Medieval Charnel Houses: Resurrecting Lost Medieval Rites

Abstract

Through analysis of written sources, architectural evidence, excavation reports and antiquarian records this paper argues that charnelling of human skeletal remains was more common in medieval England than has hitherto been fully recognized. It became increasingly widespread following formalization of belief in Purgatory in the late 13th century, and charnel houses can be found both at the better-documented greater churches and at parish churches, for which churchwardens’ accounts are important sources. Charnel houses are mainly freestanding buildings in churchyards, or crypts within the body of the church, and both forms are often semi-subterranean, with the carefully maintained charnel visible through windows high in the charnel house walls. There was typically a chapel located above the charnel room, in which prayers for the dead were offered, similar to chantries. The paper presents the first detailed exploration of the potential liturgical contexts for charnelling. It is argued that the most likely form of rite to accompany the translation and deposition of charnel would have comprised a re-enactment of the Office of the Dead followed by an adapted version of the burial service, with possible secondary uses of the charnel house in the days leading up to Easter, the most solemn part of the Christian year.

Keywords:

• charnel
• crypt
• liturgy
• burial
• Purgatory
• chapel
• chantry

The curation of human skeletal remains in charnel houses is a poorly understood facet of medieval funerary practice in England. Since few charnel houses survive, and fewer still retain their medieval skeletal remains, discussion of charnelling has largely focused on individual examples, especially at major churches.¹ This paper reviews a wide range of evidence for the existence, form and functions of charnel houses, which is more extensive than hitherto fully appreciated, drawing on medieval written sources and architecture, excavated remains and antiquarian accounts from the 16th century onwards, when many were dismantled or repurposed. The life cycle of charnel houses is explored, including their primary and secondary uses in the medieval period, and the paper also presents the first detailed exploration of possible medieval liturgical contexts for charnelling. Charnel houses were more than simply convenient repositories for human remains, instead playing a critical role in the rituals of the medieval Church, aiding in the processes of attaining salvation and securing a place in Heaven.

the foundation and maintenance of charnel houses

Charnelling in medieval England largely emerged in the 13th and 14th centuries, and rare accounts of the motivations for the construction of charnel houses suggest that they were the focus of practices with consequences for the fate of the soul in the afterlife and with attendant benefits for the living.² Chapels associated with charnel houses were like chantry chapels, with an emphasis on prayers for the dead, both named individuals and wider communities. For example, c. 1300 the abbot of Bury St Edmunds (Suffolk) constructed a charnel house (‘la charner’) in the abbey cemetery ‘as an act of piety and charity’ in honour of God, the Blessed Mary, St Edmund, and All Saints, providing it with two chaplains. While the immediate motivation was the state into which the churchyard had fallen, with bones visible on the surface, central to the purpose of the charnel house was the provision of prayers for the souls of the departed, including those of King Edward I and his heirs, Queen Eleanor, the abbot and his heirs and successors, the brethren of the abbey and its benefactors, and ‘all the faithful deceased’.³ At Norwich Cathedral (Norfolk), the ‘Carnary Chapel’ dedicated to St John the Evangelist was constructed to enable human remains to be ‘preserved seemly to the time of the general Resurrection’. Its 1316 foundation charter records that four priests were to pray for the bishop of Norwich, John Salmon, and his predecessors and successors in the see.⁴ A bishop’s head depicted on a corbel of the chapel roof close to the entrance may have been a representation of its founder, serving as a reminder to visitors of the chapel’s episcopal patronage.⁵

The association of charnel houses with prayers for the deceased can be traced more widely beyond those cases for which we have details of their foundation. For example, in 1322 a chantry priest was appointed at Exeter (Devon) for a chapel ‘which is situated in the churchyard … commonly called “charnere”’, and Masses continued to be chanted there into the early 1540s.⁶ In the 1270s a chapel dedicated to the Virgin was added to the charnel house in the churchyard of St Paul’s, London, which soon attracted the chantries of Roger Beyvin (1278), Henry de Edelmeton (1281) and Aveline of St Olave (1282–83). In 1282, the mayor and commonalty of Londoners made a donation to maintain a chaplain in the new chapel, who was to pray for them, the bishop, the dean and chapter and ‘all the faithful departed’.⁷ The 1394 will of William Eynsham provided for a chantry in the chapel called ‘le Charnel’ at the hospital of St Mary Spital in Bishopsgate, London, to pray for the souls of himself, his wife, mother and father and others.⁸ Charnel houses with chaplains and associated chapels are recorded at many other greater churches from the late 13th century onwards, including St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury (Kent); Evesham Abbey (Worcestershire); the Benedictine priory of St Margaret’s, King’s Lynn (Norfolk); Malmesbury Abbey (Wiltshire); and Worcester Cathedral (Worcestershire); and also the parish church of St Mary’s, Scarborough (Yorkshire).⁹ The proportion of documentary references relating to monasteries and cathedrals is more reflective of the existence of such sources than of the range of charnel houses, as we will see.

Medieval accounts occasionally record how charnel houses were endowed, although it is again mainly major churches for which we have such information. For example, funds for incorporating the chapel dedicated to the Virgin into the charnel at St Paul’s were provided by the owners of shops adjacent to the churchyard, and from 1302 the charnel was open to pilgrims on Fridays and some feast days, providing another income source. The chaplain was responsible for using this income to provide candles for the chapel and to undertake any repairs. The fraternity of All Souls was founded in 1379 in response to the decayed state of the chapel, to repair it and to take responsibility for ongoing maintenance.¹⁰ At Bury St Edmunds, the foundation charter of 1300 for the charnel house outlined plans for its long-term maintenance, endowing it with grain yields from over twenty manors held by the abbey, while accommodation for the chaplains was provided in the form of donation of a messuage in Barnwell Street in the town. Alms and bequests were to be used for the chantry and chaplains, and there was allowance for an increase in the number of chaplains when donations permitted, while responsibility for the chapel and its provisions lay with the sacrist, who received a share of visitors’ offerings.¹¹ The initial provision for the Norwich charnel chapel priests came from the profits of the rectory at Westhall (Suffolk), and in 1322 another two priests were provided. The priests lived as a community, with their own library, and as early as 1317 the Carnary was attracting visitors. Some must have been drawn by the promise of 100 days of indulgences if they visited ‘on the two feasts of St John the Evangelist and that of the dedication of the chapel’.¹²

Guilds often contributed to the maintenance of charnel houses. For example, the charnel house adjacent to the south-west corner of Beverley Minster (Yorkshire) acquired an altar dedicated to St Nicholas in 1313, with a priest maintained by the guild of Corpus Christi. This association endured, as the 1444 will of Thomas Wilton requested that the guild chaplain chant a Requiem Mass in the charnel house a week after his death.¹³ There was also a charnel house with an altar in the crypt below the Trinity chapel at St Mary’s church in Beverley, where the chaplain of the mercers’ guild chanted mass daily before the light of the Holy Trinity in the 15th century.¹⁴ The charnel house at St Margaret’s Priory, King’s Lynn was closely associated with the Guild of the Holy Trinity, and funds were also provided by the mayor and burgesses of the town for the upkeep of the chantry priests, with the mayor Thomas Thoresby leaving an endowment for the charnel priest in his will of 1510.¹⁵ At both St Paul’s and Exeter Cathedral, the charnel houses became closely associated with the guilds of skinners, with some members requesting burial within the chapels of the charnel house; tombs of some of the skinners were recorded within the charnel house chapel at St Paul’s in the late 16th century by John Stow.¹⁶

form of charnel houses

The form of medieval charnel houses can be recovered from contemporary written sources, surviving architectural evidence and excavation, supplemented by antiquarian accounts of examples that do not survive or are no longer accessible. There are two main forms: separate structures in churchyards or rooms within the body of a church, with each type found at both major churches and parish ones. There was usually a chapel above the charnel, and in most cases evidence for visual access to the charnel, which was visible through windows in the lower room, which was typically semi-subterranean. The dimensions of charnel houses vary and have little independent significance, for they were usually determined by the size of the chapel, aisle or porch beneath which they were constructed.

