart
Burials’, p. 12.
1271 Roger de Unknown ?Leybourne Dru Drury, ‘Heart
Leybourne Church, Kent Burials’, p. 44; CP,
7: 631–4
146 APPENDIX 1

1271 Henry of Hailes Abbey Westminster Ann. Hailes, pp.
Almaine Abbey 78–9; Ann. Oseneia,
p. 244
1272 Robert de France Durham Dru Drury, ‘Heart
Stichill, Bishop Cathedral Burials’, p. 41
of Durham
1272 Ralph de StophamUnknown ?Bryanston Dru Drury, ‘Heart
of Bryanston Church, Dorset Burials’, p. 38;
Hutchins, History of
Dorset, 1: 264
1272 Richard Earl of Hailes Abbey Franciscans, Ann. Hailes, p. 80;
Cornwall Oxford Trivet, Annales sex
regum Angliae,
p. 279; Wykes, pp.
247–8.
1272 Henry III King Westminster Fontevrault Ann. Hailes, pp.
of England Abbey Abbey (in 1291) 80–1; Foedera, 1.2:
497, 758
1273 George de Unknown Dominicans, CP, 1: 23; VCH
Cantelou of Pontefract Yorkshire, 3: 271–3
Abergavenny
1274 Robert de Sutton, Monastery nr Peterborough Gill, ‘Heart Burials’,
Abbot of Bologna Abbey p. 13
Peterborough
1274 Henry, son of Westminster Dominicans, Johnstone,
Edward I Abbey Guildford ‘Wardrobe and
Household’, p.
397–9; Tanner,
‘Tombs of Royal
Babies’, p. 30
1275 John le Breton, Hereford Abbey Dore Dru Drury, ‘Heart
Bishop of Cathedral Burials’, p. 45
Hereford
1275 Beatrice, Franciscans, Fontevrault CP, 10: 811–14;
daughter of London Abbey Kingsford, Grey
Henry III Friars, p. 70
1275 Humphrey de Llantony ‘Workleye’ [sic]: CP, 6: 459–62;
Bohun IV, Earl Secunda Priory Wormsley Monasticon, 6: 135
of Hereford and Priory,
Essex Herefordshire?
APPENDIX 1 147
1276 John de Valence Westminster Dominicans, Hope, ‘Funeral
Abbey London Monument’, p. 149;
Stow, Survey of
London, p. 304;
Tanner, ‘Tombs of
Royal Babies’, pp.
31–2
1276 Margaret de Westminster Dominicans, Hope, ‘Funeral
Valence Abbey London Monument’, p. 149;
Stow, Survey of
London, p. 304;
Tanner, ‘Tombs of
31–2
1280 Nicholas of Ely, Winchester Waverley Abbey Monasticon, 1: 196
Bishop of Cathedral
Winchester
1282 Thomas Hereford Bonhommes, AASS 2 Oct., p. 581;
Cantilupe, Cathedral Ashridge Monasticon 6.1: 517.
Bishop of
Hereford
1283 Adam de Novo Unknown Dominicans, VCH Yorkshire, 3:
Mercato Pontefract 272–3; CP, 9: 546–7
1284 Alphonso, son Westminster Dominicans, Flores historiarum, 3:
of Edward I Abbey London 61; Stow, Survey of
London, p. 304;
Tanner, ‘Tombs of
30–1
1285 Robert de Ros III Kirkham Priory Croxton Priory, Baronage, 1: 547;
of Helmsley and Leicestershire CP, 11: 95–6;
Belvoir Greenhill, Incised
Slabs, p. 46
1289 John de Vescy Alnwick Abbey Dominicans, Ann. London, p. 99;
of Alnwick London Chron. Lanercost, p.
52
1290 Roger de Norton, St Albans St Albans Abbey Dru Drury, ‘Heart
Abbot of St (High Altar) (Altar in Burials’, p. 41
Albans retro-choir)
1290 Eleanor of Westminster Dominicans, Ann. London, p. 99;
Castile, Queen Abbey London Chron. Lanercost, pp.
of England 137–8; Flores
historiarum, 3: 71–2;
Rishanger, Chronica,
p. 121
148 APPENDIX 1

1291 Eleanor of Amesbury Franciscan, Chron. Lanercost, p.
Provence, Nunnery London 141; Flores
Queen of historiarum, 3: 72;
England Rishanger, Chronica,
p. 129
?1291 Nicholas de St Mary Bredon, Franciscans, Reg. Giffard, 2:
Mitton Worcestershire Worcester 388–90
1292 John Pecham, Canterbury Franciscans, Bradford, Heart
Archbishop of Cathedral London Burial, pp. 93–4;
Canterbury Kingsford, Grey
Friars, p. 70
1293 William de ?Thorney Yaxley Parish VCH Huntingdon, 3:
Yaxley, Abbot Church 241–7
of Thorney
1293 Agatha de Unknown Narborough Dru Drury, ‘Heart
Narborough Parish Church Burials’, p. 54
1294 Giles de Berkeley Little Malvern St Giles Reg. Giffard, 2:
II of Coberley Priory Coberley, 449–50; Barkly,
Gloucestershire ‘The Berkeleys of
Cobberley’, pp.
105–9
1296 Robert de Earl’s Colne Franciscans, Baronage, 1: 191–2;
Vere II, Earl Priory Ipswich CP, 10: 216–18
of Oxford
1296 Edmund, Earl Westminster Minoresses, CP, 7: 378–87;
of Lancaster Abbey (initially: London Monasticon, 6:
Minoresses, 1553–4; Duffy,
London) Royal Tombs, pp.
92–6
1297 Nicholas Salisbury Lacock Priory Baronage, 1: 177
Longespee, Cathedral
Bishop of
Salisbury
1300 Edmund, Earl Hailes Abbey Bonhommes, Ann. Hailes, pp.
of Cornwall Ashridge 114–15; Monasticon,
6: 514, 517
?1300s Mary de Meriet Unknown Merriott parish Gittos and Gittos,
church, Somerset ‘Motivation and
Choice’, p. 1607
7 Another heart burial monument was found at Combe Flory dedicated to Maud de Meriet, a
nun at Cannington Priory. As yet, she has not been identified. Gittos and Gittos, ‘Motivation
and Choice’, p. 160.
APPENDIX 1 149
1307 Edward I King Westminster ?Holme Cultram Bower,
of England Abbey [with viscera] Scotichronicon, 6:
332; Pierre de
Langtoft, 1: 428–9;
Rishanger, p. 423–4,
Trivet, Annales, pp.
413–14; Wright,
Political Songs (ed.
Coss), p. 247
1314 Gilbert de Tewkesbury Shelford Priory Stapleton ‘Summary
Clare, Earl of Abbey of Wardrobe
Gloucester Accounts’, p. 341
?1316 Matilda de Vaux Pentney Abbey Belvoir Priory CP, 11: 97, VCH
Norfolk, 2: 388.
1327 Edward II, King St Peter’s Abbey, Franciscans, Smyth, Lives of the
of England Gloucester London in 1358 Berkeleys, 1: 293–4;
Bradford, Heart
Burial, pp. 105–6
Appendix 2
The following references form the basis of figs. 5 and 6. For full citations refer
to the list of abbreviations and bibliography.
1238 Armiger literatus CCR 1237–1242, p. 146; Matthew Paris,

