Richard III & the Car Park

[jason_c]

Errata -


Westminster is very ancient, built on land given to the Church by Edward the Confessor shortly before his death. Historically, it accumulated kudos over the centuries, eventually becoming the 1st burial choice for important and famous Britons. I believe it's pretty tough to get in these days.

It was fairly tough to get buried there even centuries ago. So much so that Shakespeare's contemporary Ben Johnson, and I presume many others, were buried in Westminster Abbey standing up.

[Errata]

Are you a cohen? I've been to plenty of funerals, and it's a simple matter of walking around the areas where the actual bodies are buried. I'm trying to remember Westminster-- isn't it possible to walk a path between the caskets?

I remember my uncle once going to a friend's father's funeral and saying the graveside kaddish, as a mitzvah, because his friend was a cohen (a katz, actually), and couldn't go to the cemetery.

We's just plain folk.

Not at all a Cohen. But When I say Westminster is littered with corpses, I mean it. Many flagstones of the floor are grave markers for the various people interred there, and there is no path around them that I am aware of. Maybe if you hug the walls? If it was just the royals, that would be okay because most of them have effigies over them. But it's Darwin, and Livingston, etc. and the only grave you aren't allowed to step on is the Tomb of the Unknown, which is right in front of one of the doors. Which seems like poor planning. But I think I read somewhere that about 3000 people are buried there, and it's a big church, but it ain't that big. Standing room only, literally. I just can't get through the door.

[Errata]

Right - disarticulated remains of a female, in the same general area of the church (chancel) but not in exactly the same place, so not next to or with the male remains - 'Richard' comes from the purported choir, the mystery lady from the presbytery. Those are probably accurate estimations, later Med churches are fairly uniform architecturally for liturgical reasons.

The female remains, assuming we are looking at a burial in Greyfriars church, could date from any point between the mid 13th century and the mid 16th (as could the male, for that matter) In reality, because the site is part of a much older urban settlement, the remains could be older than that.

There need be no connection whatever with the male remains.

Older remains shouldn't be in the same layer as Richard within the church walls. In cemeteries it happens a lot that you get a bunch of different aged remains, but in a building they would have to both come from the time of the buildings existence, because earthworks get pretty churned up during construction, and no church will build on top of a known graveyard. So if a graveyard was there that they didn't know about, it should be so old that there should be a foot or so between burial depth, so if they are following standard dig protocols means they shouldn't have found her for a couple more months. I think she has to be relatively contemporary to Richard, I'm just not sure where the bones of 200 years worth of church bigwigs went off to, because they should be in the same layer as Richard.

And I thought choirs were elevated? Thus the choir loft? Is that a newer thing or was he shoved in a column or under a bench somewhere?

[Cogidubnus]

Hi Errata

Traditionally choirs weren't elevated...I think that's a more modern development...

English churches tend to be rebuilt upon the same site, time and again...and graveyards/graves used and re-used time and again...hence the uncertainty re the whereabouts of some of the ripper victims.

If whilst excavating for a grave a previous burial was discovered it was far from unknown for said previous burial to be disarticulated and simply slung to one side to make room for the new occupant....It's perhaps less difficult to comprehend when you consider just how much pressure there was on making the most of consecrated ground...

All the best

Dave

PS Don't know about the US but over here we're generally looking six feet deep for a burial

[RivkahChaya]

It was fairly tough to get buried there even centuries ago. So much so that Shakespeare's contemporary Ben Johnson, and I presume many others, were buried in Westminster Abbey standing up.

Wait. I took physics. A coffin doesn't get smaller just because you stand it on end. How does that work?

But When I say Westminster is littered with corpses, I mean it. Many flagstones of the floor are grave markers for the various people interred there, and there is no path around them that I am aware of. Maybe if you hug the walls?

I've been there, but it was a long time ago. I guess we were taught a little differently. I wasn't taught that you absolutely couldn't step on a grave. It would be wrong to stroll through a cemetery as though it were a park, but it you are visiting a grave, and stop to place a stone on the marker, it's difficult to do without stepping on the grave. Of course, I suppose graves as tourist attractions are a little-- what? not quite the same as visiting your grandmother during the Days of Awe, even if you are being respectful.

Do you know who Ryan White was? He was a teenager from Indiana, who died of AIDS when he was 16 or 17 (he was a hemophiliac) after a long legal battle when he was 13 to be allowed to attend public school. I was a senior in high school in Indiana, so I followed the story pretty closely. On what would have been his 21st birthday, a lot of people anonymously left bottles of beer of his grave. It sounds strange, but it really was a fitting tribute for someone who fought hard to be treated like a regular guy.

