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‘Monuments Answerable to Mens Worth’: Burial Patterns, Social Status and Gender in Late Medieval Bury St Edmunds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

Robert Dinn
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Extract

In the Middle Ages it was believed that the souls of those who died in a state of mortal sin were consigned to hell immediately after death, those that were free from sin went straight to heaven, while those guilty of venial sins, the majority, entered purgatory, a state in which sin was cleansed through suffering. Bodily death for most of the faithful was, therefore, seen as initiating a period of transition between life on earth and eternal bliss in heaven. The emphasis on the soul during this period of transition, and the complex variety of prayers for reducing the soul's sufferings in purgatory, have been extensively explored by historians.

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Articles
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The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 46 , Issue 2 , April 1995 , pp. 237 - 255
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

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14 For the background to the administration of wills see Camp, A. J., Wills and their whereabouts, London 1974, pp. xxv–xxixGoogle Scholar, and Dinn, , ‘Popular religion’, 45–9Google Scholar.

15 Ibid. 63–70.

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18 BRO, Hoode, fo. 157.

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20 Ibid.

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26 Ibid. fo. 213.

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28 BRO, Hawlee, fo. 167. Testators with property in these parishes are Hawlee, fos 138, 167 and Pye, fo. 7; the testator making a high altar bequest is Hawlee, fo. 54; those mentioning other services in these churches are Pye, fos 24, 134; the testator mentioning a relative is BRO, archdeacon of Sudbury's court, Newton, fo. 88.

29 Harding, , ‘Burial location’, 120–1Google Scholar. See also Chiffoleau, , ‘La mort dans la région d'Avignon’, 124–5Google Scholar.

30 Dinn, ‘Popular religion’, ch. iii.

31 Ibid. 145–6; BRO, Hawlee, fos 69, 196, 333; Pye, fo. 180; Hoode, fo. 46.

32 Dinn, , ‘Popular religion’, 453–60Google Scholar. Testators in the wealthiest high altar bequest group – BRO, Hawlee, fo. 64; Pye, fos 44, 178; Hoode, fo. 21. Gentlemen/gentlewomen – Osbern, fo. 240; Pye, fo. 155. Bailiff–Pye, fo. 131. The references for other testators asking for burial in the abbey are Hawlee, fos 47, 82 and Pye, fo. 166.

33 BRO, Pye, fo. 131; Lobel, , The borough, 66Google Scholar.

34 Harding, , ‘Burial location’, 124Google Scholar.

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37 Bossy, , Christianity, 33Google Scholar; Ariès, , Western attitudes, 22–5Google Scholar; Chiffoleau, , La comptabilité, 164Google Scholar, and ‘La mort dans la région d'Avignon’, 124–5; Deregnancourt, , ‘L'Élection de sépulture’, 348Google Scholar.

38 BRO, Pye, fo. 176.

39 Shoesmith, , Excavations at Castle Green, 51Google Scholar; Dawes, and Magilton, , St Helen-on-the-Walls, 16Google Scholar.

40 BRO, Pye, fo. 123.

41 BL, Add. MS 7096, fo. 208, quoted in Elston, J. W., ‘William Curteys, abbot of Bury St Edmunds, 1429–1446’, unpubl. PhD diss. Berkeley, Ca. 1979, 106Google Scholar.

42 Harding, , ‘Burial location’, 128–9Google Scholar.

43 Stoker, B., ‘Medieval grave markers in Kent’, Church Monuments i (1986), 106–11Google Scholar; Phythian-Adams, , Folklore, 18Google Scholar; Gilmour, and Stocker, , St Mark's church and cemetery, 77Google Scholar, with illustrations on pp. 68, 75.

44 In theory, burials inside the church building were forbidden by the Church until the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215: Catholic encylopedia, iii. 506; Finucane, R. C., ‘Sacred corpse, profane carrion: social ideal and death rituals in the later Middle Ages’, in Whaley, J. (ed.), Mirrors of mortality: studies in the social history of death, London 1981, 43Google Scholar; Burn, Richard, The ecclesiastical law, London 1842, i. 256–7Google Scholar.

45 Gilmour, and Stocker, , St Mark's church and cemetery, 26Google Scholar.

46 Bell, R. D., Beresford, M. W. and others, Wharram, a study of settlement on the Yorkshire Wolds, London 1987, 84Google Scholar; Ariès, , Western attitudes, 20–2Google Scholar; Catholic encyclopedia, iii. 507.

47 Gilmour, and Stocker, , St Mark's church and cemetery, 64–82Google Scholar; Dawes, and Magilton, , St Helen-on-the-Walls, 17Google Scholar.

