The King’s 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.

List of Tables and Figures

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Introduction. The Politics of Royal Burial in Late Anglo-Saxon England

1. Royal Tombs and Political Performance: New Minster and Westminster

2. Tenth-century Royal Mausolea and the Power of Place

3. Funeral, Coronation, and Continuity: Political Corpses in the Eleventh Century

4. Royal Body as Executed Body: Physical Propaganda in the Reigns of Harold Harefoot and Harthacnut

5. Body and Memory: The Missing Corpse of King Edward the Martyr

6. Bodies of Conquest: Kings, Saints, and Conquerors in the Reign of Cnut

7. Conclusions: William of Normandy and the Landscape of Anglo-Saxon Royal Burial

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Index