Tudor Burial

As yesterday was the anniversary of the burial of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, I thought I'd share these two talks on Tudor burial from the Tudor Society archives.

In this two-part series on burial in Tudor times, I discussed how the remains of a commoner were prepared for burial, then those of the wealthier classes, with real examples from the records, and I also discussed the subjects of embalming, and heart and entrails burial.

Links for images

• You can browse the beautiful Bedford Hours at http://www.bl.uk/turning-the-pages/?id=d06e9f02-074d-46f7-a46c-090548b402d5&type=book see ff. 255V at the bottom.
• You can see images of a body being wrapped in a winding sheet or shroud and being carried for burial from the 1310 Murthly Hours at http://rosaliegilbert.com/deaths.html and you can browse the whole manuscript at http://digital.nls.uk/murthlyhours/folios.cfm - see specifically f.162r and f.170r

Further Reading

• Death in Medieval Europe: Death Scripted and Death Choreographed edited by Joelle Rollo-Koster
• Death and Burial in Medieval England, 1066-1550 by Christopher Daniell
• The Corpse: A History by Christine Quigley
• Birth, Marriage and Death by David Cressy
• Forensic Medicine and Death Investigation in Medieval England by Sara M. Butler
• The Ritual of the Early Modern Death, 1550-1650, by María Isabel Romero Ruiz, Universidad de Málaga - http://www.anmal.uma.es/numero17/Romero.htm
• Medieval Deaths, Funeral Rites & Rituals - http://rosaliegilbert.com/deaths.html

Links and Further Readings

• Death and Burial in Medieval England, 1066-1550, book by Christopher Daniell
• Details of the preparation of Jane Seymour's remains and the burial of her entrails - http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol12/no2/pp370-386, Letters and Papers Volume XII: Part 2, 1060.
• "Heart burial in medieval and early post-medieval Central Europe" by Estella Weiss-Krejci http://homepage.univie.ac.at/estella.weiss-krejci/heartburial.pdf
• Interview with Joëlle Rollo-Koster, author of Death in Medieval Europe: Death Scripted and Death Choreographed, https://today.uri.edu/news/uri-history-professor-edits-book-about-death-in-medieval-europe/ - I also used Joelle's book.
• "Heart of Kings: Embalming of Noblemen in Medieval Europe" article - https://halfwayoak.wordpress.com/2016/05/22/heart-of-kings-embalming-of-noblemen-in-medieval-europe/
• "History of Embalming, and of Preparations in Anatomy, Pathology, and Natural History; Including an Account of a New Process for Embalming" - https://archive.org/stream/39002086313450.med.yale.edu#page/n5/mode/2up
• Catherine of Aragon's remains - Letters and Papers Volume X: 141.
• Arthur Tudor's remains - The Receyt of the Ladie Kateryne, edited by Gordon Kipling.
• "The Funeral of Queen Elizabeth of York, the First Tudor Queen of England" by Susan Abernethy - https://thefreelancehistorywriter.com/2014/04/03/the-funeral-of-queen-elizabeth-of-york-the-first-tudor-queen-of-england/
• Henry VIII's remains - Ecclesiastical Memorials, Volume 2 Part 2 by John Strype (in the section “A Repository of Divers Letters” which includes “The ceremonies and funeral solemnities paid to the corpse of King Henry VIII”) - https://archive.org/stream/ecclesiasticalme0202stry#page/288/mode/2up p. 289-290; Notes on Accounts Paid to the Royal Apothecaries in 1546 and 1547 by Howard Bayles - https://archive.org/stream/b19974760M2795#page/794/mode/2up, page 794 onwards
  includes list of funeral spices for Henry VIII.
• Mary I's remains - 'Appendix to Preface ', in Calendar of State Papers Foreign: Elizabeth, Volume 2, 1559-1560, ed. Joseph Stevenson (London, 1865), pp. cxv-cxxix. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/foreign/vol2/cxv-cxxix