ABSTRACT
In January 1603 George Boleyn, dean of Lichfield, was buried in his cathedral near the entrance to the choir. His gravestone bore a brass plaque which informed readers that he had ‘made his own Epitaph’:
The good dean’s musings represent the remarkable shift in beliefs about the dead that occurred during the sixteenth century. In stark contrast to epitaphs from his grandparents’ generation, Boleyn explicitly commanded the reader to ignore his soul, while he parodied traditional memento mori rhymes.
