BURIALS AND FUNERAL CEREMONIES.

Embalming and Incineration of Bodies amongst the Ancients.—Interment brought into practice by Christianity.—The Wrapping of the Dead in Shrouds.—The Direction in which the Bodies were laid.—Absolution Crosses.—Funeral Furniture.—Coffins and Sarcophagi in the Middle Ages.—Funereal Sculpture and Architecture, from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century.—The Catacombs at Rome.—Charnel-houses in the Churches.—Public Cemeteries.—The Cemetery of the Innocents, Paris.—Lanterns for the Dead.—Funerals of the Kings and Queens of France.—The Rolls of the Dead.—Consoling Thought of the Resurrection and of Eternal Life.

In the most remote epoch of the world’s history we find that the dead were treated with respect, not to say worshipped; for a natural, sentiment leads savage as well as civilised man to pay the last tribute of affection to the bodies of those for whom he once felt affection, esteem, or fear. Such is the moral principle of the various modes of burial which have been successively practised, viz., embalming, incineration, and interment. Many ancient nations, and especially the Egyptians, who sought to preserve the human body for an indefinite length of time, embalmed their dead with extreme care, or rather, we should say, with wonderful art.

The Greeks generally burnt their dead and collected their ashes in urns; with the Romans the custom of burning was usual, at least amongst the rich, and lasted long after the establishment of Christianity, which dogmatically enjoined the interment of the dead, though this mode of sepulture had before been confined to slaves, suicides, and the poor.

The Christians introduced at the same time the old Jewish custom of swathing the dead body in a winding-sheet, which was bound up with long bands soaked in resinous and perfumed oil, after the fashion of the Egyptians. Embalming was, moreover, prescribed and authorised by divine legislation. It is said in Genesis that it took forty days to embalm the body of Jacob, and in the sixteenth chapter of St. Mark we read, “And when the Sabbath was past, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome, had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint Him.”

All the bas-reliefs of the fifth and sixth centuries, upon which figure bodies prepared for burial, represent a regular mummy swathed in bands; and this mode of wrapping the body, which seems to imply that it had first been embalmed, was still in use at the end of the eighth century. After this epoch we do not possess sufficiently accurate data to say what was the general practice. We know, however, that for a certain length of time the dead were sewn up in leather prepared from the skins of stags or oxen. The cervicorium, or stag-hide, was a kind of shroud specially used for warriors, if we may believe the war ballads. Precious tissues were used at that time for the winding-sheets of ecclesiastical persons; and in a tomb of the tenth century, in the vault of St. Germain des Prés, in Paris, a skeleton was found which was enveloped in a piece of cloth, tied at the neck and the feet with short narrow bands. The dead bodies of the lower classes were buried in shrouds made of some common material.

Before burial, the hands were always folded across the breast. This was customary in the East throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, and the doctors of the Greek Church attached so much importance to it that, according to an author of the thirteenth century, they made it a great reproach to the Latins that they neglected to observe this Christian law.

Fig. 344.—Christ victorious over Death; with the following Inscription:—

“Hic residens solio Christus jam victor in alto

Mortem calce premit, colligat atque fodit.

Dumque salutiferam vult mors extinguere vitam,

Infelix hamo deperit illa suo.”

Fac-simile of a Miniature from the “Choir Book” of the Cathedral at Worms.—Manuscript of the Eighth or Ninth Century, in the Library of the Arsenal, Paris.

The direction in which the body was to be buried was, moreover, particularly specified. Thus it was enjoined that it should be laid upon the back “with the head to the west, the feet towards the east,” says the ancient writer John Beleth. Another liturgical writer scarcely less famous, William Durand, Bishop of Mende, adds, in his “Rationale Divinorum Officiorum,” that the body, when placed in this position, seems to be engaged in prayer, and ready to rise when the first rays of the sun shine forth. It must not be supposed, however, that this particular direction of the body (capite versus occidentem et pedibus versus orientem) was rigorously adhered to by the Christians alone, for it is found to have been observed during the second and third centuries, which were assuredly not Christian. The custom of burying the dead, introduced by Christianity, was adopted in Italy long before the Roman provinces were converted to the new faith. Subsequent to the reign of the Antonines, who by edict authorised the burial of the dead, there are numerous instances of pagan burials being conducted in conformity with, this edict, especially in Gaul.

Fig. 345.—The Harvest of Souls: God the Father receiving the souls in his lap.—Miniature in the “Dialogues of St. Gregory,” a Manuscript of the Twelfth Century, in the Burgundian Library, Brussels.