Charnel houses within churchyards

Many charnel houses were freestanding structures within the churchyard. The Carnary in the churchyard at Norwich Cathedral comprises four bays (c. 18 × 8 m) with tall three-light traceried windows in the first-floor walls, while the ground-floor room has circular cusped windows, which provided a view of the charnel (Fig. 1). Parallels for the lower room of the building have been drawn with the bases of shrines in which relics were housed.¹⁷ Other freestanding charnel houses survive in ruined form, including that at Bury St Edmunds (17.95 × 6.7 m) (Fig. 2), while fabric from that at Ely (measuring at least 10 × 6 m) is incorporated in a 16th-century building on the edge of the churchyard.¹⁸ Contemporary descriptions reveal that the demolished charnel house at St Paul’s was a two-storey structure in the churchyard, with a chapel dedicated to the Virgin above.¹⁹ Similarly, at All Saints, Pontefract (Yorkshire) an endowment of 1218 by John de Lacy, Constable of Chester, was made to extend the parish churchyard and construct a two-storey charnel house with a chapel above dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre and Holy Cross.²⁰

Fig. 1. The Carnary at Norwich Cathedral (Norfolk), founded 1316, from the south

© Ben Keating, CC BY-SA 2.0

Fig. 2. Ruins of the charnel house, Bury St Edmunds Abbey (Suffolk), looking north-east. Later memorials have been set into the walls

© Michael Dibb, CC BY-SA 2.0.

Elsewhere, archaeological investigation has revealed the form of charnel houses long since demolished. For example, in 1971 the remains of the charnel house, at least 12 × 6.5 m externally, were excavated in the north-west corner of the churchyard at Exeter Cathedral, with stairs leading from the west end of the chapel to the subterranean crypt, c. 3 m deep.²¹ A charnel house was constructed adjacent to Worcester Cathedral when the nave was extended in the 1220s between the north end of the cathedral and the bishop’s hall, and a 1991 geophysical survey and excavation revealed its semi-subterranean form: the plan was c. 17.1 × 6.7 m but the depth is not known. Splayed windows were visible in the west and south walls of a vaulted two-bay structure, and charnel could still be seen inside.²² At St Mary Spital, London, excavations in 1999 uncovered a collapsed stack of crania and long bones against one wall of the well-preserved remains of an early-14th-century subterranean crypt (11 × 5.6 m) comprising six vaulted bays. Masonry stairs led up to a chapel dedicated to St Edmund the Bishop and Mary Magdalen.²³ Excavations in 2014 to the north-west of St Margaret’s Priory, King’s Lynn, were important in confirming the accuracy of 19th-century drawings of the charnel house, first documented in 1325 but demolished in the late 18th century (Fig. 3). Architectural details uncovered included part of a west window framed by decorative limestone columns and corbels, interpreted as part of the structural support for a vaulted ceiling, and traces of internal plaster.²⁴

Fig. 3. East view of the charnel house and chapel of St John in King’s Lynn (Norfolk), by the Revd E. Edwards

From W. Taylor, The Antiquities of King’s Lynn, Norfolk (London 1844)

Excavations between 2004 and 2006 revealed the remains of a demolished charnel house at the parish church of St Peter’s, Leicester; this is not recorded in any surviving medieval written sources and so was hitherto unknown. It was a separate structure (3.3 × 2.4 m) adjacent to the south wall of the chancel but without access into the church. It can be dated to the 14th century on stratigraphic grounds as it post-dated a pit containing 13th- and 14th-century pottery and a skeleton radiocarbon dated to AD 1260–1400 (at the 95% confidence level). Charnel was stacked against the walls up to 0.5 m in depth. The internal walls of this charnel house were covered with a mid-grey plaster, and its floor, c. 1 m lower than that of the chancel, comprised slabs of Swithland slate. There were no traces of a stairway into the room, but there must have been access for the orderly maintenance of the charnel, perhaps via a ladder from the south wall where there was a gap in the charnel; a rough cobble surface had later been laid from the south wall to the centre of the charnel deposit.²⁵

Surviving two-storey chapels in parish churchyards have much in common with the form of known medieval charnel houses, and there are grounds for believing that some of these also housed charnel. For example, the chapel of St Thomas of Canterbury in the churchyard of the parish church of St Petroc’s in Bodmin (Cornwall), licensed in 1377, is located above a vaulted crypt (12.2 × 4.2 m) with four flat-headed windows with relieving arches. While there is no medieval documentation of the use of the lower room as a charnel house, it is suggestive that in the 18th century there were ‘piled up the dry bones of such men and women as are found in new-made graves, to put the scholars and townsmen in mind of mortality; and [it] is now commonly called the Bone-house’.²⁶ In the churchyard of the parish church of St Peter and St Mary Magdalene in Barnstaple (Devon) there stands a chantry chapel dedicated to St Anne.²⁷ Its two-storey form and the nature of the originally unglazed window in the lower room suggest it was a charnel house, as was believed in the 19th century.²⁸ It is first mentioned in 1444 when the bishop of Exeter granted an indulgence for penitents who contributed to its maintenance, while an endowment for a chantry by John Hoolman, rector of Heanton Punchardon (Devon), is recorded in 1459. However, the architecture suggests that it was built about a century earlier than this. The chapel floor is supported by timber posts and a spine beam, which were revealed encased in a wall during 19th-century restoration. Dendrochronological analysis suggested a likely felling date for the timbers of 1317–43, reinforcing the impression that the building was constructed in the early 14th century.²⁹

We should not assume, however, that all charnel houses were substantial stone buildings; certainly, on the Continent there are examples of charnel houses that were timber lean-tos (Fig. 4).³⁰ Such structures may have existed in England, but an ephemeral charnel house in a churchyard is likely to have passed unremarked. Once any such constructions were cleared and demolished, and the ground absorbed into the burial area of the churchyard, no evidence for them would be likely to remain, and they may even resist archaeological visibility.

Fig. 4. Depiction of a wooden lean-to charnel store against the west wall of a church in Switzerland, from the Luzernerchronik of 1513 written by Diebold Schilling the Younger (fol. 666v), https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/kol/S0023-2/666

Korporation Luzern, CC BY NC

Charnel houses within churches

Elsewhere, charnel was housed in a semi-subterranean room within the body of a church. At Hereford Cathedral, for example, a late-15th-century alabaster slab on the altar tomb in the early-13th-century crypt (12.19 × 9.3 m) beneath the Lady Chapel reveals that it had once served as a charnel house. It bears a representation of merchant Andrew Jonis and an inscription recording that he and his wife, Elizabeth, had ‘newly rebuilt and repaired this long disused charnel house’ and ‘ordained a chaplain to celebrate in the same place in future for the souls of the aforesaid benefactors and all the faithful departed’.³¹ The charnel house at St Mary’s parish church in Beverley was also located in a crypt (see above), in this case beneath the eastern end of the north transept, and was accessed externally from the churchyard (Fig. 5).³² A charnel house is mentioned in late-15th- and early-16th-century wills at St Peter’s parish church in Sandwich (Kent); this appears to be the semi-subterranean four-bay crypt (4.5 × 7 m) built at the east end of the south aisle in the early 14th century. It was accessed from within the church, and had a room above, almost certainly a chapel, although 17th-century rebuilding has obscured its original form.³³

