Buried Under the Path

Yesterday we visited the Begijnhof in Amsterdam. We saw the small Catholic chapel, and the outsides of residences and the English Reformed Church. We did not see, at least I did not, the marker for the grave of Cornelia Arents, a beguine who arranged for burial under the path to the church, as penance for the conversion to Protestantism of certain relatives. An alternative version says that she considered the church as desecrated by the English Reformed takeover.

An early Catholic bishop of New York supposedly asked to be buried under the pavements, though as a reproach to his flock. The churches of Europe are full of grave markers in the pavement--perhaps the point was to be buried outside.