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Beginning in the 15th century, cadaver tombs were a departure, in tomb architecture, from the usual practice of showing merely an effigy of the person as they were in life.
These tombs were made only for high-ranking nobles, usually royalty or bishops, because one had to be rich to afford to have one made, and powerful to be allotted space for one in a church. The tombs for royalty were generally double tombs, for a king and queen, and are the ones usually meant by the term "cadaver tomb."
| The first cadaver tomb ever constructed, shown to the left, is in Lincoln Cathedral (England). It is the one of Bishop Richard Fleming who founded Lincoln College, Oxford and died in 1431. | The tomb on the left is that of Henry Chichele, archbishop of Canterbury ( 1414 - 1443), in Canterbury Cathedral. |
| The example on the left is a cadaver tomb which does not show the live person. It is the tomb of John Wakeman in Tewkesbury Abbey. Wakeman was abbot of Tewkesbury Abbey 1531 - 1539, then the abbey was dissolved, he retired, and he later became 1st bishop of GloucesterThis is about Gloucester, England for other uses see Gloucester (disambiguation Gloucester (pronounced 'Gloster') is a city in south-west England, close to the Welsh border. In 1991 it had a population of 106,526. Traditionally Gloucester has been the cou. He prepared this tomb himself, with vermin crawling on his skeletal corpse, but never used it; he is buried in Forthampton. | Some of the finest examples of cadaver tombs are those of the French kings in Saint Denis BasilicaThe Basilica of Saint Denis (in French, la Basilique de Saint-Denis , a famous burial site for French monarchs, is located in Saint Denis (near Paris). Saint Denis is a patron saint of France and, according to legend, was the first bishop of Paris. A simp. The tomb on the left is the one of Henry IIHenry II (Henri II in French ( March 31 1519 July 10 1559), a member of the Valois Dynasty, was King of France from 1547 until his death. Born in the Royal Chateau at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France, the son of Francois I and Claude de France, his marriage and his wife Catherine de Medici, constructed in the late 16th century15th century 16th century 17th century more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. Events Beginning of the " Little Ice Age" a cooling period that resulted in lower crop yi. |
See also: cemeteryGreen-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York A cemetery is a place (usually an enclosed area of land) in which dead bodies are buried. The term cemetery implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are t, tomb