Fig. 5. Late-13th-century crypt in St Mary’s parish church, Beverley (Yorkshire). Subsequently altered, this was previously the charnel house associated with the mercers’ guild

© Ian Atkins

There is a rare survival of charnel in situ in a semi-subterranean room beneath the south aisle of the parish church of Holy Trinity, Rothwell (Northamptonshire) (Fig. 6).³⁴ This room (9 × 4.5 m), formed of two equal bays with 13th-century rib-vaulted ceiling, was rediscovered in the early 18th century, having been blocked up at some unknown time. It was reached via a staircase at the west end of the aisle, although it may originally have been accessed from the nave. The south wall of the charnel house incorporates two large, splayed openings, one placed central to each bay, apparently previously barred, with large external light wells providing both light for the room and visual access to it from ground level (Fig. 7). The walls were plastered, and degraded traces of decoration survive on the east wall, which antiquarians described as depicting the resurrection. The widening of the south aisle and the construction of the charnel house seem to have occurred during a period of major rebuilding of Holy Trinity in the late 13th century. The piscina in the south wall of the aisle reveals the location of a former altar above the east end of the crypt, mirroring the juxtaposition of chapel and charnel characteristic of freestanding charnel houses. A now blocked slot behind the vaulting at the east end of the crypt rose to the floor of the aisle in front of the altar, and this may have permitted light to shine directly onto the wall painting below or to facilitate the transmission into the crypt of the sound of the Mass.

Fig. 6. Early-20th-century photograph of Holy Trinity, Rothwell (Northamptonshire), showing the arrangement of human remains in the charnel house prior to restacking in 1911

Reproduced with permission of Rothwell Heritage Centre

Fig. 7. Cutaway illustration of the charnel house at Holy Trinity, Rothwell (Northamptonshire), showing the relationship with both extant and conjectured features of the medieval chapel located directly above in the south aisle

Drawn by Allan Adams

Similar examples of crypts beneath chapels can be found in other parish churches in Northamptonshire that may also once have housed charnel. For example, there is a late-13th-century crypt (5.8 × 3.2 m) below the south transept at St Peter’s, Oundle, in a similar position to the crypt at St Peter’s, Irthlingborough (4.8 × 4 m), which dates to the early 14th century, while another of this date is beneath the east bay of a two-bay chancel chapel at St Peter’s, Brackley (4.8 m square). There are also late-14th- to early-15th-century crypts underneath eastern extensions of the chancels at the parish churches of Kingsthorpe (4.8 × 4.6 m), Towcester (5 m square) and All Saints’, Northampton (approximately 6.7 × 6.9 m).³⁵ There are similar examples across the country, including at Bosham (West Sussex), where a small crypt (c. 5 × 3.8 m) is located beneath the east end of the south aisle, both dating to the 14th century. The crypt comprises two bays with quadripartite rib-vaults, and two windows just above ground level, in the east and south walls, with wide internal splays. There is no evidence for an altar in the crypt, but there was certainly once one at the east end of the south aisle above, as there was a piscina in the south wall. This may have been the location of the ‘Chantry of the Blessed Mary in the nave of Bosham church’ founded in 1330 to pray for the souls of Thomas, earl of Norfolk, and Alice, his wife.³⁶

Antiquarian accounts record many more examples of charnel housed in crypts beneath churches, particularly parish churches for which there is far less medieval documentary evidence. A chantry chapel endowed in the north transept of the parish church at Witney (Oxfordshire) in 1331 by Richard de Stanlake, a wealthy burgess, and John de Croxford, a lawyer, appears to have been associated with a charnel house beneath it. This lower room is no longer accessible but has similarities with other charnel houses, with now blocked light shafts in its north wall and evidence of a vaulted roof, and during restoration in the 1870s human remains were seen within (Fig. 8).³⁷ In 1846, Alfred Suckling described a ‘vault under the south aisle, now used as a charnel-house’ at the parish church of St Michael in Beccles (Suffolk). This previously housed a chapel, as there is a 1509 bequest for repairs to ‘Our Lady’s chapel in the Arch’, while subsequent bequests to a chapel of St Mary in the churchyard seem to refer to the same space. Both the aisle and crypt date to the 14th century.³⁸ In 1857 Benjamin Street reported a charnel house beneath the parish church of St Wulfram in Grantham (Lincolnshire), which must have been housed in one of two crypts beneath the Lady Chapel in the south chancel aisle. The western two bays of the chapel were constructed in the 13th century, with the crypt beneath accessed from outside the church, and an eastern bay was added in the mid-14th century with its crypt reached through a castellated entrance in the chancel.³⁹

Fig. 8. Print of the interior of the north transept of St Mary, Witney (Oxfordshire), after an engraving by Joseph Skelton, c. 1823. This depicts the relieving arches for short light-shafts which illuminated the crypt below

From J. Skelton, Skelton’s Engraved Illustrations of the Principal Antiquities of Oxfordshire, from Original Drawings By F. Mackenzie accompanied with Descriptive and Historical Notices (Oxford 1823)

In a more unusual arrangement, a mid-19th-century account documents charnel in a room at the west end of the south aisle of the collegiate church of Westbury-on-Trym (Gloucestershire). It was built in the 1470s, contemporary with a western extension of the north nave aisle, with each room walled off from the rest of the church and accessed by an external door.⁴⁰ At the time of alterations in 1852, after which it was demolished, the room at the west end of the south aisle was described as the ‘charnel or bone-house’, and an 1868 account reports that ‘in this bone-house is a piscina of this period and an altar tomb of later date’.⁴¹ The room may have been built to house charnel displaced from a crypt beneath the apse when it was converted into a burial chamber for John Carpenter, bishop of Worcester (d. 1476).⁴²

At the parish church of St Gregory Pottergate, Norwich, a 14th-century passageway runs beneath the sanctuary, providing external access to a crypt, described in the late-18th century by Francis Blomefield as ‘the vault under the chancel, which was a charnel’.⁴³ Katherine Boivin has recently drawn a comparison between the arrangement at this church and a similar one at St Peter Mancroft, Norwich, as well as with continental charnel houses, such as that at the parish church of St Michael in Jena (Germany). She has suggested the specific association of the passageways with rituals associated with commemoration of the dead, arguing that ‘one connotation of chancel passageways likely lay in the complex relationship they established between the high altar, the surrounding cemetery, and neighbouring crypts’.⁴⁴

There are many other passing comments in antiquarian accounts dating from the 16th to early 20th centuries about the presence of charnel in crypts, which expand the number of both major and parish churches at which charnelling is recorded, even if the charnel itself is of unknown date. In some cases, such accounts suggest that the existence of the charnel had long been forgotten until rediscovery, often during restoration of church fabric. Certainly, we must exercise caution, as these accounts can offer very unreliable accounts of the origins of the charnel, with the Black Death and local historically recorded or imagined battles typically offered as unfounded explanations. Nonetheless, they provide valuable evidence for the location and form of charnel houses that have long since disappeared, but which are consistent with those documented in the medieval period (Table 1 and Fig. 9). While some crypts may have originally been constructed for other purposes, not all crypts ever housed charnel,⁵⁶ and some charnel may have been deposited after the medieval period.⁵⁷ Antiquarian accounts nonetheless suggest that charnelling was much more widespread in the Middle Ages than has hitherto been recognized. The antiquarian record is particularly valuable for parish churches, which are less well documented in the medieval period than are the greater churches.

