Two days after unveiling a reconstruction of the face of Richard III, Leicester experts have now recreated how Greyfriars, his final resting place, might have looked.
Built in 1230, Greyfriars was one of the first Franciscan friaries to be established in England, just 6 years after the order came to Britain, but it was completely demolished during the 16th century Dissolution of the Monasteries.
Now artist and archaeological illustrator Jill Atherton has recreated the friary church, as well as the choir where Richard’s grave was located, in sketches based on similar Medieval buildings, together with archaeological evidence from the recent excavation , including window fragments and pieces of lead, suggesting stained glass, together with stonework, pieces of a large window frame, and roof and floor tiles.
Click here to read more about how the church was discovered, or here to read our full report on how Richard III’s remains were identified, and what they tell us about his life and death.
I do hope the authorities realize that he was a Catholic king and that his enterrment and services should be Catholic and not Anglican.
You are correct but it is the living that decide what is to be done with the dead and in this case at least at the time of his death he was on singularly bad terms with the living. I wouldn’t count on him getting a church service now either.
Indeed he was a member of the Catholic Church in England, with it’s distinctive English rites.
The Anglican Church has always claimed to be that same church, catholic, apostolic, reformed, but unbroken in lineage. Acceptance and agreement is not compulsory.
What is clear is that York is the most appropriate burial site for the King, other than perhaps Westminster Abbey, and that that service should be appropriate and focussed on Richard himself; and should be the Latin Sarum or York rites which remain valid expressions of Christian faith today.
The current Anglican liturgy would be as inappropriate as the current Novus Ordo Roman Catholic Mass. Least appropriate of all would be a ‘ecumenical’ service.. a kind of religious smorgasbord with the laudable aim of being inclusive but succeeding in being nothing much.
With respect, I don’t think that’s relevant now. He was buried in 1485 presumably with the monks saying [albeit hastily] the Catholic prayers of the day over his remains. His reinterrment should not be subjected to sectarian debate about whether it be in a Catholic or an Anglican cathedral. His forebears and those monarchs who came after him before the Reformation are now, after all, resting in places administered by mostly Anglican or Protestant affiliations. So long as RIII is reburied with the appropriate dignity and solemnity due to an annointed king, that’s all most of us Ricardians will care about.
who really cares ? its the same god