Corpse Roads

I learnt something new recently. 

Corpse roads are a category of track/road along which the dead were most often taken. Why I hear you ask? It comes down the right to burial. 

In rural areas for example, there may have been numerous chapels in the area to attend weekly services at, however there may have been only one parish church that held the right of burial. 

Hindle uses the example of Kendal, the parish of which extended over an area of 25km/16miles. Villagers within the parish had to transport the dead back to Kendal to the rites of burial. The population collapse that followed the Black Death however led to the creation of two more parishes in the area, shortening the distance to travel. 

Read more on burial rites here.

Further south in Abingdon, the abbey church held the right to bury the dead which the churches of St Helens and St Nicholas (the other parish churches in the town) did not. However, in an 1391 a papal bull was issued which consecrated a burial ground at St Helen’s that was already in use. Clearly parishioners were not above taking a practical approach.  

 

Notes

Cox, M., The Story of Abingdon, Part I (Abingdon, 1986) p. 74

Hindle, P., Medieval Roads and Tracks (Princes Risborough: Shire Publications LTD, 1998) pp, 10-12

Preston, A., The church and parish of St. Nicholas, Abingdon (Wakefield: S.R. Publishers Limited, 1971) p. 35

Slade, C. and Lambrick, G., 'Two cartularies of Abingdon Abbey' in Oxford Historical Society, New Series, (1988). Vol. 1, p. 453

Stevens, The History of the Antient Abbeys, Monasteries, Hospitals, Catherdral and Collegiate Churches being two additional volumes to William Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, (London: Tho. Taylor et. al., 1722)  p. 507