Fig. 9. Crypt beneath the north transept of St Nicholas’ church, Newcastle upon Tyne (Tyne and Wear) by W. H. Knowles. A piscina is visible in the south wall, and the crypt is lit by a splayed window in the east wall

From J. R. Boyle, Vestiges of Old Newcastle and Gateshead (London 1890)

Table 1 SELECTED CHARNEL HOUSES KNOWN ONLY FROM ANTIQUARIAN RECORDS.

Name of church (in alphabetical order of place)	Type	Date when charnel first reported	Location of charnel house	Other architectural features noted in room housing charnel	Other comments
All Saints, Narborough (Leicestershire)^45	Parish church	1855	Below the eastern part of the Lady Chapel in the south aisle	Accessed via a winding staircase from the south-west corner of the Lady Chapel; the crypt had ‘two sloping and grated openings in the east wall’	The ‘floor is covered with human sculls and bones’
Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert, Durham (Co. Durham)^46	Cathedral	1593 record of a ‘Charnel-house, to cast Mens Bones in’; rediscovered in 1833	In the churchyard	An arched roof containing two apertures; 4 m in length by 2.3 m in breadth, depth uncertain	Discovered during grave digging, and ‘The bones lay in two large heaps, one under each perforation, in the strangest confusion’
St Editha, Tamworth (Staffordshire)^47	Collegiate parish church	1845	Beneath the south aisle	Four bays and two windows in the south wall; originally accessed from externally near the porch	‘The bones are stacked up in very regular order’; crypt emptied to make way for the installation of heating equipment in 1869
St Edmund King and Martyr, Dartford (Kent)^48	Parish church	1851	In the churchyard		Observers were ‘totally at a loss … to describe the amazing deposit of bones’ in an ossuary
St Leonard’s, Hythe (Kent)^49	Parish church	1678	Building to the north of the church; the human remains (estimated as representing c. 4000 individuals) are now stacked in the ambulatory beneath the chancel	The building seen in the late 17th century was ‘full of dead Mens Bones, piled up together orderly, so great a Quantity as I never saw elsewhere in one Place’	The bones were restacked into the ambulatory in the 19th century, in what was originally an open passageway
St Mary and St Eanswythe, Folkestone (Kent)^50	Parish church	1659	Beneath the south aisle, beneath a chancel belonging to the Baker family		Funds for building the south aisle were left in a will of 1464
St Mary, Upchurch (Kent)^51	Parish church	1799	Beneath the north chancel	The crypt was accessed from above by a circular staircase
St Mary Woolnoth, London^52	Parish church	Stow reports that ‘Sir Hugh Brice … built in this church a chappel called the Charnel’ in 1485	Within the church
St Nicholas, Newcastle upon Tyne (Tyne & Wear)^53	Parish church (now Cathedral)	1824	Below the north transept	Piscina in south wall and a deep drain cut in the floor, with a roof arched with stone	‘nearly full of rubbish and human bones’
St Peter and St Wilfrid, Ripon (Yorkshire)^54	Minster (now Cathedral)	1838	In the lowest floor of a three-story complex which also comprises a ladyloft, chapterhouse and vestry, in an apsidal building adjacent to the south choir aisle and east wall of the south transept	The crypt has two rooms divided by a masonry wall and five openings in the south wall. The roof was originally groin vaults, with rib vaulting added later. Accessed by staircase along western wall	Human remains were restacked in 1843 by the sexton and removed and buried in the churchyard in 1865
St Thomas of Acre, London^55	Hospital	According to John Stow in 1598 ‘There was a charnel and a chappell over it, of St Nicholas and St Stephen’			The chapel of St Nicholas and St Stephen is first mentioned in 1453

curation of charnel

It is clear from a range of sources that the human remains in charnel houses were carefully curated, not casually accumulated. For example, excavation of the Exeter Cathedral charnel house in 1971 recorded human remains c. 1 m deep left in situ when the building was demolished, which were in an orderly arrangement, as ‘distinct groups of leg and arm bones could be discerned and in one place there was a collection of ten skulls’.⁵⁸ This was the late medieval arrangement since they were found beneath a layer containing mid-16th-century pottery. Similar orderly stacking of long bones and crania against the walls of the charnel house was identified by excavations in 1999 at St Mary Spital, London.⁵⁹ More recently, excavation of human remains at St Peter’s, Leicester, which had been undisturbed since the 16th-century demolition of the charnel house, revealed that long bones were mainly laid perpendicular to the walls, interspersed with crania, and stacked up to c. 0.5 m in depth.⁶⁰ Such archaeological evidence provides greater confidence in accepting later antiquarian accounts of the form of charnel deposits as reflecting medieval practice. For example, a late-18th-century account of the remaining charnel at Worcester described it as ‘curiously assorted, and piled up in two rows along its sides, leaving a passage between them from its west entrance … to its east end’, an account broadly corroborated by archaeological investigation in 1991.⁶¹ Photographs of the charnel at Rothwell before it was restacked in 1911 show the long bones with the long axis perpendicular to the north, south and east walls of the crypt, divided by even bands of crania (Fig. 6); this is consistent with how the charnel was described in the earliest antiquarian accounts and seems to have reflected the medieval arrangement. Although these archaeological and antiquarian accounts typically focus on placement and arrangements of crania and long bones, among the surviving charnel at Rothwell other bones are well represented, and must have been interspersed within and tucked behind the crania and long bones visible in the earliest surviving photograph.⁶²

Churchwardens’ accounts provide further evidence for the careful treatment of charnel and the building in which it was curated during the medieval period. For example, 2d was received in 1510 ‘For making clene of the Charnell house’ at the parish church of Holy Trinity, Cambridge, while the accounts for St Dunstan in the West, London, record a payment to the sexton of 10d in 1516–17 for removal of bones from the charnel house in preparation for rebuilding the vestry, and 2d in 1535 to a poor man for ‘couching of bones’ in the charnel house.⁶³ Churchwardens’ accounts also record mundane maintenance of the charnel house. For example, those for All Saints’, Bristol (Gloucestershire) record payments of 3d ‘for making a key to the charnel house’ in 1496, and 1d to the sexton for ‘cleaning the gutter over the charnel house’ in 1528.⁶⁴ Some of the most detailed insights come from the churchwardens’ accounts for St Mary’s, Bridgwater (Somerset). These record a wide range of payments in 1387 for maintenance, including for timber (£3 7s 1d), boards (4s), 1500 laths (9s 8d), stone tiles (£1 3s 6d), ridge tiles (2s 6d), 4250 lath nails (8s 6d), board nails (2d), nails (6d), stone (4d), nine quarters of lime (5s 8d) and six quarters of sand (2s), as well as for carting materials to the church and for labour, from sawyers, carpenters, plumbers, a mason and various labourers. Payments were made in 1394 to repair the floor of the charnel house and in 1415 two tilers were appointed for half a day to ‘tile the roof of the chapel of Holy Cross in the charnel house’, with further tiling required in 1418 and 1420.⁶⁵ Churchwardens’ accounts can provide evidence for charnel houses otherwise unrecorded in the medieval period, and for which architectural evidence no longer survives.