Chronica majora, 3: 497–8; Bellamy, Law of
Treason, p. 23; Pollock and Maitland, History of
English Law, 2: 501; Powicke, King Henry III
and the Lord Edward, 2: 741–59.
1242 William de Marico Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, 4: 193–7;
Matthew Paris, Historia Anglorum, pp. 462–3;
Bellamy, Law of Treason, p. 23; Pollock and
Maitland, History of English Law, 2: 501;
Powicke, King Henry III and the Lord Edward, 2:
741–59.
1265 Simon de Montfort, Ann. Oseneia, pp. 175–6; Ann. Wav., pp. 365,
Earl of Leicester 367; Flores historiarum, 2: 493, 3: 6; Rishanger,
37–8; Wykes, pp. 174–5; Prestwich, Edward I,
p. 51.
1282 Llewellyn ap Gruffydd, Ann. Dunst., pp. 292–3; Ann. London, pp. 90–1;
Prince of Wales Cotton, Historia, pp. 162–3; Worcester, 2: 227;
Prestwich, Edward I, pp. 193–4.
1283 David ap Gruffydd, Ann. Dunst., pp. 293–4; Ann. London, pp. 90–2;
Prince of Wales CChR 1277–1326, pp. 281–2; Chron. Buriensis,
pp. 78–9; Cotton, Historia, p. 164; Foedera, 1.2:
630; Worcester, 2: 229–330; Bellamy, Law of
Treason, pp. 24–6; Powell and Wallis, House of
Lords, pp. 207–8; Pollock and Maitland, History
of English Law, 2: 501; Prestwich, Edward I, pp.
202–3.
1283 Mabadin, David’s Chron. Buriensis, p. 79; Cotton, Historia, p. 164;
steward Worcester, 2: 230; Prestwich, Edward I, p. 203.
1292 Rhys ap Maredudd CCR 1288–1296, p. 267; CChR 1277–1326,
pp. 306–8; Bellamy, Law of Treason, pp. 29–31;
Edwards, ‘Treason of Thomas Turberville’, p.
296; Prestwich, Edward I, pp. 218–19.
APPENDIX 2 151
1295 Thomas de Turberville Cotton, Historia, pp. 304–6; Song of Thomas de
Turberville (Anglo-Norman Political Songs, ed.
Aspin, pp. 49–55); Edwards, ‘Treason of
Thomas Turberville’; Pollock and Maitland,
History of English Law, 2: 501; Prestwich,
Edward I, p. 383.
1304 Nicholas de Segrave Rotuli parliamentorum, 1: 171–81; Bellamy, Law
of Treason, p. 55.
1305 William Wallace Ann. London, pp. 139–42; Brut, 1: 196; Pierre
de Langtoft, ed. Thiolier, 1: 344, 419–20; Flores
historiarum, 3: 123–4; Song of Simon Fraser (ed.
Robbins, pp. 14–15; ed. Wright, p. 213);
Barrow, Robert Bruce (1988 ed.), pp. 136–7;
Bellamy, Law of Treason, pp. 34–9; Pollock and
Maitland, History of English Law, 2: 501;
Prestwich, Edward I, pp. 499–503; Watson,
Under the Hammer, pp. 211–14.
1306 Simon Fraser Ann. London, pp. 148–9; Brut, 1: 200–1; Flores
historiarum, 3: 134; Song of Simon Fraser (ed.
Robbins, pp. 14–21, 252–6; ed. Wright, pp.
212–23); Barrow, Robert Bruce (1988 ed.), pp.
156, 161; Bellamy, Law of Treason, pp. 45–6;
Prestwich, Edward I, pp. 501, 507–8.
1306 John of Strathbogie, Ann. London, pp. 149–50; Brut, 1: 201–2; Flores
Earl of Atholl historiarum, 3: 134–5; Bellamy, Law of Treason,
p. 46; CP, 1: 306; Prestwich, Edward I, p. 508.
1312 Piers Gaveston, Earl of Ann. London, pp. 206–7; ‘Trokelowe’, pp. 76–7;
Cornwall Vita Edwardi Secundi, pp. 42–53, 100–3; Fryde,
Tyranny and Fall, pp. 19–22; CP, 3: 433–4;
Hamilton, Piers Gaveston, pp. 96–100.
1318 Gilbert de Middleton Brut, 1: 209; Sayles, Select Cases, 4: 78; Vita
Edwardi Secundi, pp. 142–5; Bellamy, Law of
Treason, pp. 46–8; Prestwich, ‘Gilbert
Middleton and the Attack on the Cardinals,
1317’, pp. 179–94.
1322 Thomas, Earl of Brut, 1: 219–24; Foedera, 2.1: 41–2, 493; Gesta
Lancaster Edwardi, pp. 74–6; Murimuth, p. 36; Rotuli
parliamentorum, 2: 3–5; Vita Edwardi Secundi,
pp. 214–15; Bellamy, Law of Treason, pp.
49–50; Fryde, Tyranny and Fall, pp. 58–61;
Maddicott, Thomas of Lancaster, p. 312.
1322 Bartholomew Murimuth, p. 36; Bellamy, Law of Treason, pp.
Baddlesmere 50–1; Fryde, Tyranny and Fall, p. 61; Haskins,
‘Judicial Proceedings against a Traitor’, pp.
509–11; Sayles, ‘Formal Judgements on
Traitors’, pp. 57–63.
152 APPENDIX 2
1322 Roger Clifford Murimuth, p. 36; Bellamy, Law of Treason, pp.

50–1; Fryde, Tyranny and Fall, p. 61; Haskins,
1322 John Mowbray Murimuth, p. 36; Bellamy, Law of Treason, pp.
1322 Henry Tyes Murimuth, p. 36; Bellamy, Law of Treason,
pp. 50–1; Fryde, Tyranny and Fall, p. 61;
Haskins, ‘Judicial Proceedings against a Traitor’,
pp. 509–11; Sayles, ‘Formal Judgements on
1322 John Giffard Murimuth, p. 36; Bellamy, Law of Treason, pp.
1322 Henry Willington Murimuth, p. 36; Bellamy, Law of Treason, pp.
1322 Henry de Montfort Murimuth, p. 36; Bellamy, Law of Treason, pp.
1323 Andrew Harclay, Earl Brut, 1: 227–8; CCR 1327–1330, p. 404;
of Carlisle Chron. Lanercost, pp. 250–1; Foedera 2.1: 509,
748; Gesta Edwardi, pp. 83–4; Bellamy, Law
of Treason, p. 52; Fryde, Tyranny and Fall, pp.
156–8; Mason, ‘Sir Andrew de Harcla earl of
Carlisle’, pp. 124–31.
1326 Hugh Despenser the Ann. Paulini, pp. 317–18; Brut, 1: 239–40;
Elder, Earl of Jean le Bel, Chronique, p. 23; Bellamy, Law of
Winchester Treason, pp. 53, 66; Fryde, Tyranny and Fall,
p. 190.
1326 Hugh Despenser the Ann. Paulini, pp. 319–20; Brut, 1: 240; Foedera,
Younger 2.2: 804; Jean le Bel, Chronique, pp. 27–8;
Bellamy, Law of Treason, p. 66; Fryde, Tyranny
and Fall, pp. 192–3; Holmes, ‘Judgement on the
Younger Despenser’, pp. 261–7; Taylor,
‘Judgement on Hugh Despenser the Younger’,
pp. 70–7.
1326 Edmund Fitz Alan, Rotuli parliamentorum, 2: 55–6, 226–7, 256–7;
Earl of Arundel Bellamy, Law of Treason, p. 84; CP, 1: 241–2.
APPENDIX 2 153
1328 Robert de Holland Fryde, Tyranny and Fall, p. 218; Maddicott,
‘Thomas of Lancaster and Sir Robert Holland’,
pp. 449–72.
1329 Edmund of Woodstock, Brut, 1: 265–7; Le Baker, Chronicon, pp. 107–8;
Earl of Kent Murimuth, pp. 59–60; Rotuli parliamentorum, 2:
55; Bellamy, Law of Treason, p. 207; CP, 7:
142–8.
1330 Roger Mortimer, Earl Brut, 1: 271–2; Chron. Lanercost, p. 266; Le
of March Baker, Chronicon, pp. 109–13; Rotuli
parliamentorum, 2: 55, 255–6; Bellamy, Law of
Treason, pp. 54, 66.
1330 Simon de Beresford Le Baker, Chronicon, p. 113; Murimuth, p. 64;
Rotuli parliamentorum, 2: 53.
1330 John Maltravers Murimuth, pp. 63–4; Rotuli parliamentorum, 2:
53; Bellamy, Law of Treason, pp. 82–3.
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Index
Page numbers in bold refer to the illustrations and figures. Appendix 1 and 2 are
indexed on personal name only.
Abbey Dore (Herefordshire) 70, 71 Attitudes towards other social

