Walking the Whinny-Moor: Corpse roads and pre-funeral death rituals in early modern England

Date of Publication:

29.07.2024

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.62800/NR.2024.2.03

Abstract:

This paper discusses the evidence for “corpse roads” in early modern Britain. Corpse roads were route ways used by funeral parties to transport the deceased from the place of death to the place of final interment. In some cases, some routes took on localised symbolic or folkloric significance, and in a few cases, this is preserved in the present day in contemporary route names, tourism and on modern maps. This paper reviews the evidence for corpse roads, and the methodologies needed to interrogate that evidence. These methodologies are drawn from folklore, ethnology, archaeology and history. The case of one corpse path, in Swaledale in northern England, is presented as a case study.

Keywords:

corpse roads, footpaths, footpaths walking; landscape, funerals, walking

Download PDF:

PDF

References:

Aubrey, John. 1881. Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme, 1686-87. Edited by James Britten. London: W. Satchell, Peyton and Co.
Bell, Martin – Leary, Jim. 2020. Pathways to Past Ways: A Positive Approach to Routeways and Mobility. Antiquity 94 (377): 1349–1359. <https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2020.133>.
Burgess, Clive. 2009. “An Afterlife in Memory”: Commemoration and Its Effects in a Late Medieval Parish. Studies in Church History 45 (January): 196–217. <https://doi.org/10.1017/S0424208400002515>.
Cooper, Edmund. 1948. Muker: The Story of a Yorkshire Parish. The Dalesman.
Cressy, David. 1997. Ritual and Reformation. In Cressy, David. Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England. Oxford University Press. 396–416. <https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198201687.003.0019>.
David, Bruno – Thomas, Julian. 2008. Landscape Archaeology: Introduction. In Handbook of Landscape Archaeology. Routledge. 27–43.
Dunn, Stuart. 2020. Folklore in the Landscape: The Case of Corpse Paths. Time and Mind 13 (3): 245–265. <https://doi.org/10.1080/1751696X.2020.1815291>.
Frisby, Helen. 2019. Traditions of Death and Burial. Oxford: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Gittings, Clare. 1984. Death, Burial and the Individual in Early Modern England. London: Routledge. <https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003459446>.
Hindle, Paul. 1998. Medieval Roads and Tracks. Oxford: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Hippsley-Cox, R. 1914. The Green Roads of England. Methuen and Co.
Hutton, Ronald. 1995. The English Reformation and the Evidence of Folklore. Past & Present, (148): 89–116.
Kenny, Christine. 1998. A Northern Thanatology: A Comprehensive Review of Illness, Death and Dying in the North West of England from the 1500s to the Present Time. With Contributions from Bill Flynn and Joan Miller. Dinton, Wiltshire: Quay Books.
Laqueur, Thomas W. 2015. The Work of the Dead. Princeton University Press. <https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400874514>.
MacLagan, M. 1970. Review of Heralds of England: A History of the Office and College of Arms; The Great Tournament Roll of Westminster, by Anthony Wagner and Sydney Anglo. The English Historical Review 85 (336): 572–576.
Orme, Nicholas. 2021. Going to Church in Medieval England. Yale University Press.
Palmer, W[illiam]. 1914. Odd Yarns of English Lakeland: Narratives of Romance, Mystery and Superstitions Told by Dalesfolk. Singleton.
Paphitis, Tina. 2019. Folklore and Public Archaeology in the UK. Public Archaeology 18 (3): 139–161. <https://doi.org/10.1080/14655187.2020.1813453>.
Readman, Paul. 2022. Footpaths in England: Notes Towards a Radical History. In Svensson, Daniel – Saltzman, Katarina – Sörlin, Sverker (eds.). Pathways: Exploring the Routes of a Movement Heritage. 33–55. Winwick: White Horse Press.
Richardson, Ruth. 1993. Death’s Door: Thresholds and Boundaries in British Funeral Customs. In Davidson, Hilda Ellis (ed.). Boundaries and Thresholds. The Thimble Press. 91–101.
Sedgwick, Icy. 2019. Take a Walk along the Old Corpse Roads – England’s Highways of the Dead. Icy Sedgwick (blog) [online]. Available from: <https://www.icysedgwick.com/corpse-roads/> [accessed May 10, 2024].
Shekhar, Shekhar – Valeri, Marco. 2022. Evolving Themes in Dark Tourism Research: A Review Study. Tourism: An International Interdisciplinary Journal 70 (4): 624–641. <https://doi.org/10.37741/t.70.4.6>.
Svensson, Daniel – Saltzman, Katarina – Sörlin, Sverker (eds.). 2022. Pathways: Exploring the Routes of a Movement Heritage. The White Horse Press. <https://doi.org/10.3197/63787710662654.book>.
Thompson, E. P. 1991. Customs in Common: Studies in Traditional Popular Culture. New Press/ORIM.
Trigger, Bruce. 2006. A History of Archaeological Thought. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Watkins, Alfred. 1925. The Old Straight Track: Its Mounds, Beacons, Moats, Sites and Mark Stones. Methuen.
Weeks, Wm. Self. 1928. Public Right of Way Believed to Be Created by the Passage of a Corpse. Folklore 39 (4): 393–398.
Williams, Kelsey Jackson. 2016. The Antiquary: John Aubrey’s Historical Scholarship. Oxford University Press.