Fig. 346.—Celtic Burial.—The body, bent double, with the head between the knees, and with two vases at the feet, is placed in a grotto or natural cave.

Fig. 347.—Mode of Burial among the Franks.—The body, laid in the grave, is surrounded with arms, implements, and various articles for use: the sword or the scrama sax under the right armpit, the knife or poignard upon the breast, the hatchet at the knee, the framée or the lance at the feet, comb, bracelet, &c. It is thought that the vase in red or black clay, which is often found under the feet of the skeleton, had a symbolic meaning. This grave was discovered during excavations made in Paris.

At a much later period the principle relating to the direction in which bodies were laid fell into disuse at Christian burials. The persons attached to the ecclesiastical edifices were buried with their feet towards the west, and sometimes towards the south. There was another exception: the body was not always laid upon its back, but in certain cases it was placed upon its side, or even with the face downwards. Pepin the Short was buried with his face downwards; Hugh Capet, in accordance with his wishes, was also thus interred beneath the rain-spout which was above the porch of St. Denis Cathedral, in order that his sins might be washed out. This was termed adens burial (upon the teeth, ad dentes).

In the sixth and seventh centuries we have many instances of persons being placed in a sitting position in their tombs, with the legs and body upright. This exceptional mode of interment was most frequently adopted, though not exclusively, by the barbarians; and the fact of Charlemagne having been so interred makes it peculiarly interesting. “Washed and laid out,” as we read in Legrand d’Aussy’s “Sépultures Nationales,” “arrayed in his imperial robes, at his side a sword with a golden pummel, on his head a golden crown, holding in his lap a New Testament written in letters of gold, he was seated upon a throne of gold. Before him were placed his golden sceptre and shield, which had been blessed by Pope Leo. The vault was filled with perfumes and many treasures (thesauris multis); it was closed, and even sealed down, and over it was erected a golden arcade, upon which was engraved the epitaph handed down to us by Eginhardt, and is the oldest extant of all those which tell of our earliest kings.”

When the pagans adopted the custom of interment (Fig. 348), they laid by the side of the dead the insignia of his profession, and any objects which had been dear to him during his lifetime; to this they added various vases containing food and drink, to serve him as a viaticum during his more or less prolonged journey to a better world. In the coffins of Christians, on the contrary—even from the earliest times—the funeral furniture appears to have been next to nothing: a phial containing some perfume, with one, two, or perhaps three vases, of wood, glass, or clay, filled with holy water.

Fig. 348.—Gallo-Roman Tomb, representing the deceased laid upon a funeral bed, and surrounded by her weeping family and household.—Monument of the First or Second Century, found during excavations made in Paris. After a Plate in the “Statistique de Paris,” by M. Albert Lenoir.

The perfume-phials had disappeared so early as the Merovingian period, but the custom of placing the other vases in the coffin lasted, in some countries, even down to the eighteenth century. Their presence in a place of burial is not, therefore, a proof of its antiquity. The liturgists have endeavoured to explain the origin and the meaning of a custom so general and so long maintained; and William Durand suggests, in his “Rationale,” that these funeral vases, of whatever shape they might be, were intended for containing incense. A miniature of the fourteenth century would appear to confirm this theory, for we find that it represents, at the four corners of a coffin covered with the pall, small pots placed in a row with the tapers (Fig. 349); and there is reason to believe that the incense in them was burnt during the funeral service. In fact, the pots represented in this miniature are white; the reddish colour of the holes with which they are perforated, and the smoke issuing from them, show that there was fire inside. Perhaps this was only the fire of red-hot coals, since they have been found to contain ashes mixed with pieces of coal.

Fig. 349.—Funeral Service, in which are shown, between the candelabra, the incense vases which were deposited in the coffin.—Drawing of the Fourteenth Century.

Fig. 350.—Absolution Cross of the Eleventh Century, in lead, found in a coffin in the Abbey of Bury St. Edmund’s (1855).

From “Les Sépultures Gauloises, Romaines, et Franques,” by the Abbé Cochet.