n.58 groups 34, 43–4, 45–6, 55–6,
Abelard 127 n.51 117
Abingdon, Edmund of, Archbishop of Characteristics of see also under
Canterbury 28–9, 60, 144 Knighthood 33, 54, 116
Adam 39 Definitions of 3–5, 7, 10, 88
Agnellus, Thomas 19 Punishment for treason before
Sermo de morte et sepultura Henrici 1238 117–19
regis junioris 29–30 Role of religious houses in
Aigueblanche, Peter, Bishop of maintaining image of 57, 64,
Hereford (d. 1268) 145 65, 69, 74, 87, 138
Albertus Magnus 42–3 Aristotle 42, 43, 53
Alderi, William de 118 Arius 30 n.64
Alfonso, son of Edward I (d. 1284) Armiger literatus 103, 115, 117, 125
147 n.44, 128, 150
Alighieri, Dante 58 Ashridge, Convent of Bonhommes
Almaine, Henry of (d. 1271) 58–9, 62, (Bucks) 61
63, 146 Assize of Northampton (1176) 118
Alexander IV, Pope 134 Attainder see Executions, Treason
Alexander the Great 49 Augustine, Bishop of Hippo see also
Amputation 79 n.16, 107, 108, 113, under Death; Burial 17, 20, 54
118, 119, 120 n.25, 132–3, Augustinian Canons 85, 85, 86
133 n. 66, 140 Autopsy see also Dissection 14
Anatomy see Dissection Avalon, Hugh of, Bishop of Lincoln 28,
Annales Londonienses 98, 99 n.9, 100 29, 40
Anglo-Scottish relations 97–102,
112–13, 130–1 Bacon, Roger 37, 42–3, 49
Angoulême, Isabella of 62, 76 n.5 Baddlesmere, Bartholomew (d. 1322)
Aquinas, Thomas see also under Death; 120 n.23, 151
Burial 17, 20, 29, 91–2 Balliol, John (d. 1269) 141
Arderne, John of 50 Balliol, John, King of Scots 97
Ariès, Philippe 6, 19 Bartholomaeus Anglicus 22, 26 n.48,
Aristocracy see also Nobility 53
And knighthood 5, 10, 43 Basset, Ralph 118
And religious patronage 7–8, 10, 57, Beatrice, daughter of Henry III (d.
59–64, 64–6, 68–9, 70–2, 1275) 146
73–4, 75, 138 Beauchamp family 69
Assessment of current scholarship Beauchamp Guy de, Earl of Warwick
on 5, 33–4 61
180 INDEX
Beauchamp, William III de 69, 71 Popular perceptions of 13

Beauchamp, William IV de, Earl of Relationship between soul and 17,
Warwick 69 23, 31, 38, 39, 43, 49–50, 54,
Beaulieu Abbey (Hants) 59, 60, 61, 63, 91–3, 137
63 n.28 Religious 94, 107
Beaumont, Margaret de see also under Resurrection of 7, 28, 38, 88, 93
Leicester, earls of 83, 143 Saintly 28, 40–1, 53–4, 75, 92, 94,
Beaumont, Waleran de, Count of 139
Meulan 117 n.6 Social 43, 72, 79, 87
Beauty, concepts of 39, 40 Theoretical underpinnings of 4, 6,
Beccles, Daniel of 44 6n, 10, 36–7, 137
Beheading see under Executions Body Politic see also Salisbury, John of 54,
Bek, Antony, Bishop of Durham 61 106–8, 111, 128, 131, 134, 140
Bellamy, John 96, 102 Actualisation of 111, 133, 135
Belvoir Priory (Leics.) 83 Medical metaphors and 106–8,
Benedictines 85, 85, 86 113–14, 131, 140
Benefaction see Patronage Treason and 106–8, 113, 132–4
Beresford, Simon de (d. 1330) 153 Body Worlds Exhibition 13–14
Berkeley of Coberley, Giles de (d. 1294) Bois, Thomas de 100
68, 71, 77 n.6, 86, 148 Boncompagno 79, 79 n.14
Bernard of Clairvaux see Clairvaux, Boniface VIII, Pope 37, 89–90, 92–3,
Bernard of 105 n.33, 139
Binski, Paul 76 Detestande feritatis 89, 94–5
Black Death 14, 15, 21, 22 Born, Bertran de 34 n.4, 45–6, 57
Black Friars London 70 Bosco, Ernald de 66
Body see also Flesh Boulogne, Matilda of 42
Ageing see also Prolongatio vitae 4, Bourdieu, Pierre 33
37–8 Bower, Walter 81
And personhood see under Identity Brabanzon, John de 91
And sin 38 Bracton 105, 106
Appearance see also Physiognomy Bradenstoke Priory (Wilts.) 82
40, 46, 47, 49, 74 Bradford, Charles 141
As castle or shrine 48, 48 n.48, 74, 88 Bridlington Priory (Yorks.) 65 n.32
Corruption of 15, 39, 94, 109, 128, Brittany, Stephen Duke of, and Earl of
134, 137 Richmond (d. 1138) 142
Dead see also Cadaver 4, 13 Britton 105, 106, 108
Debate on the nature of the 91–2, Bronfen, Elizabeth 16
93, 94 Brown, Elizabeth 92
Disease 39–40, 50 Bruce, Robert de, King of Scots (d.
Fragmentation of 25, 28, 75, 88, 1329) 90–1, 97, 100, 101,
102, 131, 133, 137 112, 141
Gendered 39, 41–2 Brut 124
Integrity 59, 87–8, 95, 131, 137 Burial 86, 93, 94
Material see also Cadaver 8, 95 Abbatial 67
Medical perceptions of 38, 40, 41, Amongst relatives 59, 63, 64, 66,
52–3, 81–2, 87 n.46, 106, 108, 69, 85, 93
108 n.50, 137 Anthropological views on 15–16, 92
Nobility of 48, 49, 55, 74, 79, Aristocratic see also under individual
87–8, 95 names and religious houses 1, 3,
Political see under Body Politic 7–8, 10, 69, 73–4, 75, 77, 87,
Pollution 15, 77 89, 90, 95, 138
INDEX 181
As act of lordship 64, 66, 67–8, 69, Mummification 21 n.33, 87
74, 85 Ontological status of 91–2
As act of piety 69 Preservation techniques see Burial
As one of Seven Works of Mercy 20 Preparations; Embalming; Mos
Augustine of Hippo on 20 teutonicus
Entrails see Entrails, Burial of Physical decay of see also Miasma 19,
Executed felons and traitors 119, 21, 21 n.33, 22, 29, 30 n.64,
124, 125–6, 129, 130, 140 31, 72, 75, 80, 89, 92, 124,
Heart see Heart Burials 137
Locations within religious space 67, Scholarship on 6, 15, 92
68, 69, 74 Respect for 87
Ambulatory 67 Saponification 21 n.33
Cistercian statutes on 68 Skeleton 15, 79, 88, 92, 95, 139
Chapter house 67, 68, 138 Transportation of 77, 92–3
Cloisters 68 Cade, Jack 108 n.52
High altar 58, 59, 61, 67, 68, Cantelou of Abergavenny, George de
138 (d. 1273) 146
Identification of 69 Cantilupe, Thomas, Bishop of Hereford
Parish 20, 67, 85, 86, 86 (d. 1282) 23 n. 41, 29, 61,
Preparations see also Embalming; 147
Mos teutonicus 1, 3, 31, 58, Cantimpré, Thomas of 26 n.48, 39
77, 78–82, 87, 89–90, 91, 95 Capellanus, Andreas 45, 46, 46 n.41,
Role of relatives in 93, 94 79
Use of lead coffins 81 Castile, Eleanor of (d. 1291) 70, 84,
Use of oxhides 19, 31, 81 147
Thomas Aquinas on 20 Castration see Emasculation under
Translation of remains 28–9, 68, Executions, Treason
89–90 Cemeteries 18, 20
Viscera see Viscera, Burial of Chanson de Roland 1, 2
Burnham Nunnery (Bucks) 59, 60 Chantries 20 n.32, 60, 61, 76
Bynum, Caroline 7, 28, 38, 92 Charlemagne 1–3
*Charlemagne and Roland 2
Cadaver see also Revenants 6, 10, 16 Charles the Bald, Holy Roman
As metaphor of corruption see also Emperor (d. 877) 77
under Death, Signs of 15, 21, Chester, earls of
25–6, 27, 30–1, 38, 75, 92, Hugh d’Avranches (d. 1101) 65
137, 138 n.32, 67, 68, 118 n.10
Bernard of Clairvaux on 21 Ranulph I 67
Dance macabre 6 Ranulph II (d. 1153) 117
Fasciculus morum 21 Ranulph III (d. 1232) 65, 65 n.32,
Three Living and Three Dead 24, 65 n.33, 82, 143
25–6, 27, 28 Childs, Wendy 129
Cremation see also under Executions, Chiromancy 42
Treason 81, 90 Chivalry see knighthood
Cruentation 15, 23 n.41 Chrétien de Troyes see Troyes, Chrétien
Eaten by dogs 119 n.16, 124 de
Identity and 21, 31, 72, 87, 88, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin 84
91–2 Cirencester Abbey (Glos.) 62
Macabre iconography 15, 24, 27 Cistercians 68, 85, 85, 86, 139
Miraculous preservation of 28–9, Clairvaux, Bernard of see also under
75, 82, 87, 92, 137 Death 49, 53
182 INDEX
Clare, Richard de, Earl of Pembroke Thomas Aquinas 17–18

