ABSTRACT
Edward the Confessor was buried in January 1066 in Westminster Abbey, the church he had transformed. As his earliest hagiographer described:
[t]he funeral rites were arranged at the royal cost and with royal honour . . . They bore his holy remains from his palace home into the house of God, and offered up prayers and sighs and psalms . . . they blessed the office of the internment . . . with the singing of masses and the relief of the poor . . . They also caused the whole of the thirtieth day following to be observed with the celebration of masses and the chanting of psalms, and expended many pounds of gold for the redemption of his soul in the alleviation of different classes of the poor. 1