the context of medieval charnelling

Having explored the wide range of evidence for the presence of charnel houses in medieval England, we now need to explore the context in which they emerged. The obvious context for the expansion of the practice of charnelling, and its association with prayers for the living and the dead, is the Doctrine of Purgatory, confirmed in 1274 at the Council of Lyon. Belief in Purgatory was not new, but from 1274 it became non-negotiable. At its simplest, the belief was that on death the soul was separated from the body, with the most virtuous souls going to Heaven, where they awaited the Last Judgement or Second Coming, when they would be reunited with their bodies, while wicked souls would be burnt by fire and tortured by demons for eternity in Hell; most souls fell between these extremes and were sent to Purgatory, where they were purged or purified by fire before they joined the virtuous in Heaven.⁶⁶ A soul in Purgatory was guaranteed ultimate salvation, and the time it spent there could be reduced by the actions of the living, in particular through celebrations of the Mass, the central act of worship which brought Christ’s living presence into the church and re-offered his expiatory sacrifice on the Cross.⁶⁷ The living simultaneously helped themselves by helping souls in Purgatory since it was a work of charity; the idea of the chantry evolved during the 13th century with endowments for priests to chant Masses in the name of the deceased to assist their souls.⁶⁸

The relationship between charnel houses and altars, whether within the charnel room itself or in a chapel above, helps us to understand the resonances of charnelling within these broader developments. While awaiting reunion with the soul, bodies not only represented the physical remains of the deceased but meant they were semi-present and capable of ‘participating’ in what took place around them. A person buried near an altar could, therefore, in a sense still participate in, and benefit from, the Masses being chanted there, and various kinds of memorial could prompt the prayers of living worshipers to mutual benefit. From this arose the desire to be buried within the church, which became increasingly possible from the 13th century.⁶⁹ This may provide part of the context for the provision of charnel houses, increasing the number of people able to benefit from burial in proximity to an altar, especially since charnel was typically housed immediately adjacent to, usually beneath, a chapel. In some cases, the beneficiaries may have been restricted to members of the guilds associated with charnel houses, but in others they may have been intended to be the wider community. This suggestion is reinforced by the foundation of the fraternity of All Souls to maintain the charnel at St Paul’s. Boivin has recently described charnel houses with a chapel located above as representing their role ‘as a holding ground for the dead awaiting the final trumpet call to judgment’, providing a visual link with Purgatory, the visibility of the bones of the dead prompting the living to pray for all souls in Purgatory, and to have a care for their own ultimate fate.⁷⁰ It was for this reason that charnel rooms typically had windows that both provided illumination and also facilitated a view into the room from the exterior, often from above as they were mostly semi-subterranean.⁷¹ Such visibility of human remains as a reminder of mortality finds a parallel in the emergence of transi tombs of the early 15th century, in which a conventional effigy is placed above a shrouded or cadaver effigy.⁷² That the visibility of charnel would elicit a response in the viewer is articulated by Thomas More in his The Four Last Things of 1522. In this text he ruminated on the process and meaning of death, thoughts partly prompted by ‘the sight of all the dead heads in the charnel house’.⁷³

the charnel house in use

Poverty of evidence has meant that the ways in which charnel houses were used, and any liturgical rites with which they may have been associated, have been little considered. It is here suggested that two aspects of the use of the space which held the charnel can be tentatively discussed: possible rites associated with the deposition of bones in the crypt; and, more speculatively, secondary purposes to which the charnel house may have been put in Holy Week and on Easter Day. The uses of the chapels with which the charnel houses were associated are not here discussed, since there is no reason to suppose they were significantly different from those of other chantry chapels.

Reburial in the crypt

It is not clear to what extent charnelling was the result of periodic systematic clearance of areas of a churchyard (as has been demonstrated at Whithorn, Dumfriesshire) as opposed to disturbance caused by routine burial activity.⁷⁴ In either case, the long-standing Christian concern to care for human remains until the resurrection makes it unlikely that remains were moved without some kind of rite, whether performed on the occasion of large-scale charnelling or periodically (perhaps annually at All Hallows?) if charnel accumulated gradually. Although no rite exists amongst surviving English liturgical texts, it is likely that it would have been a re-enactment, with the exhumed bones, of the Office of the Dead, perhaps followed by a Mass of Requiem (such as was often performed on the anniversary of a person’s death), succeeded by immediate reburial, as seems to have occurred when complete bodies were translated to new locations. Repeating the burial rite was not, however, strictly appropriate for reburial, and there may have been some abbreviation and adaption of the burial service. This may derive support from a 17th-century account of the reburial, in 1475, of Richard Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, in the Beauchamp chapel at St Mary’s, Warwick, which records that a reduced and adapted version of the Sarum burial rite was used.⁷⁵ Most of the changes from the normal rite are to accommodate differences in what was appropriate for burial and for reburial—for example, a reduction in the number of prayers concerning the judgement of the soul, since judgement, a current concern at the first burial, was an accomplished fact by the time of reburial. Since the deposition of charnel was a form of reburial, the rite used could have been similar to that for the translation of a single body, and therefore to that recorded for Beauchamp’s translation.

Working with the Beauchamp text, which is based on the rite in the Use of Sarum, the set of liturgical practices used in the ecclesiastical Province of Canterbury, it may be possible tentatively to reconstruct the liturgy for reburial. The exhumed bones would have been asperged, censed and taken into the chancel or a chapel. There the Office of the Dead would have been performed, following which there could have been a Mass of Requiem. The bones would then have been taken to the place of reburial, the crypt, accompanied by the chanting of Psalm 113 (‘When Israel went out of Egypt’) with the antiphon, ‘May angels lead thee to Paradise’. As the rite proceeded, the action would have been accompanied by a commentary or explanation in the form of relevant psalms with their antiphons; probably at the entrance to the crypt, Psalm 117 (‘Give praise to the Lord, for he is good’), praising God for deliverance from evil, accompanied by the antiphon, ‘Open to him the gates of justice’. Following prayers concerning the moving of the bones, the crypt would have been asperged and censed while Psalm 41 (‘As the hart panteth after the fountains of water; so my soul panteth after thee, O God’) was chanted, with the antiphon ‘I shall go over into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even to the house of God’. Prayers for soul of the deceased would have followed, with an absolution, and the body would again have been committed to burial while Psalm 138 (‘Lord, thou has proved me and known me’) was said (not chanted) with the antiphon, ‘Thou has formed me, O Lord, of the earth’. In the final part of the rite, the focus would have moved to the hope of resurrection, with Psalms 148–50, the Laudate (in praise of God) and the antiphon, ‘Let every spirit praise the Lord’, followed by the Benedictus (Luke 1: 68–79) with the antiphon, ‘I am the resurrection and the life’. After further prayers concerning the ultimate reunion of the body and the soul, and a reminder that Christ was the means of life, those present were enjoined to pray for the dead. The crypt would then have been asperged for a final time before the participants in the rite would have returned to the body of the church saying Psalm 129 (‘Out of the depths have I cried to thee, O Lord’) and praying for the repose of the faithful departed.

A short ceremony of this kind would have been well suited to small charnel houses in parish church crypts, where limited space meant there could be few direct participants, and, even though the Office and Requiem, whether held in the chantry chapel or the body of the church, could have been well attended, the reburial itself would have been more intimate. The rite would, however, have been equally suitable for use in larger monastic charnel houses, where attendance by members of the community may have been possible.