and Striguil (‘Strongbow’) 61, Descriptions of see also under Death,
84 Signs of 27
Isabella, his daughter 61 Personification of see under Cadaver,
Clement V, Pope 88 n.50 Macabre iconography
Clement VI, Pope 90 Physical 14, 17–18, 21, 96, 123
Clifford, Margaret (d. 1263) 145 Post-medieval attitudes to 13–14,
Clifford, Roger de (d. 1284) 70–1 16
Clifford, Roger de (d. 1322) 152 Scholarship on 6, 14–15, 16, 92
Cornwall, earls of 58–64, 66 Signs of 26–8
Edmund (d. 1300) 62, 148 Social 14, 16, 31, 116, 123, 140
Death and burial 60, 64, 71, 82, Social hierarchy in 69
90 Spiritual see also Cadaver as metaphor
Patronage 59–60, 61, 63 of corruption 17–18, 31, 54,
Richard (d. 1272) 58, 61, 62, 62–3, 107, 138
68 n.45, 133, 146 Tomb as symbol of 18
Death and burial 59 Deathbed 18–19
Patronage 59, 60, 66 De la Pole, William, earl of Suffolk
(for Piers Gaveston see under 108 n.52
Gaveston, Piers) Despenser family 67
Corruption of blood see under Nobility Despenser, Hugh the Elder, earl of
Comyn, John 98 Winchester (d. 1326) 103,
Cremona, Gerard of 42, 80 110–11, 115, 120 n.23, 124,
Crouch, David 8, 33, 34 129, 131, 152
Croxden Abbey (Staffs) 91 Despenser, Hugh the Younger (d.
Croxton Kerrial Priory (Lincs.) 83, 84 1326) 110–11, 111–12, 115,
Crusades 75–6, 79, 81 120 n.22, 122, 123 n.35, 125,
Cwmhir Abbey (Powys) 120 n.25 126–7, 129, 131, 152
Devizes, Richard of 42
D’Abrissel, Robert 78 Diceto, Ralph 119
D’Albini, William IV, Earl of Arundel Dictum of Kenilworth (1266) 131
(d. 1221) 143 Dieulacres Abbey (Staffs) 65 n.32, 65
D’Albini of Belvoir, Isabella 83 n.33, 82
William III (d. 1236) 82, 143 Disembowelling see Embalming;
William IV (d. 1242) 83–4, 144 Executions; Mos teutonicus
Daniel, Walter 28 Dismemberment see Amputation;
Daniell, Christopher 67 Embalming; Executions; Mos
Dante see Alighieri, Dante teutonicus
Davy, Richard 121 Dissection 81–2, 89, 90
Dead D’Oilly, Edith (post 1137) 141, 141
Commemoration of the 20, 21 n.32, n.2
61, 69, 70–1, 74 Dominicans see also Black Friars 60,
In relation to the living see also 93, 94, 125
Cadaver; Revenants 14, 18, Douglas, Mary 21 n.33, 43
20, 26 Drawing see under Executions
Death Dressler, Rachel 7, 73
Afterlife 14, 18, 20 Durkheim, Émile 33 n.2
As event 20
As transition 17, 18, 21, 27, 137 Effigies see Monuments, funerary
Definitions of 16, 21 Ely, Nicholas of, Bishop of Winchester
Augustine of Hippo 17, 137 (d. 1280) 147
INDEX 183
Emasculation see under Executions William I (d. 1087) 30, 30 n.64,
As challenge to masculinity 126–7 118
Embalming see also Mos teutonicus 22, William II (d. 1100) 118, 118 n.10
28, 31, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78–82, Entrails
90, 91, 138 Burial of 58, 64, 81, 82, 83, 94, 138
Cost of 78, 79, 80, 87 Moral connotations of 28, 42, 54,
Evisceration 28, 76, 77, 77 n.9, 78, 81–2
80, 82, 87, 89, 90, 91, 94 Espec of Helmsley, Walter de 49, 67
Exclusivity of 1–3, 76, 78, 79, 80, Erlande-Brandenburg, Alan 78 n.11
87 Essex, earls of
Guy de Chauliac on 80 n.20, 87 Mandeville, Geoffrey I de (d. 1144)
n.46, 90 117
Henri de Mondeville on 79–80, 81, Mandeville, Geoffrey II de (d. 1166)
82, 87, 87 n.46, 90, 91, 123 142
Ingredients 3, 80, 87 Mandeville, William II de (d. 1199)
Origins of 77–8, 77 n.7 142
Subject of debate 89, 91, 93–5 Mandeville, William III de (d. 1226)
Techniques 14, 80, 81, 90, 91, 94 82–3, 143
Embodiment see also under Identity 33, Estoire de Charlemagne 1–2
35–7, 137, 140 Eu, William of 118, 118 n.10
England, kings of Evesham, Battle of (1265) 132, 133
Aethelred (d. 1016) 105 Evisceration see Executions, Treason;
Alfred (d. 899) 104 Embalming
Edward I (d. 1307) 70, 71, 80–1, 81 Evreux, Amaury of 117 n.6
n.23, 87, 90, 97–8, 101, 105, Excommunication 90–1, 107 n.47,
106, 109, 110, 115, 119, 124, 125 n.42, 139
131, 133, 149 Executions see also Death, social; Body
Edward II (d. 1327) 61, 90, 105, politic, actualisation 8, 96, 97,
111, 112–13, 126, 149 98, 105, 116, 120, 130, 131,
Edward III (d. 1377) 103, 125–6, 150–3
130 As example 128–9
Edward the Confessor (d. 1065) 58, As rite de passage 123 n.34
59 As social death 123–8, 140
Edward the Martyr (d. 879) 105 Attainder 108
Edmund (d. 946) 104 Beheading 100, 101, 117, 120, 122,
Henry I (d. 1135) 22, 30–1, 63 124–5, 129, 133
n.28, 82, 84, 117, 118, 127, Blinding 117, 118, 118 n.10, 127
141 Burning of remains 100, 101, 102,
Henry II (d. 1189) 29, 117, 118, 124, 127, 128, 140
119 Crowd participation in 121–2, 129
Henry III (d. 1272) 58, 59, 62, 63, Dependent on status 101, 129–30
66, 76, 86, 103, 115, 117, 131, Display of remains 100, 101, 120,
133, 146 122, 123, 124, 125, 129, 133,
Henry VI (d. 1471) 80 140
Henry, Young King (d. 1183) 19, Drawing 1, 96, 99, 100–1, 117,
29–30, 142 119, 120, 121, 123, 129, 139
John (d. 1216) 21 n.32, 42, 59, 63 Emasculation 100 n.14, 118, 118
n.28, 83, 142 n.10, 120, 126–7, 127 n.51,
Richard I (d. 1199) 29, 39 n.18, 140
49–50, 52, 84, 119, 142 Evisceration 100, 101, 120, 127,
Stephen (d. 1154) 42, 117 128
184 INDEX
Executions (cont.) Flores historiarum 132–3