After the ceremony, these vases were placed, while still alight, in the coffin. And this brings us to another Christian usage, which has been ascertained to have existed in France and England from the eleventh to the thirteenth century. During this period, a cross was placed upon the breast of the deceased person. This cross, in wood or in lead, sometimes in silver, was called an absolution cross (Fig. 350), because the formula of absolution given to the dead man was generally engraved upon it—and even his name was stated in the formula. A fact related by Mabillon, in his “Annals of the Order of St. Benedict,” sufficiently proves the importance and universal extent of this custom. In 1142, after the death of Abelard, Eloisa, Abbess of the Paraclete, asked Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, for a formula of absolution to place upon the tomb of the illustrious theologian. This absolution was placed, as is related by a Benedictine writer, upon Abelard’s breast. The text is so interesting that it is worth quoting, though written in Latin. Peter the Venerable, alluding therein to the unwillingness of the monks of St. Marcel to give up the body of Abelard, says, “Ego Petrus, Cluniacensis abbas, qui Petrum Abaëlardum, in monachum Cluniacensem recepi, et corpus ejus furtim delatum Heloïsæ, abbatissæ et monialibus Paracliti concessi, auctoritate omnipotentis Dei et omnium sanctorum absolvo eum pro officio ab omnibus peccatis suis.” Ancient burying-places are sometimes discovered with bodies which have been bound in chains, or, at all events, are loaded with iron and brass fetters. Thus at Couvert, near Bayeux, a skeleton was discovered a few years back laid upon the face (ad dentes), upon a wooden cross, with a small chain round the neck. This is a peculiarity having its origin in certain rules of penance which were in force from the eighth to the tenth, and probably to the eleventh, century.

The pagan rite prescribed that a piece of money should be placed in the urn or coffin; and many antiquaries have suggested that this must have been the obolus for Charon. This custom was perpetuated by the Christians, for, throughout the Middle Ages, a coin was always placed on the bier; and this practice still prevails in Poitou, Alsace, and other places.

The interments of the barbarians, even after their conversion to Christianity, are specially characteristic, because, no matter to what nation they belonged, they adhered to their own particular manner of burial. They were interred in their finest clothes, with their weapons, and, in some cases, with their war-horse. The women and children, whose burial-place is easily discoverable, wore jewels, necklaces, rings, fibulæ, girdles, buckles, &c., to which are still found adhering bits of tissue, the remains of some splendid costume.

Researches and excavations made in France of late years have led to the discovery of numerous barbarian cemeteries, and have enabled us to ascertain what were the Merovingian, or, as it would perhaps be more accurate to say, the Germanic funeral customs. These customs evidently were replaced by others when the barbarian finally settled in Gaul, that is, about the middle of the ninth century. The habit of placing in the coffin various pieces of black, red, or white pottery (Fig. 351), together with small vases which seem to have been intended for the same purpose as those used in Christian burials, existed during this period. These vases, often very numerous, no doubt contained food; they were frequently accompanied by a small wooden jar, the handle of which was very richly mounted, and which the savans at one time took to be a Merovingian diadem. But a chemical analysis of the solid residue found in one of these jars, led to the discovery that they were filled with an alimentary substance which gave out a strong odour of fermented beer.

Fig. 351.—Gallic or Gallo-Roman Pottery, dug up in Paris and in the neighbourhood.

Subsequently to the period when the barbarians were no longer interred with their weapons of war, there still remained some traces of this primitive custom in Christian society, both in France and Germany; thus, kings were buried in their royal robes, with sceptre and crown. This continued to be the case throughout the Middle Ages; but, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the sceptres and crowns deposited in the coffins were made of brass or tin, in order that thieves might not be tempted to steal them. Such was also the case with bishops and abbots, as is shown by Gregory of Tours, when he speaks of Saint Gall, the Bishop of Clermont, in Auvergne, of the Abbot Mars, of the hermits Marian, Leobard, and Lupicin, being buried in their robes of ceremony. They were covered at their death with the most brilliant insignia of their dignity; but after a certain epoch nothing was placed beside them in the coffin but a wooden crozier, a chalice, and a tin paten. They were always dressed, however, in their pontifical vestments, the gold lace and embroidery of which has, when these tombs have come to be opened, often been found undecayed, while the vestments themselves have crumbled into dust.

In the monasteries and communities, the old barbarian rite was observed after the tenth century, and the monks were buried with all their clothing on them; but as the woollen material of which they were made was consumed by age, it is impossible for the archæologist to reconstruct on opening these coffins the monastic dress as it must have been when the body contained in it was buried.

At present we have considered only the different modes of burial during the Middle Ages, but we may now proceed to speak of the coffin and the tomb. No work of art is more curious, or fuller of historical and picturesque information, than the funeral monuments of all ages. But it must be remembered that there is a marked distinction between the coffin and the tomb, one being the receptacle of the dead, the other only a monument raised to mark the spot of ground in which the coffin has been interred.

At all periods Christians have used coffins cut out of stone; and this custom only ceased in the thirteenth century, to make way for the use of lead coffins. The stone sarcophagi were only for persons of a certain rank. Soldiers, townsmen, and country people were buried in coffins made of wood. The Franks gave the name of off or noff to these coffins, which are alluded to in the Salic law. Gregory of Tours, speaking of the plague which desolated Auvergne in 571, says, “The mortality was so great at Clermont that it was found necessary to inter as many as ten bodies in the same grave, because there was a dearth of wooden and stone coffins.”

