This monument represents the heart burial of Richard I of England, one element of the king’s tripartite interment. After his death in 1199 at Châlus, his viscera were buried on the spot, his heart was taken to Rouen Cathedral, and the rest of his body was laid at the feet of Henry II at Fontevraud Abbey. The practice, reserved for royal or high noble figures, reflected both logistical realities and a desire to distribute the deceased’s memory and spiritual presence across significant political and dynastic sites.

The effigy marking the heart grave was lost for centuries until its rediscovery in 1838, when excavations beneath a medieval inscription identified the original sculpture. Carved from a single block of limestone, the recumbent figure measures roughly six feet and displays many of the defining features of late-12th to early-13th-century royal effigies.

Richard lies in the traditional gisant pose, his head supported by a squared cushion, his feet resting upon a crouching lion, a motif signalling princely valour and a long-established emblem of kingship. He wears a crown with chiselled jewels, and his long tunic and finely patterned belt, though simply rendered, evoke the courtly dress of the Angevin dynasty. The facial modelling, calm, bearded, hieratic, belongs to the sober, idealised idiom characteristic of early Gothic funerary sculpture, where effigies aim less at portraiture than at presenting the eternalised, perfected ruler.

Historical context

The tomb belongs to a pivotal moment in the evolution of royal funerary art. In the decades around 1200, northern French workshops were developing the monumental stone effigy as a stable funerary type, stiff in pose, symmetrical in design, and focused on sacral kingship rather than individual likeness. Richard’s effigy sits squarely within this tradition and may share workshop affinities with the celebrated Plantagenet tombs at Fontevraud, where similar carving techniques, drapery systems, and iconographic conventions are found.

The lion at his feet, the slightly raised head, and the dignified stillness of the figure reflect a transitional Gothic style: more naturalistic than the rigid Romanesque prototypes of the 12th century, yet not fully embracing the softer modelling of the later 13th century. The monument also testifies to Rouen Cathedral’s status as a major centre of Plantagenet patronage, reinforcing the city’s political and ecclesiastical significance.

Nearby, the tomb of Henry the Young King, Richard’s elder brother, completes a familial ensemble that once articulated the dynasty’s ambitions and theological self-representation.

Historical reception

For five centuries following his death, Richard’s memory was revered to near-mythic proportions, his reputation as the quintessential crusading monarch secure in both French and English tradition. Only in modern historiography has a more critical assessment emerged, with one historian famously condemning him as “a bad son, bad husband, and bad king”, a stark counterpoint to the idealised, serene figure carved into the stone.1

See here for other pages associated with Rouen Cathedral.

• 1.
  
  Gillingham, John Richard I Yale English Monarchs Yale English Monarchs New Haven Yale University Press 1999.

  pp1-3.