Hanging 1, 99, 101, 117, 118, 119, Fontaines, Godefroid de 91, 93–4
120, 123–4, 129, 139 Fontevrault Priory (Anjou) 76
Humiliation 96, 99, 100, 102, 120, Forfeiture 103–4, 115, 117, 130, 131,
123, 126, 130 134
Implications for relatives 126–7, Forz, William de, Count of Aumale (d.
140 1260) 42, 145
Locations 99, 100, 121, 122, 123 Fougères, Stephen de 33 n.2
Post-mortem treatment 100, 120, Fourth Lateran Council 91, 95
120 n.25, 124 n.37, 125, 129, France, kings of 90
133 Louis IX (d. 1270) 79, 88
Quartering 1, 100, 102, 117, 120, Philip II (d. 1223) 50
124, 125, 126, 140 Philip III (d. 1285) 93, 94
Reversal of heraldry 122–3 Philip IV (d. 1314) 88, 89, 93, 108
Urban setting of 99–101, 121–2, Franciscans see also Grey Friars 60, 69
129 Poor Clares 76
Use of oxhides 100, 123, 123 n.35 Fraser, Simon (d. 1306) 96, 98, 100–2,
Use of distinctive dress or fabric 115, 120 n.23, 123 n.35, 124,
100, 121, 122 129, 130, 151
Use of wreaths (laurel, nettle and Fraser, William, Bishop of St Andrews
periwinkle) 100, 100 n.16, 98
122 Froissart, Jean 126
Exile 101, 112, 115, 117, 118, 118 Fulk, count of Anjou (d. 1040) 78
n.10, 119, 139 Funerals see also Burial
Cost 70–2, 70 n.54, 78
Falkenburg, Beatrix of 62, 63–4 Ritual 61, 70–2, 74
Felons, Treatment of see also under
Executions 118–19, 119 n.16, Gallows 100–1, 119, 123, 124
123 n.36, 127 As ‘cross of thieves’ 103, 118
Felony and felons 96, 99, 101, 118, Ganelon 1–4, 133 n. 65, 140
119 Garendon Abbey (Leics.) 66, 81, 83
Ferrers, Henry de, Earl of Derby 68 Gaunt, Maurice de (d. 1230) 143
Field of Blood 127 Gaveston, Piers, Earl of Cornwall (d.
Finucane, Ronald 14 1312) 112, 115, 125, 125
FitzAlan, Edmund, Earl of Arundel (d. n.42, 129, 151
1326) 129, 130, 152 Ghent, Henri de 93–4
FitzAlan, Richard, Earl of Arundel 130, Ghosts see also Revenants 15, 18
131 Giffard, John (d. 1322) 152
Fitz Harding, Robert 34 Giffard, Walter, Bishop of Winchester
Fitz Hamon, Robert 68, 68 n.45 (d. 1129) 141
Fitz Nigel, Richard, Bishop of Gilbertines 85, 86
London 118–19 Gillingham, John 102–3, 115, 116
Fitz Nigel, Richard, felon 119 Gittings, Claire 80
Fitz Nigel, William 65 n.32 Glanvill 105, 106
Fitz Osbern, William 119 Gloucester, earls of 66, 67
Fitz Ranulph of Middleham, Ralph (d. Clare, Gilbert de (d. 1230) 61, 65
1270) 1270 Clare, Gilbert de (d. 1314) 129, 149
Flesh see also under Body 92–3, 94 Clare, Richard de (d. 1260) 68 n.45,
Body regarded as polluted 15, 18 145
Burial of 58, 79, 138 Golding, Brian 8, 68 n.47
Fleta 105–6 Gournay, Robert de 145
INDEX 185
Grandison, Otto de (d. 1358) 71 Henry III, Holy Roman Emperor (d.
Grandmesnil, Hugh de 80 n.19 1056) 78
Grandmont Priory (Marche) 29 Henry, son of Edward I (d. 1274) 146
Gregory the Great, Pope 77 n.9 Heraldry 64, 70, 71, 72, 122–3, 133
Grey Friars Hereford, earls of 66, 67, 68 n.47
London 90 Bohun, Henry de (d. 1220) 143
Oxford 60, 62, 63 Bohun, Humphrey IV de (d. 1275)
Gruffydd, David ap (d. 1283) 109, 146
110, 110 n.58, 115, 120, 120 Gloucester, Miles of 67
n.22, 127, 129, 150 Herodotus 77 n.7
Gruffydd, Llewellyn ap (d. 1282) 120 Hertz, Robert 15–16, 92
n.25, 124, 125, 150 Hippocrates 26, 43
Histoire de Guillaume de Mareschal
Habitus 33–4, 36 19
Hagens, Gunther von 13 Historia Karoli Magni 1–2
Hailes Abbey (Glos.) 58, 59, 63, 66 Hodenc, Raoul de 34 n.4, 44–5, 46,
Hanging see under Executions 52, 55
Harclay, Andrew, Earl of Carlisle (d. Holland, Robert de 124, 153
1323) 111, 112–13, 120 n.22, Holm Cultram Priory (Cumbria) 81,
122, 125, 127, 129, 152 81 n.23
Harper-Bill, Christopher 8 Holy Blood, Relic of the 59–60, 61
Hartshorne, Emily 141 Holy Land 61, 71
Hastings, Mathilda de (d. ?1260s) 145 Honorius IV, Pope 92
Hawise, Countess of Aumale 42 Horn, Andrew 99 n.9
Heart Huizinga, Johan 15
As location of character 25, 42, 51, Huntingdon, Henry of 22, 30–1
55, 88, 127, 138 Huntingdon, Henry Earl of (d. 1596)
As location of intention 53, 127–8 80
As seat of the soul 52, 88, 95, 128
Descriptions of 52–3 Identity
Exchange 54, 54 n.70, 55 Communal 4–5, 7, 10, 33, 34, 36,
In relation to rest of body 48, 48 73, 75, 87, 95, 96–7, 116, 127,
n.48, 74, 88, 93, 138 130, 131, 134–5
Metaphors 54, 128 Embodied 4, 35, 37, 50, 72 87, 88,
Nobility of 47–8, 51–4, 55, 59, 74, 95, 96–7, 114, 128, 130, 131,
88, 95, 138 137
Heart Burial see also Viscera burial 8, Modern perceptions of 35–6
10, 58, 59–64 passim, 70, 71, Personal 7, 35–6, 75, 88, 95, 97,
74, 78, 82–6, 90, 93, 94, 116, 128, 131, 139
138–9 Imprisonment 117, 118
Reasons for 83, 95 Innocent III, Pope 54
Ancestral 82 Isabella of France 90, 111, 124, 126
Emotional attachment 61, 64, Isidore, Bishop of Seville 41, 44, 92,
78, 83 95
Lordship 82–3, 86 Isolation, social see also Death, social 7,
Piety 64, 75, 82, 84–5, 88 127, 128–9, 130, 135
Sign of nobility 75, 88, 95
Location of 68 Jenner, Mark 36
Valuable containers used for 59, 87, John of Salisbury see Salisbury, John of
144 Judas Iscariot 3, 30 n.64, 127
Hector of Troy 49 Judas Maccabaeus 3
186 INDEX
Kantorowicz, Ernest 72, 75 Leland, John 62

