Charnel House

Charnel House (Latin, carnalis, from caro, carnis, flesh), a mortuary chapel or vault containing the bodies or bones of the dead. In some Roman Catholic countries (e.g. Brittany, and parts of Switzerland) it is customary, after the flesh of bodies has decomposed, to transfer the skulls and some of the larger bones to such chapels (called ossuaires in Brittany), where they are arranged on shelves. The crypts (q.v.) of churches were sometimes employed thus in medieeval England, and there are numerous skulls in a building attached to the church of Hythe in Sussex.