St Leonard’s Church in Wollaton, Nottinghamshire houses two late-medieval carved cadavers. One lies under the Easter Sepulchre, commissioned by Richard Willoughby (d1471), which commemorates him and his wife Anne. The other is inside the open cage tomb of Sir Henry Willoughby (d1528) which commemorates him and his four wives. Both carved cadavers feature a man, naked, lying in an open burial shroud, and in a state of extreme emaciation. This paper explores and contextualises these memento mori carved cadavers, placing them within the context of vernacular Roman Catholic beliefs of the time, notably purgatory. The paper also draws on empirical research to contend that at some point in history the carved cadaver sculptures were changed around, and that the emaciated form under the memorial to Richard is in fact the carved cadaver that was originally sculpted for Henry’s memorial, and that the sculpture in Henry’s tomb is that originally commissioned to commemorate Richard.
Christina Welch (Thu,) studied this question.