Keen, Maurice 102 Le Mans 29
Kilkenny, William, Bishop of Ely (d. Le Moine, Jean, Cardinal 89
1256) 144 Le Poore, Richard, Bishop of Durham
King’s Bench 99 (d. 1237) 143
Kirkham Priory (Yorks.) 67, 84 Leprosy 40, 40 n.20
Kirkham, Walter de, Bishop of Durham Lewes Priory 81
(d. 1260) 84, 145 Leybourne, Roger de (d. 1271) 145
Knaresborough Priory (Yorks.) 59, 60 Life course 37, 38
Knighthood see also under Nobility Lincoln Cathedral 84
Characteristics of 33, 44–6, 47, 48– Lion, characteristics of the 52
9, 50, 52, 73, 114, 138, 139 Little Malvern Priory (Worcs.) 71
Criticism of 35, 45, 48–9 Llantony Secunda (Glos.) 65, 66, 68
Ideals of 33, 50, 51, 54 n.47
Modern perceptions of 5, 7 Llull, Ramon 47–8, 52, 54, 112, 114,
Order of chivalry 112 122
Physical characteristics of 44–7, 49, Longchamp, William de, Bishop of Ely
50, 138 142
Knights Hospitaller (Knights of St Longespee, Nicholas, Bishop of
John) 60 Salisbury (d. 1297) 148
Knights Templar 49, 60, 61, 71, 85, Longespee, Stephen (d. 1269) 82, 145
86 Longespee, William, Earl of Salisbury
Kristeva, Julia 15, 21 n.33 (d. 1226) 73
Luzzi, Mondino dei 81–2, 90
Lacan, Jacques 36 n.9 Lydgate, John 100 n.16
Lacock Priory (Wilts.) 82
Lacy, Edmund de, Earl of Lincoln (d. Mabadin, steward of David ap
1258) 144 Gruffydd (d. 1283) 150
Lacy, Henry de, Earl of Lincoln 68 Maitland, Frederic 102
Lancaster, Duke Henry of 48 n.48, 50, Malmesbury, William of 30
124 Maltravers, John (d. 1330) 153
Lancaster, earls of Manuscripts
Edmund (d. 1296) 72–3, 76, 148 Edinburgh National Library of
Thomas (d. 1322) 111, 120, 124, Scotland Adv MS 19.2.1
129, 130, 134, 151 (Auchinleck) 2
Lancelot do lac 46 n.42, 51–2, 55 London British Library Additional
Lanercost Priory (Cumbria) 80 37492 2
Langtoft, Peter de 125 London British Library Arundel 83
Langton, Walter, Bishop of Coventry (De Lisle Psalter) 24, 25–6, 27
and Lichfield 61 London British Library Harley 2253
Le Bel, Jean 126–7 100
Le Breton, John, Bishop of Hereford (d. Map, Walter see also Revenants 18
1275) 146 n.21, 22, 25 n.44, 47, 51
Lechlade (Glos.) 63 Maredudd, Rhys ap (d. 1292) 109,
Leges Henrici Primi 106, 106 n.37 124, 150
Leicester, earls of Margaret of France 71, 90
Beaumont, Robert II de (d. 1168) Marisco, William de (d. 1242) 106
66, 142 n.40, 109–10, 110, 115, 120
Beaumont, Robert IV de 83 n.22, 122–3, 125 n.44, 128
Montfort, Simon de (d. 1265) 58, n.56, 129, 133, 150
120, 126, 131–4, 132, 150 Markyate 61
INDEX 187
Marsh, Adam 62 Monuments, funerary 65, 68, 70, 74,
Marshal, Gilbert, Earl of Pembroke (d. 84
1241) 144 Effigies 8, 72–3, 74, 133, 138
Marshal, Isabella (d. 1240) 61, 62, 64, Heart 60, 70, 84
68 n.45, 144 Entrails 84
Marshal, William I, Earl of Pembroke Moreham, Herbert de 100
(d. 1219) 19, 35, 61, 71–2 Mortimer, Isabella (d. 1252) 63
Marshal, William II, Earl of Pembroke Mortimer, Maud de 126
(d. 1231) 19–20 Mortimer, Roger de (d. 1282) 133
Marston, Roger 23 n.41 Mortimer, Roger de, Earl of March (d.
Masculinity see also Body, Gendered 7, 1330) 103, 111, 124, 131,
52 153
Challenged 46, 47, 49, 50, 51, 126–7 Mos teutonicus 29, 37, 59, 75, 78–82,
Matilda, Countess of Anjou 42 87, 90, 138, 139
Maud, Countess of Arundel (d. Difference from embalming 79
1270) 145 Origins of term 79, 79 n.14
Mauduit, William IV de, Earl of Subject of debate see also under
Warwick (d. 1268) 145 Boniface VIII 89–90, 95
Mauss, Marcel 10, 33 n.2, 137 Technique 79, 89
McNamara, Jo Ann 41 Mowbray, John (d. 1322) 152
Memoria 125 Moyenmoutier, Humbert de 54
Mendicant orders see also Dominicans; Multiple burial see also Burial;
Franciscans 68–9, 84–5, 85, Embalming; Evisceration 59,
86, 94, 139 64, 65, 74, 75–8, 87, 88, 93,
Menteith, John of 98 138, 141–9
Meriet, John de 91 Definition of 10, 57 n.2
Meriet, Maria de 86, 148 Dispensation for 90–1, 91 n. 59
Meriet, Maud de 148 n.7 Origins of 75, 76
Miasma 21–2, 23, 31 Reasons for 75–7, 93–4
Middleton, Gilbert de (d. 1318) 120 Subject of debate 88, 89–95, 139
n.22, 127, 129, 151 Murray, Andrew of, Guardian of
Miracles, somatic 28, 30 Scotland 97
Mirror of Justices 106
Missenden Priory (Bucks) 61 Narborough, Agnes de 86, 148
Mitton, Nicholas (d. ?1291) 148 Neckam, Alexander 48, 49
Mobility, social 34, 43, 45 Nero 77 n.7
Mohun of Dunster, John de (d. Newburgh, William 25 n.44
1253/4) 144 Niger, Ralph, Bishop of London (d.
Mondeville, Henri de see also under 1241) 144
Embalming 53, 54 Nobility 33–4, 44, 55, 75, 114
Montefalco, Chiara de 54 As moral quality 4, 48, 53, 54,
Montfort, Guy de 58, 133 n. 65 87–8, 97, 112, 114, 116, 128,
Montfort, Henry de (d. 1265) 132, 135, 138, 139
132–3 As qualifier for membership of
Montfort, Henry de (d. 1322) 152 aristocracy 34, 43–4, 48,
Montfort, Simon de (the elder) see 55–6, 72, 73, 95, 116, 130,
under Leicester, earls of 135, 138
Montfort, Simon de (the younger) 58, As social construct 4, 10, 34, 44, 138
133, 133 n. 65 Corruption of 2, 3, 9, 11, 45–6, 48,
Mont-Saint-Eloy, Gervais 91, 93 102–3, 109, 112, 114, 116,
‘Monstrous races’ 39 127, 128, 130, 134, 140
188 INDEX
Nobility (cont.) Poppaea 77 n.7

