MEDIEVAL ROYAL AND EPISCOPAL BURIALS IN WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL

Abstract

The Chapter of Winchester Cathedral, in conjunction with biological anthropologists and other specialists, are currently studying the contents of the cathedral’s well-known ‘mortuary chests’. It is clear that they contain the jumbled remains of many more people than the eleven kings and bishops named on the surviving chests, which date from c 1525 and the 1660s. In this paper the archaeological and documentary evidence for earlier arrangements for housing the cathedral’s royal and episcopal bones is examined, identifying up to twenty-five possible occupants of the chests. This will establish the context for the continuing analysis and identification of the skeletal material.