48 BRO, Osbern, fos 54, 61; Hawlee, fos 114, 146; Pye, fos 36, 123, 166, 169, 203, 209; Mason, fos 2, 26, 31; Hoode, fos 18, 39, 75, 52, 58, 82, 199, 122.

49 Secular priests – BRO, Hawlee, fo. 146; Pye, fo. 203; Hoode, fo. 52. Top high altar bequest group – Osbern, fos 54, 61; Hawlee, fo. 114; Pye, fos 36, 209; Mason, fo. 26; Hoode, fos 75, 58, 199.

50 Near the chancel, BRO, Pye, fos 195, 202; Mason, fo. 16. The choice of specific grave locations in cemeteries, in particular next to crosses, is also noted by Chiffoleau, La comptabilite, 162–3.

51 BRO, Hawlee, fo. 105.

52 Deregnancourt, , ‘L'Élection de sépulture’, 348Google Scholar.

53 Harding, , ‘Burial location’, 130–1Google Scholar, and ‘“And one more may be laid there”’, 120–1.

54 BRO, Pye, fo. 25.

55 BRO, Hawlee, fo. 129; Pye, fos 8, 25, 48. Others are Mason fo. 25; Hoode, fo. 126. The references for the secular priests are Hawlee, fo. 59; Pye, fo. 33; Mason, fo. 11; Hoode, fos 50, 62.

56 The Purification gild members buried in the south aisle of St Mary's church are: John, William and Anne Baret–BRO, Hawlee, fo. 95, and Pye, fos 154, 162; John and Katherine Perfay–Pye, fo. 214, and Hoode, fo. 55; Reginald Chirche–Pye, fo. 74; Thomas Clerke-Pye, fo. 190; Richard Kyng–Hoode, fo. 1.

57 BRO, Hawlee, fo. 95; Mason, fo. 11. See also Hoode, fos 42, 84.

58 Higgs, L. M. A., ‘Lay piety in the borough of Colchester’, unpubl. PhD diss. Michigan 1983, 147Google Scholar.

59 Gittings, C., Death, burial and the individual in early modern England, London 1984, 33Google Scholar. See also Chiffoleau, , La comptabilité, 170Google Scholar, and Boase, T. S. R., Death in the Middle Ages, London 1972, ch. iv, passimGoogle Scholar. John Smyth's monumental brass is in the south chancel chapel of St Mary's church, even though he asked in his will to be buried in the north aisle of the church (BRO, Hawlee, fo. 304).

60 Finucane, , ‘Sacred corpse’, 60Google Scholar.

61 BRO, Hoode, fo. 104. For the same symbolism of burial by the Resurrection altar see Fleming, , ‘Charity and the gentry’, 50Google Scholar. These are the references to burial before particular altars (excluding those buried before altars or images dedicated to Christ and the Virgin Mary): St Thomas's altar–Hawlee, fo. 33; SS Peter and Paul – Hawlee, fo. 285; Stjohn – Hawlee, fo. 304 and Pye, fo. 52; St Lawrence – Pye, fo. 132; Holy Trinity – Pye, fos 164, 171; St Christopher (abbey church) – Pye, fo. 180; St Mary Magdalene (abbey church) – Hoode, fo. 46.

62 BRO, Osbern, fo. 240; Hawlee, fo. 64; Pye, fo. 21; Mason, fo. 11; Hoode, fos 21, 104, 115.

63 Dinn, , ‘Popular religion’, 194–201Google Scholar.

64 BRO, Hawlee, fos 95, 333; Pye, fo. 113, See also Pye, fos 74, 214, 154, 162; Hoode, fo. 55.

65 BRO, Osbern, fo. 240; Hawlee, fos 64, 105, 114, 138, 229, 264, 333, 304; Pye, fos 52, 131, 166, 176, 196, 202, 214; Mason, fo. 11; Hoode, fos 21, 52, 105, 122; PRO, Prerogative Court of Canterbury, Moone, fo. 86. For examples from other parts of the country see Somerset medieval wills (1383–1500), ed. Weaver, F. W. (Somerset Record Society, 1901), xvi. 118, 146, 172, 295, 296, 382, 383Google Scholar; North Country wills (1383–1558), ed. Clay, J. W. (Surtees Society cxvi, 1908), 8, 52, 131Google Scholar.

66 BRO, Hawlee, fo. 229.

67 Dawes, and Magilton, , St Helen-on-lhe-Walls, 10Google Scholar.

68 Graves, , ‘Social space’, 309Google Scholar. See also Hanawalt, B. A., The ties that bound: peasant families in medieval England, New York 1986, 240Google Scholar.

