The King`s Body – Burial and Succession in Late Anglo–Saxon England Marafioti

The King's BodyBurial and Succession in Late Anglo-Saxon England\nAuthor(s): Nicole Marafioti\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: University of Toronto Press, Canada\nImprint: University of Toronto Press\nISBN-13: 9781442647589, 978-1442647589\nSynopsis\nThe Kings Body investigates the role of royal bodies, funerals, and graves in English succession debates from the death of Alfred the Great in 899 through the Norman Conquest in 1066. Using contemporary texts and archaeological evidence, Nicole Marafioti reconstructs the political activity that accompanied kings burials, to demonstrate that royal bodies were potent political objects which could be used to provide legitimacy to the next generation.\n\n In most cases, new rulers celebrated their predecessors memory and honored his corpse to emphasize continuity and strengthen their claims to the throne. Those who rose by conquest or regicide, in contrast, often desecrated the bodies of deposed royalty or relegated them to anonymous graves in.