Like I said, it depends how you were raised. I was raised among Yiddish speakers, and when I was a kid, "shmuck" was a work you got punished for saying. It really weirded me out when that movie Dinner for Schmucks came out, because seeing that word on a marquee made me really uncomfortable.

[RivkahChaya]

If whilst excavating for a grave a previous burial was discovered it was far from unknown for said previous burial to be disarticulated and simply slung to one side to make room for the new occupant....It's perhaps less difficult to comprehend when you consider just how much pressure there was on making the most of consecrated ground

In shetls, Jews were given a certain plot of land for a cemetery, and that was it. When it was full, they added more dirt, and moved the old markers up, so in some very old Jewish cemeteries, like the one in Prague, next to what is the oldest synagogue in Europe (it's built partly underground, and Prague didn't get the brunt of WWII, which is how it survived); if you look at a picture, the ground is very uneven, and markers are just feet, or even inches apart.

[jason_c]

Wait. I took physics. A coffin doesn't get smaller just because you stand it on end. How does that work?
.

I assume the cost of being buried at the Abbey was dependent upon how much floor space a grave took up. A number of flooring stones in the Abbey at the time measured 18 inches square. It was underneath one of these he was buried. The grave has since been moved.

Despite being the best known writer of his age Jonson died poor.

http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our...ple/ben-jonson

edit: according to the above link Jonson was the only person to be buried in the Abbey standing up.

[Errata]

I assume the cost of being buried at the Abbey was dependent upon how much floor space a grave took up. A number of flooring stones in the Abbey at the time measured 18 inches square. It was underneath one of these he was buried. The grave has since been moved.

Despite being the best known writer of his age Jonson died poor.

http://www.westminster-abbey.org/our...ple/ben-jonson

edit: according to the above link Jonson was the only person to be buried in the Abbey standing up.

I think they insist that you get cremated now. Unless you are a Monarch, spouse, or maybe heir. I don't think siblings even get buried there anymore. But it's been awhile. Princess Margaret is still alive. George VI is buried there if I recall, But obviously Edward wasn't, Henry wasn't, George wasn't and Johnny wasn't, so I'm assuming Mary wasn't either (the children of George V).

Six feet under is the norm here as well, unless you are entombed, and then you are only about three feet under, but surrounded by a foot of cement. Except for the mummified guy in a glass display case in the Tennessee State Archives. No one knows what he was thinking, but because of the laws of bequests, we're stuck with him for another 27 years. And he just sits there. Creeping people out.

[RivkahChaya]

Six feet under is the norm here as well, unless you are entombed, and then you are only about three feet under, but surrounded by a foot of cement.

It's the norm, generally speaking, but in places like New Orleans, which are under sea level, with the water held back by levees, people are in crypts. If you try to dig a grave, you just end up digging a well.

There's some custom of removing remains after two years from the original coffin to a smaller container, and moving it to the back of the crypt. I'm not sure what they do with the coffin. They may use only wood coffins, and burn them, or they may have detachable shells that are used just for the funeral. I'd have to look it up.

[RivkahChaya]

Oh, also, there's a fairly recent custom of cemeteries selling very small plots for cremated remains. They need to be buried just 18 inches (about half a meter) down, or so, and the plots are about 2x2 (~70cm square). It allows for the economics, and "green" considerations of cremation, while still giving people a grave to visit.

[Phil H]

I think they insist that you get cremated now. Unless you are a Monarch, spouse, or maybe heir. I don't think siblings even get buried there anymore. But it's been awhile. Princess Margaret is still alive. George VI is buried there if I recall, But obviously Edward wasn't, Henry wasn't, George wasn't and Johnny wasn't, so I'm assuming Mary wasn't either (the children of George V).

Yes, only ashes are buried in the Abbey nowadays (e.g. Laurence Olivier).

No monarch has been buried in the Abbey since Queen Anne (1714), as far as I am aware. Windsor or frogmore have been the normal places of interment, with the first two George's being buried in Hanover.

Princess Margaret, I am sorry to say, passed away in 2002, shortly before her mother. She was cremated and her ashes are buried with her parents, George VI and Queen Elizabeth, in St George's Chapel, Windsor. Edward VIII (Duke of Windsor, together with Wallis) is buried at Frogmore, in the gardens of Queen Victoria's mausoleum, where most junior royals now go. I think Henry Duke of Gloucester is also there. Not sure about John (he may be at Sandringham) and Mary, The Princess Royal, as Countess of Harewood, maybe in Yorkshire.

