MEDIEVAL ROYAL AND EPISCOPAL BURIALS IN WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL

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.