Heart Burial in England, France, and the Holy
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MY CROWN IS IN MY HEART, NOT ON MY HEAD: HEART BURIAL IN ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE FROM MEDIEVAL TIMES TO THE PRESENT Anna M. Duch, B.A. Thesis Prepared for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2013 APPROVED: Laura Ikins Stern, Major Professor Richard M. Golden, Committee Member Ann Jordan, Committee Member Richard McCaslin, Chair of the Department of History Mark Wardell, Dean of the Toulouse Graduate School Duch, Anna M. My Crown is in My Heart, Not on My Head: Heart Burial in England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire from Medieval Times to the Present. Master of Arts (History), May 2013, 198 pp., references, 145 titles. Heart burial is a funerary practice that has been performed since the early medieval period. However, relatively little scholarship has been published on it in English. Heart burial began as a pragmatic way to preserve a body, but it became a meaningful tradition in Western Europe during the medieval and early modern periods. In an anthropological context, the ritual served the needs of elites and the societies they governed. Elites used heart burial not only to preserve their bodies, but to express devotion, stabilize the social order and advocate legitimacy, and even gain heaven. Heart burial assisted in the elite Christian, his or her family, and society pass through the liminal period of death. Over the centuries, heart burial evolved to remain relevant. The practice is extant to the present day, though the motivations behind it are very different from those of the medieval and early modern periods. Copyright 2013 by Anna M. Duch ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I send out my eternal thanks to the following people and entities, for without them, this endeavor would not have been possible. My major professor, Dr. Laura Stern, for her profound patience with me, her disciplined approach in structuring this thesis, and her perspective on heart burial in context. Dr. Richard M. Golden, for guidance during my graduate career and for the most excellent book recommendations. Dr. Ann Jordan, for urging me to write and being a voice outside of history. Dr. Richard McCaslin and the UNT Department of History for their support and for the funding of my thesis research trip to Europe. Dr. Michael Leggiere, for improving me as a student and as a writer. Dr. Armin Dietz, for his devotion to the topic of heart burial and his generous advice and information. Dr. Mark Ormrod, for his help and feedback on my work so far. Ms. Christine Reynolds, Assistant Keeper of the Muniments at Westminster Abbey, for her assistance via email, post, and at the Abbey’s Library. Pf. Albin Scheuch of the Augustinerkirche of Vienna, Austria, for his incredible tolerance of me and my research during my visit. Ms. Ulrike Kirnich and the staff at the Wallfahrts- und Verkehrsbüro in Altötting, Germany for the vast amounts of information given to me. The priests at the Altötting Gnadenkapelle, for their permission to access the Shrine. The staff at Bückeburg Castle, for their assistance during a last-minute change in plans. Luke Truxal, for his support. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii A NOTE ON NAMES .....................................................................................................................v Chapters I. THE PROBLEMS INHERENT ...............................................................................1 II. PRE-CHRISTIAN ATTITUDES TOWARD DEATH AND THE BODY ...........18 III. HEARTS AND BURIALS, PRE-1117..................................................................36 IV. THE HEIGHT OF HEART BURIAL IN ENGLAND, 1117-1299 .......................47 V. DE SEPULTURIS AND HEART BURIAL, 1299-1351 ......................................67 VI. PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPHERES IN HEART BURIAL, 1300-1517 .............89 VII. THE IMPACT OF THE REFORMATION AND COUNTER REFORMATION IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE, 1517-1625 .......................................................109 VIII. DYNASTIC HEART BURIAL, 1625-1715 ........................................................134 IX. HEART BURIAL: THE ENLIGHTENMENT TO PRESENT DAY .................154 X. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................177 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................................................189 iv A NOTE ON NAMES Due to the use of sources from various languages, the names of locations are Anglicized. However, to reduce confusion among monarchs, their names remain in their original language. For example, Henry III of England, France, and the Holy Roman Empire is rendered as Henry III, Henri III, and Heinrich III, respectively. Spellings are based upon the person’s own signature when available. v CHAPTER I THE PROBLEMS INHERENT1 Introduction My crown is in my heart, not on my head; Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones, Nor to be seen: my crown is called content: A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy. King Henry VI, Part 3, Act 3, Scene 1 William Shakespeare, c. 1591 Heart burial is the separate interment of the heart from the body. During the ninth through eleventh centuries, elites employed heart burial to preserve the corpse during transport, a purely pragmatic venture. The heart and other organs were removed and stored in a leather bag for transport, enabling the outer shell of flesh to be better preserved. The biles and acids of the corpse contributed to and accelerated the natural progression of decay.2 However, over the course of the medieval and early modern eras, the practice bloomed into a ritual that conveyed political, sentimental, and deeply religious ideas. The House of Habsburg has interred three hearts within the last twenty-five years. The practice remains extant as of 2011. Despite the longevity of this ritual, a dearth of Anglophone scholarship exists. In particular, previous scholars have neglected the purposes of and motivations for heart burial; it has garnered a reputation as a novelty or an idiosyncrasy of the elite classes of medieval Europe rather than a highly complex ritual and expression of belief. While studies have appeared in other languages, heart burial studies in English remain underdeveloped. 1 Elements of this chapter first appeared in a conference paper, Anna M. Duch, “Enlightened Monarchs? Heart Burial and the Ruling Dynasties of Europe,”(paper presented at the Consortium for the Revolutionary Era, Fort Worth, TX, 21-23 February 2013). 2 Item #12,” Royal Necropolis at Saint-Denis Official Tour, Basilica of Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis, France; also Henry de Mondeville, The Surgery of Master Henry de Mondeville, Surgeon of Philip the Fair, King of France, written from 1306 to 1320, translated from Latin by E. Nicaise, translated from French by Leord Rosenman, M.D. (XLibris Corporation, 2003), 739-740. 1 Four primary motivations exist for heart burial. These factors often intermingle and determine not only whether a person buries his heart, but where it is interred or to whom it is given. The first, now defunct motivation was practicality. If a person died away from home, evisceration and removal of organs were common solutions in the Middle Ages. The exterior of the corpse remained intact longer without innards and their various fluids.3 During the Crusades, it was much easier to transport a fist-sized organ in a sealed jar and bones in a separate box than an entire rotting cadaver; such was the case for Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, King Louis IX of France, and other crusaders.4 Even when distance was not an issue, the removal of organs remained a popular mortuary option. As late as 1320, French royal physician Henri de Mondeville complained about the difficulty in preserving Philip the Fair and his son Louis the Quarreler for the duration of their month-long funerary rituals in 1314 and 1316, respectively.5 Over time, the actual need for heart burial became extinct because of the development of arterial embalming, cavity embalming, and other preservative tactics of the nineteenth century. Another motivation for heart burial is to transmit a political message. Alexandré Bandé has written extensively about the use of heart burial by cadet lines of the Capetians.6 By spreading their parts around disputed territories, these houses made a claim that they had the right to rule the area. Danielle Westerhof explores this idea on a smaller scale among the nobles of England. She has determined that the aristocracy used heart burial to express their place on 3 “Item #12,” Royal Necropolis at Saint-Denis Official Tour, Basilica of Saint-Denis, Saint-Denis, France, 19 January 2013; also Henry de Mondeville, The Surgery of Master Henry de Mondeville, Surgeon of Philip the Fair, King of France, written from 1306 to 1320, translated from Latin by E. Nicaise, translated from French by Leonard Rosenman, M.D. (XLibris Corporation, 2003), 739-740. 4 Elizabeth A.R. Brown, “Death and the Human Body in the Later Middle Ages: The Legislation of Boniface VIII on the Division of the Corpse,” Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Volume 12 (1981), 227; 231. 5 de Mondeville, Surgery, 739. 6 Alexandré Bandé, Le Coeur du Roi: Les Capetiens et les sepultures multiples xiiie-xve siècles (Paris: Tallandier, 2009) 53; 172. 2 the social scale and their dominance over a region.7 In her work, Death and the Noble Body in Medieval England, she concludes that the heart also