Since George III and until Victoria, royals were buried in a new vault constructed at Windsor, under St George's Chapel and the Prince Albert Memorial Chapel. There is access in the chancel of the Garter Chapel, where the funerals of most royals still take place, and the coffin is lowered below the floor. A corridor connects the access to the actual vault, where, I believe, the coffins rest on shelves.

Phil H

[Phil H]

On old English cemeteries around parish churches, you may note if you visit, that the graveyards are elevated in some cases, many feet above the surrounding land. That reflects the accumulation of burials over centuries - a "richer dust" indeed. When you visit a parish church you can indeed be said to be treading on history.

As the burial grounds around the churches filled, some older burials were exhumed and any remains moved to ossuaries (literally bone houses) where they were kept.

In London the situation in the cramped urban area had became unhealthy - more bodies than soil - and burials around churches in central London were stopped. Hence the development of the big cemeteries at places like Highgate and elsewhere and later even larger metropolitan necropoli(?).

If you were rich enough you might buy a family vault. this was an underground room where the successive coffins of generations of a family would be placed, sometimes stacked on top of each other. In some cases the older, lower coffins are crushed under the weight of larger ones. Lord Byron is buried in such a family vault in Nottinghamshire

In Westminster, the coffin of Elizabeth I rests on top of that of her sister Mary I, and is said to be slowly crushing that.

Phil H

[Sally]

Traditionally choirs weren't elevated...I think that's a more modern development...

English churches tend to be rebuilt upon the same site, time and again...and graveyards/graves used and re-used time and again...hence the uncertainty re the whereabouts of some of the ripper victims.

If whilst excavating for a grave a previous burial was discovered it was far from unknown for said previous burial to be disarticulated and simply slung to one side to make room for the new occupant....It's perhaps less difficult to comprehend when you consider just how much pressure there was on making the most of consecrated ground...

Yes Dave, exactly so.

Errata -

Older remains shouldn't be in the same layer as Richard within the church walls.

Really? So there were no burials within the church until Richard's time? Is that what you're suggesting?

In cemeteries it happens a lot that you get a bunch of different aged remains, but in a building they would have to both come from the time of the buildings existence, because earthworks get pretty churned up during construction, and no church will build on top of a known graveyard.

The 'time of the building's existence' spans at least 300 years, as I think I've already said. So there is no reason - assuming the female remains were buried in the church to begin with - that she couldn't be older, or younger in time than 'Richard'. As stated, there is no stratigraphic relationship between them - all this stuff about 'layers' is irrelevant in this context.

So if a graveyard was there that they didn't know about, it should be so old that there should be a foot or so between burial depth, so if they are following standard dig protocols means they shouldn't have found her for a couple more months.

No, not really. Building on top of another religious site wouldn't have posed a problem for the church builders if they had known about it. If it existed, it could be of any age. As for depth between the two - that would only work if the ground was entirely flat, and was never disturbed by later burials, and was not subject to bioturbation either. The skeleton is disarticulated. That means it has been disturbed at some point. As I said earlier, Leicester was an ancient urban settlement, so theoretcially the female remains could be of any date. The only way to know is throug RC dating.

And I thought choirs were elevated? Thus the choir loft? Is that a newer thing or was he shoved in a column or under a bench somewhere?

No, choirs weren't elevated. English churches follow a fairly standardised pattern of development between c.1100 and the Reformation. A church built in the 1250's will be quite predictable in form. That will be how archaeologists estimate the burial places of the skeletons. The presbytery, by the way, is the area for officiating at the altar - which moved east over time, it stood originally at the crossing between the chancel and the nave. It is a sacred spot for burial. Theoretically, the female remains could be more important socially than 'Richard'.

[Phil H]

Theoretically, the female remains could be more important socially than 'Richard'.

An interesting point, sally. let's consider the options.

A) the body is older than the Greyfriars itself and relates to very early celtic or Roman periods - Leicester was a tribal capital under the Romans. I see this as relatively unlikely but not impossible.

B) The remains pre-date "Richard" by a significant period and are either of a religieuse (a nun, friaress?) or a patroness of the Friary.

C) The remains post date "Richard" and are from the Tudor period.

If the female remains were entombed in a more prominent position than the male, then they might have been more exposed to casual treatment; also if as is likely she was non-royal.

On the "social" point, Richard III at the time of his death had NO status. He was in the eyes of the victorious Henry Tudor, an attainted traitor. Henry unscrupulously pre-dated huis reign to the day BEFORE Bosworth so that all who fought against him were automatically traitors.