69 Homans, G. C., English villagers of the thirteenth century, Cambridge, Mass. 1942, 94–6Google Scholar.

70 Harding, , ‘“And one more may be laid there”’, 122Google Scholar.

71 Weever, J., Ancient funerall monuments within the united monarchy of Great Britaine, Ireland and the Islands adiacent, London 1631, 10Google Scholar.

72 Ibid. 10.

73 Graves, , ‘Social space’, 301Google Scholar. Brown, , Cult of the saints 25Google Scholar, describes the Muslim tombs in Cairo's City of the Dead as ‘faithful replicas of social distinctions among the living’.

74 BRO, Hawlee, fos 69, 95, 135; Pye, fos 74, 123, 154, 214; Hoode, fos 141, 154. The references for the other three testators mentioning memorials are Hoode, fo. 132, Hawlee, fo. 167, and Norwich Records Office, bishop of Norwich's consistory court (hereinafter cited as NRO, NCC), Bryggs, fo. 3.

75 BRO, Pye, fo. 123.

76 Ibid. fo. 74; Hawlee, fo. 136. See also Hawlee, fo. 69; Pye, fos 95, 154, 214; Hoode, fo. 154.

77 BRO, Hawlee, fo. 95.

78 Weever, , Funerall monuments, 18Google Scholar. See also Chiffoleau, , La comptabilité, 171Google Scholar.

79 Dinn, , ‘Death and rebirth’, 151–69Google Scholar, and ‘Popular religion’, 721.

80 See Tymms, S., ‘Bury wills and inventories’, Camden Miscellany, i (Camden Society xxxix, 1850), 234–7Google Scholar. For details of John Baret's life, see Gibson, G. M., The theater of devotion, Chicago-London 1989, 72–9Google Scholar.

81 King, , ‘Contexts of the cadaver tomb’, 152, 182, 484–87Google Scholar, and ‘The English cadaver tomb in the late fifteenth century: some indications of a Lancastrian connection’, in Taylor, J. H. M. (ed.), Dies ilia: death in the Middle Ages, Liverpool 1984, 45–54Google Scholar.

82 The close relationship between Lydgate and Baret is illustrated by a series of documents relating to allowances paid to both Lydgate and Baret by the crown between 1439 and 1449. These continued to be paid to Baret even after Lydgate's death. The documents are transcribed in Lydgate and Burgh's “Secrees of old philosqffres”, ed. Steele, R. (Early English Text Society e.s. lxvi, 1894), pp. xxvi–xxxGoogle Scholar.

83 Graves, ‘Social space’, passim.

84 BRO, Hoode, fos 141, 132; Hawlee, fo. 167; NRO, NCC, Bryggs, fo. 3.

85 Catholic encyclopedia, iii. 71; Chiffoleau, , ‘La mort dans la région d'Avignon’, 125Google Scholar; Harding, , ‘Burial location’, 120Google Scholar, and ‘“And one more may be laid there”’, 113; Strocchia, , ‘Burials in Florence’, 208–9Google Scholar.

86 NRO, NCC, Bryggs, fo. 68; BRO, Hoode, fo. 122.

87 Harding, , ‘Burial location’, 126–7Google Scholar; Chiffoleau, , ‘La mort dans la région d'Avignon’, 125Google Scholar, and La comptabilité, 183–4; Fleming, , ‘Charity, and the gentry’, 51Google Scholar; Deregnancourt, , ‘L'Élection de sépulture’, 350–1Google Scholar.

88 BRO, Hawlee, fo. 51.

89 Dinn, , ‘Popular religion’, 71–3Google Scholar.

90 BRO, Hawlee, fos 31, 70, 118, 229; Pye, fos 48, 123, 175; Mason, fo. 2; Hoode, fo. 112.

91 BRO, Pye, fos 153, 154, 162; Hawlee, fo. 95.

92 BRO, Hawlee, fo. 219.

93 BRO, Hoode, fo. 122.

94 Owst, G. R., Literature and pulpit in medieval England, 2nd edn, Oxford 1961, 528–9Google Scholar.

95 For members of the Purification gild buried in the south aisle of St Mary's church, see no. 56 above. Members of the Purification gild buried in the north aisle of St Mary's church are John Smyth (Hawlee, fo. 304) and Thomas Chirche, son of Reginald (Hoode, fo. 154).

96 Harding, , ‘Burial location’, 124–5Google Scholar. For Bury gilds see Dinn, , ‘Popular religion’, ch. viiiGoogle Scholar.

97 Graves, , ‘Social space’, 305Google Scholar.