Did Emperor Charles V rehearse his own funeral?

It is said that he went inside the coffin and listened to the prayers for his soul there

It is said that Emperor Charles V held his funeral during his lifetime and even lay down in a coffin to listen to the monks’ prayers for his soul. But how much of this is true?

After the death of Emperor Charles V on the night of 21 September 1558, the church of the Monastery of Yuste was completely covered with black drapery and a large catafalque with the coffin was placed in the centre of the temple. The funeral lasted three days and three nights of continuous masses and prayers until he was buried under the altar of the church as the emperor had arranged.

That was once he was dead.

But did he also celebrate his own funeral while he was still alive? It has come down to us that, before he died, the emperor ordered his own funeral to be rehearsed; that he went inside the coffin and listened to the prayers for his soul.

True or false?

There is a very interesting study by Francisco Javier Campos y Fernández de Sevilla -Private Funeral and State Funeral for Charles I/V at Yuste and Brussels (1558)- which addresses this question. According to him, the news of the fact of the funeral during the emperor’s lifetime comes from Hieronymite sources, whose author, Fray Hernando del Corral, was a witness to the events. The fact was later known to Fray José de Sigüenza, who reproduced it almost verbatim. Later, in the second half of the 18th century, authors such as W. Robertson expanded on the event, making it even more dramatic. His work was so successful that it was translated into several languages, which meant that many authors found in the scene an unbalanced Charles V, enclosed in a gloomy atmosphere.

Until voices such as that of Manuel González, canon of Plasencia Cathedral, denied the funeral on the basis of the silence of the civilian witnesses to the emperor’s last days. It was not in vain that they were all highly qualified figures who left a record of the emperor’s stay in Yuste in the form of numerous letters and documents.
Consequently, and as Francisco Javier Campos y Fernández de Sevilla reasons without questioning the reliability of the religious sources, it is enough to make a more relaxed reading of the Hieronymite sources, as W. Stirling did, to accept that religious services were held, but without the phantasmagorical performance of the emperor.

Monasterio de Yuste.

What the emperor celebrated was a requiem mass, for which the corresponding tumulus was placed, as in the case of masses for the dead, with all the members of the household and their servants dressed in mourning. Furthermore, Francisco Javier Campos y Fernández de Sevilla records that «he [Charles V] went out to offer his candle in the hands of the priest, as if he were placing his soul in God’s hands».

Seen through the eyes of the 16th century, when death was a reality present in everyone’s life, it is a truly moving scene, but without going as far as what has come to be told about it.