The Remains of the Royal Dead in an English Carthusian Manuscript, London, British Library, MS Additional 37049

Abstract

"The Remains of the Royal Dead in an English Carthusian Manuscript, London, British Library, MS Additional 37049." This essay contextualizes two illustrations of the royal dead in an English devotional miscellany (London, British Library, MS Additional 37049), ca. 1460-1470. The illustrations, inspired by contemporary examples of tomb art, show the royal dead lying in state atop majestic tombs, while beneath we see corpses or transis, sewn into shrouds and attacked by worms, snakes, and macabre vermin. This essay discusses how these drawings might have been read and understood by the Carthusian community of readers who produced, compiled, and read this manuscript. More specifically, these images are read against what we know of contemporary social relations between the Carthusian order and secular society, including the controversial incursion of dead bodies of lay donors and patrons into burial spaces within English charterhouses. The drawings are used as a way of exploring some of the broader tensions between the Carthusian desert and the world outside the cloister, especially those tensions intensified through acts of patronage and beneficence.