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> The ongoing discussion on body parts and reliquaries has fascinated me. Can
> any of the erudite historians who have responded help with a related, not
> hagiographic, question? When the coffin of the French queen Isabelle of
> Hainaut (d. 1190) was opened for the last time in the nineteenth century,
> her bones were not in order and her head was missing. The coffin had
> previously been opened in 1699 during work on the choir of Notre-Dame de Paris.
> 
> Did the missing head most likely result from of a French royal practice of
> placing body parts in various churches, chapels or convents? Or, since she
> is described as "religiosissima," and two of her grandchildren were sainted
> (St. Louis and St. Isabelle) does a possibility exist that her head was
> placed in a reliquary at some point, even though she was not formally
> recognized as a saint?

Dear Aline,
The usual practice in royal burials was (ugh!) to boil the body, 
burying the flesh on the spot, or relatively close.  All except for 
the heart, which was often buried elsewhere.  And then, of course, 
one would have a nice clean set of bones to send off wherever one 
would like.  See Alain Erlande-Brandenburg, Le Roi et mort. Etude sur 
les funerailles, les sepultures et les tombeaux des rois de France 
jusqu'a la fin du XIIIe siecle (Geneva, 1975), and for a specifically 
female case study, John Carmi Parsons, ed., Eleanor of Castile 
1290-1990: Essays to Commemorate the 700th Anniversary of her death 
(Stamford, 1991).  I've never heard of a head being buried elsewhere, 
but if she had a saintly aura, one can only think of the case of 
Elizabeth of Hungary: "devotees" were nicking bits (including, 
apparently, one of her nipples!) while she lay in state.
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag


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