The initial interment of Richard's remains is said to have been hasty, and the monument was only erected some 10 years later. This suggests that the body was buried initially - perhaps at quite a shallow level, beneath the pavement of the chancel with either a simple inscribed slab saying something like "Here lies Richard who called himself king", or some such. OR, maybe, there was no inscription at all.

That would raise the question of whether the later monument was erected on the actual site of the tomb/body, or elsewhere. If the friars were unsure of where the initial hasty burial had occured, then i don't see that as impossible. That MIGHT explain why the monument could be taken away with no particular disturbance of the body.

Henry VIII was buried in St George's Chapel under the choir in a central place, but with no inscribed slab. That was in 1547. By 1649, only a hundred years later, when they came to bury the body of Charles I, they had to sound the flagstones of the Chapel to ascertain where the vault was. So even in a major royal centre like St George's, memory could fail.

Richard was buried in 1485, the friary was despoiled after the 1530s. So at least one generation of friars would have passed away in the interim.

Just some thoughts which I find interesting, but entirely speculative, of course. Thanks for the prompt, Sally

Phil H

[Sally]

Phil -interesting post.

A) the body is older than the Greyfriars itself and relates to very early celtic or Roman periods - Leicester was a tribal capital under the Romans. I see this as relatively unlikely but not impossible.

Agreed, but it does happen - I'm reminded of a church in Yorkshire - can't recall which now, I've looked at so many - in which remains were found under the nave, I think, which turned out to predate the current church (itself of 11th century date) by some centuries. Postulation has occurred to the effect that the church was built over a re-used (say in the 6th-8thc) Bronze Age round barrow; and it is from there that this mid-Saxon bloke was buried. Later churches, particularly, though not exclusively, parish churches, are very often built over earlier significant places. Rural monastic complexes were normally built on virgin sites, but in an ancient urban context, it would have been difficult to know whether the site was virgin or not. Anything could have been there. Is the site outside or inside the Roman town or out, for example? If the latter (enters the realms of pure speculation...) perhaps we're looking at a Roman burial. Well, who knows? Only RC dating will establish the lady's age with any surety, assuming no contamination is present.

B) The remains pre-date "Richard" by a significant period and are either of a religieuse (a nun, friaress?) or a patroness of the Friary.

Quite a likely option, I should think.

C) The remains post date "Richard" and are from the Tudor period.

Less likely, but possible. If so, there's a chance she might be identified.

On the "social" point, Richard III at the time of his death had NO status. He was in the eyes of the victorious Henry Tudor, an attainted traitor. Henry unscrupulously pre-dated huis reign to the day BEFORE Bosworth so that all who fought against him were automatically traitors.

The initial interment of Richard's remains is said to have been hasty, and the monument was only erected some 10 years later. This suggests that the body was buried initially - perhaps at quite a shallow level, beneath the pavement of the chancel with either a simple inscribed slab saying something like "Here lies Richard who called himself king", or some such. OR, maybe, there was no inscription at all.

And yet, he was still buried in the Choir, albeit later, so eventually he regained that status, once all the fuss had died down, presumably. Incidentally, the re-burial of bodies was not unusual historically; although by Richard's time it may have been less common. In the earlier church, it is evident that it was common practice to first bury a person, and then excavate them at some later point in time, when they were defleshed, and inter selected bones in a final resting place. The skull and longbones are usual. Exactly why this practice was important is unclear. I don't know how much of the lady remains, but if only the skull and longbones, for instance, she would be likely to be earlier rather than later.

That would raise the question of whether the later monument was erected on the actual site of the tomb/body, or elsewhere. If the friars were unsure of where the initial hasty burial had occured, then i don't see that as impossible. That MIGHT explain why the monument could be taken away with no particular disturbance of the body.

Henry VIII was buried in St George's Chapel under the choir in a central place, but with no inscribed slab. That was in 1547. By 1649, only a hundred years later, when they came to bury the body of Charles I, they had to sound the flagstones of the Chapel to ascertain where the vault was. So even in a major royal centre like St George's, memory could fail.

Richard was buried in 1485, the friary was despoiled after the 1530s. So at least one generation of friars would have passed away in the interim.

Yes, certainly memory could fail. If no visible sign above ground was present, and no documentation either, things could very easily become lost over the span of a few years. Although, in this case, Wren saw the alleged site of Richard's grave marked with a new monument in 1611, which suggests that some local knowledge of his resting place had survived. I believe that the body of 'Richard' has been found in broadly the same area, identified using Speed's contemporary map. That's one of the things that makes it more likely that this is actually Richard - provenance. Always assuming, of course, that early 17th century local lore was correct to begin with!