Heart Burial in England, France, and the Holy
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.
[Show full text]