Possible additional liturgical uses of the charnel room

Once built, a charnel house might attract additional uses—secondary, but related to its main purpose. There is no direct evidence for such uses, but the symbolic liturgy for the most solemn part of the Christian year, the days leading up to Easter, contains elements for which a crypt would be well suited. At Mass on Holy Thursday, the Use of Sarum required the consecration of three Hosts: one was used immediately, during the Thursday Mass, while two were reserved, one the Mass of the Presanctified on Good Friday (when a Host could not be consecrated), and the other for ‘burial’ (as the literal body of Christ) with a cross from Friday to Sunday.⁷⁶ Despite some past confusion, in most churches in England and the rest of Europe, the place of reservation was a chapel, secondary altar or, most commonly when it is formally specified, sacristy.⁷⁷ On Friday, the two reserved Hosts were taken to the high altar, where one was used at Mass. After Mass came the adoration of the cross and vespers, followed by the Depositio crucis et hostiae: the priest partly divested himself before taking the cross and the remaining Host to the Easter Sepulchre, within which, after censing, they were enclosed during the chanting of the Responsary, ‘Sepulto Domino’ (‘The Lord being buried’, which recounted the burial, the sealing of the tomb, and the placing of the stone and the guards), after which everyone departed, leaving one or more wax candles burning outside the Sepulchre.⁷⁸

The form of the sepulchre varied: sometimes it was a specially designed tomb, usually on the north side of the chancel, with a place for laying the cross and/or a cupboard for the Host, but it might be no more than a freestanding temporary wooden structure. Although there is much documentary evidence for temporary structures, particularly from wills which record pious bequests for their maintenance, there is seldom any indication of where they should stand.⁷⁹ At Salisbury Cathedral (Wiltshire), at the end of the Middle Ages, the Sepulchre may have been in the Audley Chapel, an early-16th-century cage chantry chapel on the north side of the chancel, while evidence from elsewhere in Europe indicates several possible sites, including chapels, naves and crypts. A crypt, particularly a charnel house, could have been seen as an ideal location, for it is a burial chamber of cave-like form, imitating the tomb of Christ. That a crypt could be used for the Depositio is clear from surviving liturgical documents from some continental churches, including the cathedrals at Trier and Würzburg (Germany).⁸⁰ While there is no firm evidence for this kind of use of a crypt in England, it is suggestive that at Holy Trinity, Rothwell, there are the remains of a painting, possibly of the resurrection, on the east wall of the crypt (see above).

Similarly powerful would have been the symbolism of the complement and completion of the action begun by the Depositio, the Easter morning Elevatio crucis et hostiae. Before matins, two priests, two taperers, two censers and other clergy went to the Sepulchre, censed it and ‘secretly’, without witnesses, retrieved the Host and took it to the altar: Christ had risen from the tomb before the fact was discovered. They then retrieved the cross and, singing ‘Christ is risen’, took it to the choir, from where it was processed through the church for all to see. On the way back, at the entrance to the choir, the story of the women at the tomb was recounted—the discovery was made public—following which the cross was taken back to the altar.⁸¹ In places where the Sepulchre was in a charnel crypt, Christ came back from the dead in a very real sense—in the Host, which left the ‘tomb’ empty, and then in the symbol of the cross. There could also have been a reference to Christ returning from the Harrowing of Hell, ‘saving’ those whose remains were in the charnel house. Something similar could have occurred where there was a detached charnel house, as suggested by the rite at the German monastery of Kleve, where the cross was thrice processed through the churchyard, on the third occasion specifically going ‘to the place where the bones of the dead lie’, accompanied by the chanting of a responsory concerning the salvation of their souls.⁸² It is acknowledged that there is no evidence from England for the use of charnel houses at Easter suggested here, but the available sources are not such as would reveal it. On the other hand, the fragments of continental evidence suggest that the possibility should not be ruled out.

the afterlife of charnel houses

Many charnel houses were dismantled or repurposed at the Reformation, when the various liturgical and secondary uses we have explored here were being questioned, and the purposes of charnel practices undermined by the proscription of belief in Purgatory.⁸³ Where freestanding former charnel houses survived, they were reused for a wide variety of purposes, including as a school, alehouse, shop, hay barn, and house.⁸⁴ In such cases, the charnel was removed and disposed of, usually without any contemporary commentary. A rare exception come from the late-16th-century account of John Stow, who described ‘more than one thousand cart loads’ of charnel from St Paul’s being carted away unceremoniously to Finsbury Fields.⁸⁵ When freestanding charnel houses were demolished, however, the charnel was sometimes left in situ, as excavation has revealed at St Peter’s Leicester, Exeter Cathedral and Worcester Cathedral (see above).

Where charnel had been housed in rooms beneath churches this was sometimes left in place and the room was sealed off, as we have seen at Rothwell and Witney. If a charnel house was not recorded in the medieval period we may only know of its existence from antiquarian accounts after it was later rediscovered. Documentation of closure, sealing or demolition of charnel houses does not survive for parish churches, unlike the greater churches, another reason why the antiquarian record is so valuable. There is a rare instance of excavation revealing the fate of an otherwise unknown charnel house at the collegiate church at Fotheringhay (Northamptonshire). During building repairs in 1990, a vaulted room (3.50 × 5.70 m, and 2.2 m high) was discovered beneath the 15th-century north porch, containing the disarticulated remains of c. 30 individuals. The room had previously been semi-subterranean, with a window at external ground level, while a stone staircase provided access from the small room on the west side of the porch. Despite the survival of a building contract from 1434 there is no mention of this charnel house even though it was clearly constructed at this time. It was filled with debris, including medieval window glass and stonework from elsewhere in the church interspersed with much later material, suggesting it had been filled in during early-19th-century refurbishments.⁸⁶

conclusion: resurrecting lost medieval rites

In this paper we have set a new agenda for the analysis of charnel houses in medieval England, by integrating documentary, archaeological, architectural and antiquarian evidence to trace the foundation, endowments, form, location, maintenance and fate of charnel houses. In doing so, we have exposed largely untapped sources of evidence, including that for charnel houses at parish churches, which are often poorly documented in the medieval period, if recorded at all. There are many other charnel houses mentioned only briefly in churchwardens’ accounts or wills, but their locations are often unknown.⁸⁷ As we have shown, they are likely to remain so unless excavation should uncover their remains, although detailed architectural analysis of church fabric can identify the potential former locations of charnel, typically in crypts. In addition, thorough reviews of antiquarian records may reveal important evidence for the presence of charnel that has long since been cleared out, and charnel houses that have been demolished, as we have demonstrated. We have also seen that excavation has revealed charnel houses not documented in the medieval period, confirming that charnelling was more widespread than is recorded in contemporary written records. The surviving examples of charnel houses are mainly freestanding within churchyards, which has created the impression that charnel houses typically took this form, although, as we have seen, that was far from the case. We have been able to challenge the notion that ‘Provision of a charnel house was rare in monastic and parochial context’.⁸⁸ This paper has also shown that charnel houses were more than mere bone stores, and were, instead, typically complex architectural spaces, decorated and well maintained, accessible from within the body of churches or externally. These characteristics facilitated the visibility of the human remains. Furthermore, for the first time, we have presented an overview of the possible medieval liturgical contexts for charnelling, showing how these hitherto poorly understood structures were intimately related to the beliefs and rites of the Church.

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We are grateful to Philip Lankester, Nicola Lowe and Chris Guy for discussion of charnel houses, to Allan Adams for his drawing of the charnel house at Holy Trinity, Rothwell, and Ian Atkins for taking the photograph of the crypt at St Mary’s, Beverley. We would like to thank the Rothwell Heritage Centre for permission to reproduce a photograph of the Rothwell charnel. We are also grateful to the two anonymous reviewers and the editor for very helpful feedback on an earlier draft of this paper. Fieldwork at Rothwell and the Ph.D. thesis of Jenny Crangle were both funded by the University of Sheffield.

Notes

1 Reviewed in J. Crangle, ‘A study of post-depositional funerary practices in medieval England’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Sheffield, 2016), ch. 5.

2 Ibid., 159–60; E. Craig-Atkins, J. Crangle, P. S. Barnwell and D. M. Hadley, ‘Charnel practices in medieval England: new perspectives’, Mortality, 24/ii (2019), 145–66.

