Seriously gross:
No, seriously. The fact that I was eating porridge at the time I discovered this quote did NOT help.
From a paper discussing the exhumation of very well-preserved medieval remains:
Five years later, in 1779, at the church of Danbury in Essex, there was found, under a cross-legged effigy of a knight, a lead coffin enclosing a wooden one, `very firm and entire', containing a `shell' three-quarters of an inch thick - possibly a solidified shroud? Inside was the body, apparently unshrouded, `lying in a liquor or pickle somewhat resembling mushroom catchup'. It says a lot for the spirit of scientific enquiry at the time that the investigator tasted it!
(Todd's The St Bee's Man and the Medieval Way of Death)
From a paper discussing the exhumation of very well-preserved medieval remains:
Five years later, in 1779, at the church of Danbury in Essex, there was found, under a cross-legged effigy of a knight, a lead coffin enclosing a wooden one, `very firm and entire', containing a `shell' three-quarters of an inch thick - possibly a solidified shroud? Inside was the body, apparently unshrouded, `lying in a liquor or pickle somewhat resembling mushroom catchup'. It says a lot for the spirit of scientific enquiry at the time that the investigator tasted it!
(Todd's The St Bee's Man and the Medieval Way of Death)