The Mummified Remains of Bishop Peder Pedersen Winstrup

Many years ago, an eminent bishop - Peder Pedersen Winstrup - was buried on the grounds of Lund Cathedral, Sweden. When Winstrup’s coffin was first exhumed, it was noted that it contained an unusual bundle. Still, it wasn’t until centuries later, when the coffin was X-rayed, that scientists were stunned to realise that Bishop Winstrup was buried with the remains of a fetus.

This finding left many people wondering who Bishop Peder Winstrup was and why was he buried with the body of a child?

Who was Bishop Peder Lund Winstrup?

Peder Winstrup was born in 1605 in the then capital of Denmark/Norway, Copenhagen. It is clear that Winstrup was influenced by his father, as Peder Jensen Vinstrup was the Bishop of Sjaelland and also a professor of theology at the University of Copenhagen. What’s more, once his father passed away when Winstrup was nine years old, his mother went on to marry her husband’s replacement as bishop. 

Peder Winstrup grew up to be an accomplished man; he studied at the University of Rostock, Wittenberg, Leipzig, the University of Jena, Germany, and he graduated from the University of Copenhagen. Also, like the male figureheads in his family, Winstrup became a prominent church figure, and he was assigned as the royal chaplain to King Christian IV. Eventually, he was made bishop of Lund, Scania (a province in Denmark) in the year 1638, but his prowess did not stop there; not only was Bishop Winstrup quite politically prominent during his lifetime, but he also went on to become one of the founding fathers of Lund University in 1666.

Winstrup initially married Anne Marie Ernstratter Baden and had five children with her, before going on to marry a noblewoman - Dorothea von Anderson - who is believed to have been very pro-danish and politically influential in her own way in Scania. Von Anderson’s dedication to Denmark may have caused conflict between the couple when Winstrup was made noble by the Swedish King Charles X Gustav when his land was taken from Danish control after the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658. In fact, von Anderson continued to communicate confidentially with factions of the Danish government and created a great deal of difficulty for her husband in Sweden when she publicly stated that all Swedes were dogs, and their children should not be granted entry to any scholarship programs in Scania.

Bishop Peder Lund Winstrup passed away in December 1679 and was buried in the grounds of Lund Cathedral - as he would have undoubtedly have wanted. His coffin was exhumed in the 19th and 20th centuries, and to archaeologists’ surprise, Winstrup’s remains were exceptionally well-preserved.

What was found in Bishop Winstrup’s coffin?

In 2012, the decision was made to move the Bishop’s coffin to a new site. Thus, scientists were offered the chance to study Winstrup’s remains before he was reburied. They conducted X-rays and CT scans of the body and examined the objects in the coffin in more detail, such as the clothing, relics, and various plants and insects.

The scientists were surprised to discover that despite the incredible condition of Winstrup’s body, he hadn’t been embalmed. Instead, he was placed atop a mattress-like object which was filled with herbs such as juniper and wormwood. What’s more, the bishop’s head was rested on a cushion filled with hops. These plants helped retain the remain’s condition - even including the clothes that the Bishop was dressed in as their colours had merely faded over time. There are potentially other elements that contributed to this remarkable level of preservation - the Bishop had likely lost a lot of weight prior to passing away, and after he died in December, his body was placed in a cool room to allow for viewing. However, the herbs probably played the most significant role in his preserved state.

This analysis of the coffin’s contents also led to the conclusion that Winstrup likely died of pneumonia and that he also had a variety of ailments caused by a high-fat diet. It was also clear that he had a sweet tooth, as his teeth were in poor condition with many cavities, and there was a bag containing his lost ones buried with him in the coffin.

Despite these interesting finds, they were somewhat overshadowed when the X-ray and CT scans revealed that the Bishop wasn’t buried alone. The small, linen-wrapped object at the bottom of the coffin was actually a fetus - a baby who was stillborn at roughly five or six months of development. The bundle was placed amongst the herbs between Winstrup’s lower legs, and it was originally thought that the baby was snuck into his coffin in a desperate attempt to ensure sanctified burial. However, despite initial assumptions, a further DNA analysis of the fetus’ remains revealed that the Bishop and the baby were related.

The scientists at Lund extracted DNA from the Bishop’s and baby’s femurs, ascertaining that the baby was male and that they shared approximately 25% of the same genetic material. It was further determined that the baby was related to Winstrup on the paternal side of the family, as there was only a Y-chromosome match. These findings suggest that the Bishop could have been a grandparent, uncle, or even potentially a half-sibling to the baby.

In an attempt to narrow down the relationship, the Bishop’s genealogical records kept in Stockholm were examined in detail. By studying the paternal line, the researchers were able to narrow the search down to the children that he had with his first wife, thus determining that Winstrup was most likely the baby’s grandfather. However, there are still some questions around this conclusion, as there is a slight chance that the baby could have been that of Winstrup’s sister, and therefore he could have been his uncle.

Conclusion

It was not uncommon at this time for people to place the remains of children into a coffin with an adult. Furthermore, the rushed manner with which the child seemed positioned in the coffin ties in with the likelihood that a relative placed him there in the hopes that he would be buried in sanctified grounds with his prominent and highly regarded relative - a theory that is backed up by analysis of the Bishop’s DNA. In fact, thanks to this analysis, you too can find out if you have a DNA link to the prominent Bishop Peder Winstrup with My True Ancestry.