3 A. Gransden, A History of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, 1257–1301 (Woodbridge 2015), 221–23.

4 R. Gilchrist, Norwich Cathedral Close. The evolution of the English cathedral landscape (Woodbridge 2005), 208.

5 V. Sekules, ‘Bishop John Salmon’s Architectural Patronage at Norwich Cathedral’, in Norwich: Medieval and Early Modern Art, Architecture and Archaeology, ed. T. A. Heslop and H. E. Lunnon, BAA Trans. xxxviii (Leeds 2015), 181–200, at 191.

6 N. Orme, ‘The charnel chapel of Exeter Cathedral’, in Medieval Art and Architecture at Exeter Cathedral, ed. F. Kelly, BAA Trans. xi (Leeds 1991), 162–71, at 165.

7 M. H. Rousseau, Saving the Souls of Medieval London: Perpetual chantries at St Paul’s Cathedral, c.1200–1548 (London 2011), 75.

8 C. Thomas, B. Sloane and C. Phillpots, Excavations at the priory and hospital of St Mary Spital, London (London 1997), 68.

9 D. Sherlock and H. Woods, St. Augustine’s Abbey: Report on Excavations, 1960–78 (Maidstone 1988), 9; G. May, A Descriptive History of the Town of Evesham (London 1845), 62; C. Bond, ‘Interpretation of the Chapel of St John and Charnel House, Excavated at the Saturday Marketplace, King’s Lynn’ (unpublished report, King’s Lynn 2015); Registrum Malmesburiense, ed. by J. S. Brewer and C. Trice, Rerum Britannicarum medii æevi scriptores, 72, 2 vols (London 1879–80), II, 124–28, 215–17; R. Willis, ‘The architectural history of the Cathedral and monastery at Worcester’, Archaeol. J., 20 (1863), 83–133, 254–72, 301–18, at 259; W. Page, ‘The borough of Scarborough’, A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 2 (London 1923), 538–60.

10 J. Stow, Survey of London, ed. H. B. Wheatley (London 1956), 294–95; Rousseau, St Paul’s, 75–76.

11 Gransden, Bury St Edmunds, 223–24.

12 Sekules, ‘Architectural Patronage’, 189–90; Gilchrist, Norwich Cathedral, 102; Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain, ed. W. H. Bliss, 17 vols (London and Dublin 1893), II, 142, for the quotation.

13 R. Horrox, ‘The Later Medieval Minster’, in Beverley Minster: an illustrated history, ed. R. Horrox (Beverley 2000), 37–50, at 46.

14 Testamenta Eboracensia: A Selection of Wills from the Registry at York, ed. A Raine and J. W. Clay, Publications of the Surtees Society, 4, 30, 45, 53, 79, 106 (Durham 1836–1902), III, 19; A. P. Baggs, L. M. Brown, G. C. F. Forster, I. Hall, R. E. Horrox, G. H. R. Kent and D. Neave, ‘Medieval Beverley: The Guilds and their plays’, in A History of the County of York East Riding: Volume 6, the Borough and Liberties of Beverley, ed. K. J. Allison (London 1989), 42–49, at 45.

15 W. Page, ‘Colleges: Holy Trinity or Thoresby, Lynn’, in A History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 2, ed. W. Page (London 1906), 454–55, at 454.

16 Orme, ‘Exeter Cathedral’, 166; Rousseau, St Paul’s, 76; Stow, Survey of London, 295.

17 Gilchrist, Norwich Cathedral, 208; Sekules, ‘Architectural Patronage’, 190–91.

18 Gransden, Bury St Edmunds, 222–23; R. Lane, ‘Early Fabric in Historic Towns: Ely, Cambridgeshire’, Vernacular Architecture, 48 (2020), 1–22, at 8.

19 Rousseau, St Paul’s, 75.

20 The Chartulary of St John of Pontefract, ed. R. Holmes, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, 25, 30, 2 vols (Leeds 1899–1902), I, 36–37.

21 C. G. Henderson and P. T. Bidwell, ‘The Saxon minster at Exeter’, in The early Church in Western Britain and Ireland: Studies presented to C. A. Ralegh Radford, ed. S. Pearce (Oxford 1976), 145–75, at 169.

22 V. Green, The History and Antiquities of the City and Suburbs of Worcester, 2 vols (London 1796), I, 54–56; Willis, ‘Worcester’, 258–59; Chris Guy pers. comm. 15 December 2016.

23 C. Thomas, Life and Death in London’s East End (London 2004), 34–35.

24 Bond, ‘Charnel House’.

25 T. Gnanaratnam, The excavation of St Peter’s church and graveyard, Vaughan Way, Leicester 2004–2006, Vol. 1, Report No. 156 (Leicester 2009), 78, 87.

26 P. Beacham and N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England. Cornwall (New Haven, CT, and London 2014), 110–11; D. Gilbert, The Parochial History of Cornwall (London 1838), 77.

27 B. Cherry and N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England. Devon, 2nd edn (Harmondsworth 1989), 151; J. Cox, St Anne’s Chapel, Paternoster Row, Barnstaple, Devon. A conservation management plan for Barnstaple town council (Exeter 2001), 15, 36–37; Crangle, ‘Post-depositional’, 173.

28 C. Johnston, ‘St Anne’s Chapel—The Grammar School’, Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 2, pt I (1867), 4–23, at 4.

29 M. Bridge, St Anne’s Chapel, Paternoster Row, Barnstaple, Devon. Tree-ring analysis of oak timbers from the roof and crypt (London 2012).

30 N. Ohler, Sterben und Tod im Mittelalter (Düsseldorf 2003), 149.

31 RCHME, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Herefordshire, 3 vols (London 1931–34), I, 103; N. Lowe, ‘New findings at the parish church of St Mary, Witney (Oxfordshire). The fourteenth-century north transept and monument’, Church Monuments, 34 (2019), 77–104, at 89.

32 A. P. Baggs, L. M. Brown, G. C. F. Forster, I. Hall, R. E. Horrox, G. H. R. Kent and D. Neave, ‘Religious Life’, in Borough and Liberties of Beverley, ed. Allison, 231–50 at 237.

33 H. Clarke, S. Pearson, M. Mate and K. Parfitt, Sandwich. The ‘completest medieval town in England’. A study of the town and port from its origins to 1600 (Oxford 2010), 84–86.

34 Craig-Atkins et al., ‘Charnel practices’.

35 Ibid., 158–59.

36 T. Tatton-Brown, ‘A new survey of the fabric of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Bosham, West Sussex’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 144 (2006), 129–54, at 136; E. Williamson, T. Hudson, J. Musson and I. Nairn, The Buildings of England. Sussex: West (New Haven, CT, and London 2019), 169.

37 Lowe, ‘St Mary, Witney’, 83–86.

38 A. Suckling, History and Antiquities of the County of Suffolk, 2 vols (London 1846), I, 18.

39 B. Street, Historical Notes on Grantham and Grantham Church (Grantham 1857), 49; J. McNeill, ‘The Church of St Wulfram 3: Architecture, Patronage and Context’, in The Making of Grantham: The Medieval Town, ed. D. Start and D. Stocker (Heckington 2011), 95–108, at 105.

40 N. Orme and J. Cannon, Westbury-on-Trym: Monastery, Minster and College (Bristol 2011), 141–42.

41 Anon., ‘Westbury-on Trym’, The Church Builder, 29–32 (1868), 16–22.

42 Orme and Cannon, Westbury-on-Trym, 115, n. 22.

43 F. Blomefield, An Essay Towards A Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, 11 vols (London 1805–10), IV, 273.

44 K. Boivin, ‘The Chancel Passageways of Norwich’, in Norwich, ed. Heslop and Lunnon, 307–23, at 316.

45 M. Bloxam, On the charnel vault at Rothwell Northamptonshire and on other charnel vaults elsewhere (Northampton 1855), 3–4.

