medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
> In fact, several people were brought back from various
> venues, which could make life confusing for those who
> didn't realize that, once buried, one could be
> relocated, and several times at that.
It is actually MUCH more complex than that ! If you are European and at home
with the reformation, revolution and all the rest, you will know two things.
One is that the location of a BODY and the location of a MEMORIAL are NOT
necessarily the same thing!
The zealots of the French Revolution had a nasty habit of smashing open
aristocratic and royal tombs, grubbing up any skeletal remains and gleefully
chucking the lot on the local rubbish tip. Sometimes early
proto-archaeologists got a quick look-in and recorded the finds before they
were disposed of. The masonry of the tombs was often smashed as well. With
the restoration of the monarchy in the 19th c some attempts were made to put
things back, but many bones had not been salvaged by the faithful and often
the memorials were heavily restored not just in a different location in the
original church but often in a different church if the original church had
been demolished.
St-Denys is a case in point. It is now a MUSEUM of royal funerary art, many
of which memorials were originally over the bones in quite a different
church. The SPLENDID collection of royal tombSTONES is well worth a visit,
but there is ABSOLUTELY NO guarantee that the right corpse is under the
right slab or indeed that there is any grave AT ALL under the monument.
It sure will be fun at the General Resurrection of the Dead !!!!
St D is also a cathedral - we've had a thread on this.
Brenda M.C.
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