Edward The Confessor's Chapel, Westminster Abbey: The Origins of the Royal Mausoleum and its Cosmatesque Pavement

Abstract

It has hitherto been argued that Edward the Confessor's Chapel at Westminster Abbey, built by Henry III in 1246–59, was established as the royal mausoleum only from the 1290s. In 2005 a ground penetrating radar survey of the chapel floor revealed many anomalies, some of which can be interpreted as grave cists. A re-examination of the written and physical evidence for subfloor burials in the chapel suggests that, among other early burials, at least five of Edward I's children were interred here in the period 1264–84. It thus appears that the chapel was used as a family mausoleum before 1290 and was not originally exclusively reserved for the monarchs and their consorts. New light is also thrown on the vexed question of the date of the Cosmatesque floor in the shrine chapel, which is here redated to the 1290s.