46 ‘E. Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, 8 vols (Canterbury 1797–99)’. (Leave: VIII, 185.)

47 C. Palmer, The History of the Town and Castle of Tamworth: In the Counties of Stafford and Warwick (London 1845), 252.

48 T. Farrow, ‘Dry bones live: a brief history of charnel houses, 1300–1900AD’, Epoch Magazine 1 (2020) https://www.epoch-magazine.com/farrowdryboneslive.

49 Hasted, Kent, VIII, 251–52.

50 Ibid., 185.

51 Hasted, Kent, VI, 31; for other examples, see Crangle, ‘Post-depositional’, 159–241.

52 Stow, Survey of London, 184.

53 E. MacKenzie, Historical Account of Newcastle-upon-Tyne: including the Borough of Gateshead (Newcastle upon Tyne 1827), 248.

54 F. Buckland, Curiosities of Natural History (New York 1865), 174–78.

55 Stow, Survey of London, 241.

56 For example, at St Oswald’s, Malpas (Cheshire), the crypt under the chancel appears always to have been a treasury: R. Richards, Old Cheshire Churches, with a Supplementary Survey Relating to the Lesser Old Chapels of Cheshire, rev. edn (Didsbury 1973), 221.

57 For example, the charnel deposit excavated at St Bride’s, London, in a 17th-century brick-built crypt is clearly not in a medieval context; its origins are unknown, but it is notably adjacent to a medieval crypt: G. Milne, St. Bride’s Church London. Archaeological Research 1952–60 and 1992–5 (London 1997), 107; Crangle, ‘Post-depositional’, 231–39.

58 Henderson and Bidwell, ‘Exeter’, 169.

59 Thomas, Life and Death, 34–35.

60 Gnanaratnam, St Peter’s Church, 78.

61 Green, Worcester, 58.

62 Craig-Atkins et al., ‘Charnel practices’, 155–58.

63 V. Harding, ‘Burial choice and burial location in later medieval London’, in Death in Towns: Urban responses to the dying and the dead, 100–1600, ed. S. Bassett (Leicester 1992), 119–35, at 128–29; J. C. Cox, Churchwardens’ Accounts from the Fourteenth Century to the Close of the Seventeenth Century (London 1913), 169.

64 C. Burgess, The Pre-Reformation Records of All Saints’ Church, Bristol. The Churchwardens’ Accounts, Bristol Record Society Publications, 46 & 53, 2 vols (Bristol 2000), II, 142, 340.

65 T. B. Dilks, R. W. Dunning and T. D. Tremlett, Bridgwater Borough Archives, 5 vols (Taunton 1933–71), II, 187–92, 228–32; V, 46–54, 59–63, 67–73.

66 For the full complexity of the debate over Purgatory, see J. Le Goff, The birth of Purgatory (London 1984); S. Tugwell, Human immortality and the redemption of death (London 1990), esp. 110–55.

67 See Peter Lombard, Distinctions, iv, 12.5, translated in E. F. Rogers, Peter Lombard and the Sacramental System (New York, 1917), 144–46. The nature of the medieval and Tridentine Mass is discussed in J. A. Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, 2 vols (Notre Dame, IN 2012), I, 175–95.

68 For a fuller discussion, see Craig-Atkins et al., ‘Charnel practices’, 159–62.

69 N. Saul, English Church Monuments in the Middle Ages: History and Representation (Oxford, 2009), 114–17.

70 K. Boivin, ‘Two-story Charnel-House Chapels and the Space of Death in the Medieval City’, in Picturing Death, 1200–1600, ed. S. Perkinson and N. Turel (Leiden 2020), 79–103, at 101; see also Lowe, ‘St Mary, Witney’, 88.

71 Crangle, ‘Post-depositional’, 159–241.

72 Craig-Atkins et al., ‘Charnel practices’, 161.

73 T. More, The Last Things, in The Complete Works of St Thomas More, ed. A. S. G. Edwards, K. G. Rodgers and C. H. Miller, 15 vols (New Haven, CT, 1997), I, 139.

74 For Whithorn, see P. Hill, Whithorn and St Ninian: The Excavation of a Monastic Town, 1984–91 (Stroud 1999), 253.

75 London, British Library, MS Harley 6466. There is an account of the history and discovery of the manuscript in A. Buckle, ‘“Entumbed Right Princely”: The Re-Interment of Richard Beauchamp, Early of Warwick, and a Lost Rite’, in The Yorkist Age, ed. H. Kleineke and C. Steer, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 23 (Donnington 2013), 399–415. The Sarum rite is published in Manuale ad usum percelebris ecclesie Sarisburiensis, ed. A. J. Collins, Henry Bradshaw Society, 91 (London 1958), 152–62.

76 Missale ad usum insignis et preclarae ecclesiae Sarum, ed. F. H. Dickinson (Burntisland 1863), col. 303.

77 For examples of reservation in the sacristy, see E. Martène, De antiquiis ecclesiae ritibus, 2nd edn, 4 vols (Antwerp 1726–8), III, cols 372, 375, 379 (twice), 382 (twice), 389, 390, 392, 394. The confusion was comprehensively formally discussed by the Church in 1896: see Decreta authentica Congregationis sacrarum rituum ex actis eiusdem collecta, 6 vols in 7 (Rome 1898–1912), IV, 419–29. See also N. C. Brookes, The Sepulchre of Christ in Art and Liturgy, with special reference to the Liturgical Drama, University of Illinois Studies in Language and Literature, 7, pt 2 (Urbana, IL 1921), 187–90.

78 Processionale ad usum insignis ac praeclarae ecclesiae Sarum, ed. W. G. Henderson (Leeds 1883), 73.

79 There is a good short introduction, with a gathering together of almost all the known evidence, in P. Sheingorn, The Easter Sepulchre in England, Early Drama, Art and Music Reference Series 5 (Kalamazoo 1987).

80 K. Young, The Drama of the Medieval Church, 2 vols (Oxford 1933), I, 157 and 280–81.

81 Processionale ad usum Sarum, 91–94. See Breviarium ad usum insignis ecclesiae Sarum, ed. F. Proctor and C. Wordsworth, 3 vols (Cambridge 1878–88), cols dcccvii–dcccix.

82 R. Stapper, ‘Mittelaterliche Ostergebräuche der Siftsherren zu Kleve’, Römische Quartalscrift für christliche Altertumskund und für Kirchengeschichte, 35 (1927), 171–82, esp. 175 and 180–81.

83 For examples of demolition, see Sherlock and Wood, St. Augustine’s Abbey, 10; D. J. Lamburn, ‘The Minster and the Reformation’, in Beverley Minster, ed. Horrox, 50–64, at 56; Gnanaratnam, St Peter’s church, 78; Thomas, Life and Death, 34–35; Crangle, ‘Post-depositional’, 228–39.

84 Gilchrist, Norwich Cathedral, 208; Green, Worcester, 56; Gransden, Bury St Edmunds, 222; E. M. Beloe, Our Churches: King’s Lynn, Norfolk (Cambridge 1900), 37–40; Bond, ‘Charnel House’, 7; Cox, Barnstaple, 3; Gilbert Cornwall, 76.

85 Stow, Survey of London, 295.

86 G. Johnston, ‘Excavation of an Ossuary at Fotheringhay Church, Northamptonshire’, Northamptonshire Archaeology, 29 (2000–01), 161–92.

87 Harding, ‘Burial choice’, 128, 134, n. 53.

88 R. Gilchrist and B. Sloane, Requiem. The medieval monastic cemetery in Britain (London 2005), 195.