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The Politics of Royal Burial in Late Anglo-Saxon England

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The Politics of Royal Burial in Late Anglo-Saxon England THE POLITICS OF ROYAL BURIAL IN LATE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Nicole Jeanette Marafioti August 2009 © 2009 Nicole Jeanette Marafioti THE POLITICS OF ROYAL BURIAL IN LATE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND Nicole Jeanette Marafioti, Ph. D. Cornell University 2009 This dissertation investigates how kings’ corpses, funerals, and tombs contributed to the process of royal succession in tenth and eleventh-century England. There are few explicit descriptions of dead monarchs in our extant sources, so the posthumous fates of Anglo-Saxon rulers must be pieced together from casual textual references, monastic records, and archaeological remains. This evidence indicates that the bodies and memories of English kings were systematically evoked by living royalty: at a time when regular hereditary succession was rare, new and aspiring rulers advanced their political ambitions by forging connections with dead predecessors. My study shows that kings’ bodies were regarded as repositories of dynastic memory and used as political propaganda during periods of interregnum. The opening chapters examine how prestigious burial were used to enhance the legitimacy of reigning monarchs and proclaim dynastic continuity. First, I demonstrate that royal mausolea were increasingly modeled on saints’ shrines, identifying kings with Christian elites and distinguishing them in death from ordinary laymen. The following chapter investigates how kings’ corpses became integral to the transfer of royal power: where earlier Anglo-Saxon kings were crowned at the palace at Kingston, tenth and eleventh-century rulers were acclaimed and anointed beside their predecessor’s tomb. In these examples, royal corpses and tombs functioned as symbols of royal authority, advertising the unique status of the monarchy and the legitimacy of new rulers. The later chapters investigate the inversion of prestigious royal burial practices in instances of conquest and usurpation. I begin by examining kings who desecrated or concealed their rivals’ bodies, and I contend that the infliction of recognizable criminal punishments helped suppress the royal claims of competing dynasties. Next, I focus on foreign conquerors who diverted attention from the bodies and tombs of deposed native rulers in order to deemphasize the change in regime. These deviations from normative burial indicate that royal memory and dynastic legitimacy were linked to the treatment of rulers’ remains, and I conclude that modes of honorable and dishonorable burial were systematically used to construct signifying narratives about royal continuity, legitimacy, and authority. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Nicole Jeanette Marafioti received her Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from Cornell University in 2009. She received an M.A. from Cornell in 2006, an M.A. from the University of York in 2002, and a B.A. from Yale University in 2000. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation could not have been begun or completed without the help of so many mentors, colleagues, and friends. My advisory committee provided invaluable feedback and encouragement at every stage of this project and deserve especially warm thanks: Paul R. Hyams, Oren Falk, Thomas D. Hill, and Samantha Zacher. I am privileged to have benefitted from the vast collective wisdom of Cornell’s Medieval Studies faculty, and I would like particularly to recognize Andrew Galloway, Carin Ruff, Masha Raskolnikov, and Carol Kaske. I am indebted to Christopher Bailey, whose insight and advice were indispensible, and to Cynthia Turner Camp and Ionuţ Epurescu-Pascovici, whose careful critiques were vital as I refined my arguments. Numerous other colleagues read and commented on early drafts of my dissertation, and special thanks are due to Misty Urban, Leigh Harrison, Tricia Har, Sarah Harlan- Haughey, Curtis Jirsa, Jennifer Watkins, Bob Fredona, Colleen Slater, Jay Paul Gates, and Dan O’Gorman. I am also grateful for the advice I have received from the participants in many conferences and colloquia, notably the Haskins Society Conference, the Conference of the Southeastern Medieval Association, the International Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, the Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies, and Cornell’s European History Colloquium and Medieval Studies Colloquium. In addition, I am grateful to everyone who offered me their support, encouragement, and hospitality over the past six years. Dianne Ferriss has made it a joy to be part of Cornell’s Medieval Studies program; and I am indebted to Sarah and James Disley, Nathan Camp, Justin Harlan-Haughey, Jessica Metzler, Elise Marafioti, and Michael Paul Simons for their unwavering friendship and generosity. Finally, I would like to thank my parents, Bob and Marcia Marafioti, to whom my work is dedicated. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch iii Acknowledgments iv List of Abbreviations vi Preface ix Chapter 1. Introduction: The Politics of Royal Burial 1 in Late Anglo-Saxon England Chapter 2. Royal Tombs and Political Performance: 23 New Minster and Westminster Chapter 3. Funeral, Coronation, and Continuity: 70 Political Corpses and Royal Succession Chapter 4. Royal Body as Executed Body: Physical 132 Propaganda in the Reigns of Harold Harefoot and Harthacnut Chapter 5. Body and Memory: The Elusive Corpse 183 of King Edward the Martyr Chapter 6. Conquered Bodies: Cnut, William, 225 and Royal Remains Appendix I: Distribution of Late Anglo-Saxon 261 Kings’ Graves Appendix II: West Saxon Dynasty, 865-1016 262 Appendix III: West Saxon and Danish Kings 263 of England, 978-1066 Works Cited 264 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Alfred 5, VIII Æthelred 1.1, etc. Liebermann, F. (ed.). Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen , vol.1 [lawcodes cited by king and Liebermann’s code and chapter numbers]. ASC Various editors. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: A Collaborative Edition [cited by manuscript and annal year]. Assmann Assmann, Bruno (ed.). Angelsächsische Homilien und Heiligenleben [cited by homily, page, and line number]. Bede, HE Bede. Ecclesiastical History of the English People . Ed. B. Colgrave and R.A.B. Mynors [cited by book and chapter number]. Bosworth-Toller Toller, T. Northcote (ed.). An Anglo- Saxon Dictionary Based on the Manuscript Collections of the Late Joseph Bosworth [cited by page number]. Byrhtferth, Vita Oswaldi Lapidge, Michael (ed. and trans.). Byrhtferth of Ramsey [cited by page number]. CH I Ælfric of Eynsham. Catholic Homilies, the First Series . Ed. Peter Clemoes [cited by homily number and line]. CH II Ælfric of Eynsham. Catholic Homilies, the Second Series . Ed. Malcolm Godden [cited by homily number and line]. Chronicle of Æthelweard Campbell, A. (ed.). The Chronicle of Æthelweard [cited by page number]. De Miraculis Sancti Eadmundi Arnold, Thomas (ed.). Memorials of St. Edmund’s Abbey , volume I [cited by page number]. EETS Early English Text Society vi Encomium Campbell, Alistair (ed. and trans.). Encomium Emmae Reginae [cited by page number]. JW John of Worcester. The Chronicle of John of Worcester, volume II: The Annals from 450 to 1066 . Ed. R.R. Darlington and P. McGurk [cited by page number]. LS I and II Ælfric of Eynsham. Ælfric’s Lives of Saints . Ed. Walter W. Skeat [cited by volume, homily, and line number]. Mason 239, 248, etc. Mason, Emma. Westminster Abbey Charters [cited by Mason’s charter number]. MS Manuscript Orderic Vitalis, HE Orderic Vitalis. The Ecclesiastical History . Ed. Marjorie Chibnall [cited by volume and page number]. PL Migne, Jacques-Paul (ed.). Patrologia Latina [cited by volume and column number]. S 307, 1443, etc. Sawyer, P.H. Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography [cited by Sawyer’s charter number]. Vercelli 4, 10, etc. Scragg, D.G. (ed.). The Vercelli Homilies [cited by homily and line number]. Vita Ædwardi Barlow, Frank (ed. and trans.). The Life of King Edward Who Rests at Westminster [cited by page number]. Whitelock, EHD I Whitelock, Dorothy (ed.). English Historical Documents, volume I: c.500- 1042 , 2 nd edition [cited by page number]. vii William of Malmesbury, GP William of Malmesbury. De Gestis Pontificvm Anglorvm , vol. I. Ed. and trans. M. Winterbottom and R.M. Thompson [cited by book, chapter, and section number]. William of Malmesbury, GR William of Malmesbury. Gesta Regum Anglorum. The History of the English Kings, vol. I. Ed. and trans. R.A.B. Mynors et. al. [cited by book and chapter number]. William of Poitiers, GG William of Poitiers. The Gesta Guillelmi . Ed. and trans. R.H.C. Davis and Marjorie Chibnall [cited by page number]. viii PREFACE The texts cited in this work have been transcribed from printed editions. All Old English translations are my own, except where noted. Latin translations have been adapted from printed editions, when these exist; otherwise, translations are my own. ix Chapter 1. Introduction: The Politics of Royal Burial in Late Anglo-Saxon England On 5 January 1066, Edward the Confessor died in his palace at Westminster. Within a few years, the king’s anonymous biographer produced the following account of his burial: The funeral rites were arranged at the royal cost and with royal honor, as was proper, and amid the boundless sorrow of all men. They bore his blessed remains from his palace home into the house of God, and offered up prayers and sighs and psalms all that day and the following night. Meanwhile, when the day of the funeral ceremony dawned, they blessed the office of the interment they were to conduct with the singing of masses and the relief of the poor. And so, before the altar of St. Peter the Apostle, the body, washed by his country’s tears, is buried in the sight of God. 1 The author’s foremost purpose in this passage was to illustrate the country’s grief at the loss of its beloved king, but he incidentally provided one of the few existing descriptions of an Anglo-Saxon royal funeral. We learn from this passage that Edward’s body was publicly carried into its burial church, where mourners kept vigil until it was buried before the high altar the next day.
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