Modern marker for the site of the burial of the heart of Robert the Bruce at Melrose Abbey

Heart-burial is a type of burial in which the heart is interred apart from the body. In medieval Europe heart-burial was fairly common among the higher echelons of society, as was the parallel practice of the separate burial of entrails or wider viscera: examples can be traced back to the beginning of the twelfth century.[1] Evisceration was carried out as part of normal embalming practices, and, where a person had died too far from home to make full body transport practical without infection, it was often more convenient for the heart or entrails to be carried home as token representations of the deceased.[2] The motivation subsequently became the opportunity to bury and memorialise an individual in more than one location.

Medieval

Notable medieval examples include:

Modern

Burial site of Thomas Hardy's heart

More modern examples include:

Cultural references

In the 1994 movie Legends of the Fall, the character Samuel (Henry Thomas) is killed while serving in the Canadian Army in World War I. His brother (Brad Pitt) cuts the heart out of the body and sends it home to be buried on his father's ranch in Montana.[10]

See also

  • Herzgruft; a burial chamber that protects 54 urns containing the hearts of members of the House of Habsburg.

References

  1. Badham 2019, p. 21.
  2. Badham 2019, p. 20.
  3. Chisholm 1911.
  4. "Prince Archbishop Leopold von Firmian | Constructor Schloss Leopoldskron Salzburg". www.schloss-leopoldskron.com. Retrieved 2022-10-14.
  5. McGreevy, Nora (2 September 2020). "Renovations Reveal 19th-Century Mayor's Heart Entombed in Belgian Fountain". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
  6. 1 2 "Belgian mayor's heart dug out of fountain during renovation works". The Brussels Times. 1 September 2020. Retrieved 3 September 2020.
  7. Léon 1979, p. 161
  8. "Verviers - fontaine David". Musée de l'Eau et de la Fontaine (in French). Retrieved 3 September 2020.
  9. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2101-2378266.html%5B%5D
  10. "Legends of the fall Script". Script-o-rama.com. Retrieved 2011-12-10.

Bibliography

  • This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Heart-burial". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 134.
  • Badham, Sally (2019). "Divided in death: the iconography of English medieval heart and entrails monuments". Church Monuments. 34: 16–76.
  • Bradford, C. A. (1933). Heart Burial. London: Allen & Unwin.
  • Dru Drury, Godfrey (1927). "Heart burials and some Purbeck marble heart shrines". Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club. 46: 38–58.
  • Dietz, Armin (1998). Ewige Herzen: Kleine Kulturgeschichte der Herzbestattungen. Munich: Medien & Medizin Verlag. ISBN 3-8208-1339-X.
  • Hartshorne, Emily Sophia (1861). Enshrined Hearts of Warriors and Illustrious People. London: Robert Hardwicke.
  • Léon, Paul (1979). "Pierre David (1771-1839)" (PDF). Biographie Nationale. Vol. 41/13. Brussels: Royal Academy of Belgium.
  • Warntjes, Immo (2012). "Programmatic double burial (body and heart) of the European high nobility, c.1200–1400: its origin, geography, and functions". In Spiess, Karl-Heinz; Warntjes, Immo (eds.). Death at Court. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. pp. 197–259. ISBN 9783447067607.
  • Weiss-Krejci, Estella (2001). "Restless corpses: secondary burial in the Babenberg and Habsburg dynasties". Antiquity. 75 (290): 769–80. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00089274. S2CID 161843486.
  • Weiss-Krejci, Estella (2010). "Heart burial in medieval and early post-medieval central Europe". In Rebay-Salisbury, Katharina; Sørensen, Marie Louise Stig; Hughes, Jessica (eds.). Body Parts and Bodies Whole: changing relations and meanings (PDF). Studies in Funerary Archaeology. Vol. 5. Oxford: Oxbow Books. pp. 119–34. ISBN 978-1-84217-402-9.
  • Westerhof, Danielle (2008). Death and the Noble Body in Medieval England. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer. ISBN 9781843834168.
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