Embodied 2–5, 10, 35, 44–51, 52, Porter, Roy 39 n.18
54, 58, 72, 88, 95, 97, 103, Poulton Priory 65
116, 127, 128, 130, 138, 139, Powderham, John 110 n.58
140 Premonstratensians 85, 85, 86, 139
Of blood 7, 44, 48, 55, 108, 116, Prognostication see under Death, Signs
135, 138 of
Opposed to treason 116, 127, 130, Prolongatio vitae 37–8
132–3, 139 Processions 71–2, 121–2
Nonancourt, Nicholas de, Cardinal 89 Provence, Eleanor of (d. 1290) 148
Norton, Roger de, Abbot of St Albans Provence, Sanchia of (d. 1261) 59,
(d. 1290) 147 61–2, 66, 145
Nostell Priory (Yorks.) 65 n.32 Pseudo-Turpin see Historia Karoli magni
Notoriety 105, 111 Punishment see also under
Novo Mercato, Adam de (d. 1283) 147 Executions 117–20, 121,
129–30, 131, 134, 139
Odo, Bishop of Bayeux 118 n.10 Purgatory 20
Ordene de chevalerie 48, 52 Putrefaction, fear of see also Cadaver 3,
Oliver 1, 3 8, 19, 80, 81, 89. 137
Otto I, Holy Roman Emperor (d.
973) 78, 82 Quartering see Executions
Otto III, Holy Roman Emperor (d. Quincy, Robert de (d. 1217) 142
1002) 78 Quincy, Saer de, Earl of Winchester (d.
Otuel and Roland 1–4, 140 1219) 81, 83, 142
Outlawry 98, 99, 109, 112, 124
Owl, association with sin 18, 18 n.21 Randulph, Thomas, Earl of Moray (d.
1332) 91 n.59
Paris, Matthew 19–20, 86, 103, 110, Reading Abbey (Berks) 63, 63 n.28
122, 128, 128 n.56, 132 Reason (and lack of) 23, 41, 53, 112,
Park, Katherine 14, 92 128
Patronage Revenants 22–5, 25 n.44, 92, 128,
Aristocratic see under Aristocracy 137
Attitudes of religious houses to 8, Rewley Abbey (Oxon) 61
64–5, 69, 74, 138 Reynolds, Walter, Archbishop of
Made visible in religious space 59, Canterbury 111 n.63
64, 74, 138 Rhazes 42, 49, 80
Pecham, John, Archbishop of Rievaulx Abbey (Yorks.) 49, 67
Canterbury 23 n.41, 148 Rievaulx, Ailred of 28, 49
Perceval 45 n.38, 46–7 Roches, Peter des, Bishop of Winchester
Percy, William III (d. 1245) 82, 144 (d. 1238) 144
Peyvre, Paulin (d. 1251) 77 n.6, 86, Roland 1–4, 50, 140
144 Rome, Giles of see also Body politic 41,
Phlebotomy 108, 108 n.50, 113 108, 113
Phlegeton (river in Dante’s Inferno) 58 Roncevaux 1, 2
Physiognomy 42–3, 47, 49, 52, 54–5, Ros of Helmsley see also d’Albini of
137 Belvoir 67
Pinabel 1, 2 Robert III de (d. 1285) 67, 83–4,
Plastination 14 86, 147
Pollock, Frederick 102 William I de (d. 1258) 67
Pontigny, Edmund of see Abingdon, William II de (d. 1316) 67
Edmund of Rouen 29, 30
INDEX 189
Royal justices Stichill, Robert de, Bishop of Durham
Brabazon, Roger de 101 (d. 1272) 146
Mallore, Peter 99, 101 Stopham of Bryanston, Ralph (d.
Sandwich, Ralph de 100 1272) 86, 146
Royer, Katherine 9, 116 n.5 Stratford, John, Bishop of
Rubin, Miri 41 Winchester 111 n.63
Rudloff, Ernst von 77 n.7 Strathbogie, John of, Earl of Atholl (d.
1306) 96, 98, 101–2, 115,
St Bees Man 81, 91 130, 151
St Denis, Paris 93, 94 David, his son 130–1
St Giles, Coberley 71, 84 Sutton, Robert de, Abbot of
St Ignatius 54 Peterborough (d. 1274) 146
St Margaret in Combusto, Norwich
119 Tacitus 77 n.7
St Victor, Hugh of 33 n.2 Taxatio Nicholai 60 n.12
St Werburgh Abbey 65 n.32, 67, 82 Temple Church 19, 61
Sainte Chapelle, Paris 88 Templo, Richard de 49–50
Saladin 39 n.18, 48 Terra Normannorum 59, 66
Salisbury Cathedral 73 Tewkesbury Abbey (Glos.) 61, 64, 66,
Salisbury, John of see also Body Politic 67, 68, 68 n.45
16, 54, 106–7, 108, 111, 113, Titus Vespasianus, Roman Emperor (d.
128 AD 81) 49
Policraticus 112 Thierry 1, 2, 3
Say, Robert de (d. 1241) 144 Tickenham (Somerset) 73
Secretum secretorum 42, 54 Tilbury, Gervase of see also
Segrave, John de 99, 100 n.14 Revenants 18
Segrave, Nicholas de 151 Toddington (Beds) 86
Self-control (and lack of) 3–4, 23, Tombs see also Death, Spiritual
27–8, 39–40, 97, 137 Opening of 80–1, 87
As moral quality 3, 28, 38, 41 Traitors
Single-sex continuum 41, 50–1, 127 As corrupt 128, 130, 135
Shaming, function of 121 Attitudes to 16–17, 95, 100, 101,
Shouldham Priory (Norfolk) 83 102, 109, 112, 114, 115–16,
Sidonius 39 123, 129–131
Sin 18, 25, 31, 109, 137 Treason 96, 97, 102–9, 110–14, 113,
As lack of control 23, 30 117, 119, 126, 133, 135
Mortal 18 Accroaching royal power 99, 101,
Preservation of the cadaver indicating 104, 111, 112
absence of 28–9, 30, 31 Adhering to king’s enemies 104,
Song of Lewes 119, 131, 133 112, 122
Song of Thomas Turberville 123 As manifest 99, 111
Song on the Execution of Sir Simon As sacrilege 3, 100, 105, 105 n.33,
Fraser 100 106, 107, 110, 112, 124, 127,
Soul see also under Body 47, 74, 116, 139
138 Breaking the king’s peace 99, 100,
Spain, Arnold of 121 101–2, 109, 111, 112, 113
Sponsler, Claire 126 Connection with specific
Stanlaw Priory (Ches.) 68 punishment 99
Stapledon, William, Bishop of Exeter Connection with theft 103
(d. 1326) 122, 124 Deception 109
Stewart, James the 97 Difference high and petty 103
190 INDEX
Treason (cont.) Vaux, Matilda de (d. ?1316) 149

