‘THE SCULLS THAT LIE HEAP’D UP’: POST-MORTEM INTERACTIONS WITH HUMAN REMAINS IN THE CHARNEL HOUSE
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 04/01/2021

Curation of human remains in English charnel houses has received limited attention in studies of funerary practice, and comparatively less interest than charnel practices elsewhere in Europe. Yet analysis of architectural, archaeological and documentary evidence, including antiquarian accounts, suggest charnelling in England was more widespread than has hitherto been appreciated. The unique survival of a medieval charnel house and its contents at Rothwell, Northamptonshire has enabled the first comprehensive, multidisciplinary study of a well-preserved chapel where human remains survive in situ. New architectural, geophysical, topographic and osteological analysis, alongside radiocarbon dating of the human remains, permit a novel contextualisation of a charnel house in its

medieval theological and liturgical context. It also enables an exploration of the post-medieval rediscovery of the crypt, the reimagining of the charnel over time and interactions with the bones over the last three hundred years, including the addition of human remains and its development as a tourist attraction. We argue that the charnel house at Rothwell, a subterranean room constructed during the thirteenth century, may have been a particularly sophisticated example of an experiment born out of beliefs surrounding Purgatory and reveal a range of different practices with varied motivations that have continued to manage the dead at this site since its rediscovery at the beginning of the 18th century.


Author(s): Craig-Atkins, Elizabeth - Crangle, Jennifer (University of Sheffield) - Barnwell, Paul (Oxford University) - Hadley, Dawn (University of York)