Disloyalty 102, 104–5, 109, 111, Vendôme, Matthew de 39
112, 116, 117, 125, 139 Verdun of Alton, Theobald I de (d.
Displaying one’s banner against the 1309) 91
king 99 Verdun of Alton, Theobald II de (d.
Forgery 104 1316) 91
Intention 104, 105 Vere, Robert II de, Earl of Oxford (d.
John of Salisbury on 107, 111 1296) 148
Law of 102 Vermin see under Bartholomaeus
Legal theory on Anglicus; Thomas of
Anglo-Saxon 104–5, 118 Cantimpré
Anglo-Norman 105–6, 106 n.37 Vescy of Alnwick, John de (d.
Statute of Treasons (1352) 103–4, 1289) 147
115, 131, 134 Vico, Pietro de 88
Plotting to harm government Vigeois, Geoffrey de 19
officials 104 Vigevano, Guido de 90
Plotting to kill or harm the king or Villanova, Arnold de 53, 107 n.46, 128
his family 99, 104 Virility 42
Political circumstances see also under Viscera burial see also under Heart
Body politic 129–31 burial; Entrails, burial of 8, 10,
Providing bad counsel 112 78, 79, 80, 81, 81 n.23, 82–6,
Punishment see under Executions 83, 83, 87, 91, 93, 139
Rebellion 29, 97–8, 99, 100, 104, Vision of Tundalus 18
118, 119, 131 Vita Edwardi Secundi 129
Scholarship on 8–9, 102–3 Vitalis, Orderic 30, 118
Terminology and definitions 103, Viterbo (Italy) 58
105–6, 106 n.40, 110, 113–14
Trials 2, 3, 98–9, 100, 101, 111–12 Walden Abbey (Essex) 65, 83
Tréguier, Oliver de 94 Wales, Gerald of 119
Tripoli, Phillip of 42 Wallace, William (d. 1305) 96,
Troyes, Chrétien de 39, 45 n.38, 46 97–102, 109, 110, 115, 120
Cligés 46 n.22, 122, 124, 125, 126, 127,
Perceval 46–7 129, 130, 151
Tummers, Hendrik 72 n. 65, 73 Wallingford (Oxon) 60
Turbeville, Henry de (d. 1239) 144 Walpole, Ronald 2
Turberville, Thomas (d. 1295) 110 Waltheof, Earl of Northumbria (d.
n.58, 115 n.2, 122, 125, 151 1075) 96, 117–18
Turner, Bryan 36 Warenne, William III de, Earl of
Turner, Ralph 35 Surrey 81, 142
Turpin 2 Westminster Abbey 58, 59, 70, 76
Tutbury Priory (Staffs) 68 Whalley Priory 68
Tyes, Henry (d. 1322) 152 Willington, Henry (d. 1322) 152
Woodstock, Edmund of, Earl of Kent
Valence, Aymer, Bishop of Winchester (d. 1329) 129, 130, 153
(d. 1260) 68, 145 Wulfstan, Archbishop of York 105
Valence, John de (d. 1276) 147
Valence, Margaret de (d. 1276) 147 Yaxley, William de, Abbot of Thorney
Valence, William de (d. 1296) 72 (d. 1293) 148
Valognes, Christine de (d. 1232) 143
Death in the Middle Ages
Dying and Death

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VICTORIA THOMPSON
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Food and Drink in Anglo-Saxon Burial Rituals
CHRISTINA LEE
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examines the place of food and feasting in funerary rituals from the earliest
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Death and The Noble Body in Medieval England

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Death and the Noble Body in

THE BOYDELL PRESS

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation

The right of Danielle Westerhof to be identified as

First published 2008

The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available

This publication is printed on acid-free paper

Typeset by Pru Harrison, Hacheston, Suffolk

List of Illustrations and Figures vii

Introduction: Staking out Aristocratic Identities at Roncevaux 1

2. Embodying Nobility: Aristocratic Men and the Ideal Body 33

3. Here Lies Nobility: Aristocratic Bodies in Death 57

4. Shrouded in Ambiguity: Decay and Incorruptibility of the Body 75

5. Corruption of Nobility: Treason and the Aristocratic Traitor 96

6. Dying in Shame: Destroying Aristocratic Identities 115

Conclusion: Death and the Noble Body 137

Thanks to everyone who has provided comments, criticisms, suggestions,

VCH Victoria History of the Counties of England

Charlemagne is standing in the midst of his vanquished rearguard in the valley

2 H.M. Smeyser, ‘Charlemagne Legends’, in A Manual of Writings in Middle English

lack of control. As a consequence, in death Roland’s body is presented as

7 Reuter, ‘Nobles and Others’, p. 96.

10 Ibid., pp. 69–70, 103–4.

Infamy – A Morphological Investigation’, in Bodily Extremities: Preoccupations with the Human

Death and the Cadaver: Visions of

Imagine a large exhibition space somewhere in a large North American, Euro-

1 See the official Body Worlds website at www.bodyworlds.com.

tends to be depersonalised and segregated. In some extreme cases, the dying,

‘Inter omnia terribilissimum est mors’ 14

The connection between death and sin was frequently emphasised in

context of recounting the sins committed by William Marshal the Younger,

29 Matthew Paris, Chronica majora, 4: 494–5.

Voices of the dead

One of the most powerful symbols of sinful life in medieval religious

40 Newburgh, Historia, pp. 479, 481–2.

To view the image on this page please refer to

1: The Three Living encounter the Three Dead

48 According to the thirteenth-century encyclopaedist Bartholomaeus Anglicus, worms and

What I am so you will be: death and personhood

It is evident from the above discussion that medieval perceptions of death

65 Orderic, 6: 448–51; Huntingdon, Historia, pp. 254–7; William of Malmesbury, Historia

instances the putrefying body was held up as a mirror to Everyman. In addi-

1 Crouch, Birth of Nobility.

make a distinction between ideal and day-to-day behaviour. The former is

Observing is knowing: body and identity

This is a continuous and flexible process depending on a great many variables

an increasing coldness as the body’s natural heat receded. As a consequence,

associated gendered behaviour, while women such as Queen Matilda or

Noble body, noble identity

32 Roger Bacon, Secretum secretorum, p. 165; Albertus Magnus, Quaestiones de animalibus, p.

The nobility of the aristocratic heart

57 See above, p. 46 n. 42; Kennedy, ‘Quest for Identity’, pp. 73–4.

60 Lancelot do Lac, p. 145; Lancelot of the Lake, p. 55.

Here Lies Nobility:

Religious benefaction and burial practice: the Earls of Cornwall

On 13 March 1271, a shocking event took place which caused outrage in

4 N. Vincent, ‘Henry of Almain (1235–1271)’, ODNB, online edition (Oxford, 2005); R.

Fig. 1: Richard Earl of Cornwall and his family

John* = 2. Isabella of Angoulême

Henry III* Richard Earl of Cornwall (1209–1272)*

John Isabella Henry* Nicholas

= 2. Sanchia of Provence (d. 1261)?