These ancient stone sarcophagi are met with in great numbers in those localities which were the ordinary places of burial. They have been found by thousands in certain towns and villages, such as Alichamps, Drevant, and Grou, in the department of the Cher, as well as at Meunes and Naveil, in the department of the Loir-et-Cher. The most ancient coffins are easily to be recognised by their large dimensions, their thickness, and their regular shape (Figs. 352 and 353). They are, so to speak, chests with a massive stone cover, two metres and twenty centimetres (about seven feet two inches) long, and in some cases more. They are square, and resemble a rectangular trough. The lid, sloping in the shape of a roof, is quite free of all decoration.

Fig. 352.—Stone Coffin discovered during excavations made in the Rue de la Cossonnerie, Paris. In the Cluny Museum.

Fig. 353.—Stone Coffin of Gallo-Roman origin, in the Cluny Museum.

In the sixth and seventh centuries the dimensions of the sarcophagi began to decrease, being rarely more than two metres (six feet seven inches) in length. Another distinctive mark of that period was that the coffin, narrower at the foot than at the head, was covered with a large stone, hewn like that of the antique coffins. Moreover, it was often a trifle less deep at the foot than at the head; but this is the special characteristic of the coffins of the eighth century. After this period, coffins narrower at the foot than at the head, but of the same elevation on both sides, again came into use.

In the eighth century, many coffins were found to contain a small cell cut into the stone for holding the head of the corpse. This cell was generally square, but sometimes round.

The further we get into the Middle Ages the more difficult it becomes to ascertain the antiquity of a coffin. After the eleventh and twelfth centuries, if not the tenth, the lids are ornamented with roughly-executed sculpture work, crosses in bas-relief, triangular facets, indistinct tracery work which have a distinct resemblance to the Roman sarcophagi.

The ancient cemeteries of the French provinces also contain coffins moulded in plaster; and the Cluny Museum has some interesting specimens of these coffins, which were in use from the ninth to the fourteenth century. Their sides are roughly decorated with very primitive ornaments, round, lozenge-shaped, and convoluted, with emblems which enable us to ascertain approximatively their date of execution. Thus, when a plaster coffin is decorated with the fleur-de-lis, we may be sure that it cannot be of earlier origin than the thirteenth century.

In the last few years of the twelfth century was invented a kind of stone coffin, hewn outside in such a way as to produce the shape of the head, and to represent the whole body as enveloped in its shroud, just like a mummy.

In the early part of the fourteenth century personages of rank were buried in stone coffins lined with lead. In the time of Charles V. stone was altogether replaced by wood and lead, even in the burials of the rich. The coffins of that epoch resemble boxes made in a great hurry by joining together sheets of lead of various thicknesses.

Fig. 354.—Raised Stone, near Poitiers.—After a Plate in the great work of Count de Laborde, “Les Monuments de la France:” in folio, 1816.

Square stone troughs, about twelve or fourteen inches in length by from eight to ten inches in breadth, are also to be met with in considerable numbers; and they were employed to receive the bones that had fallen from disused burial-places, and from the vaults beneath churches when, in the course of repairs, unknown or forgotten graves were disturbed. When these repairs led to the disinterment of the coffins appertaining to some personages of note buried in the church of which they had been the parishioners and the benefactors, it sometimes happened that in moving them they were burst open, and, in this case, the remnants of the broken coffins were placed in these small troughs, which took up less room. The tombs, that is to say the visible monuments of burial, were of nearly the same shape as the coffins, from the earliest ages down to the close of the ninth century, the only distinction being that they were made of choicer materials and decorated with more or less magnificence. Thus, all the coffins which contained the bodies of martyrs, nobles, prelates, or kings, were exposed to the view of the faithful, and served for tombs, so that these illustrious persons were not, in the true sense of the term, interred. The stone chest in which the body was placed being both a coffin and a funeral monument, was not hidden beneath a tombstone, but remained visible in a church—not in a sepulchral cave, but above ground, often, indeed, raised upon columns. The early Christians of Gaul, those at least who were distinguished for their achievements or their virtues, were interred in this fashion in sarcophagi ornamented with allegorical subjects, very like those in which pagans were buried. A case in point is the sarcophagus at Rheims of Jovinus the patrician, master of the cavalry under Julian, and, it is said, founder of the Church of St. Agricole, since called St. Nicaise. This monument, removed from this ancient church to the cathedral and afterwards to the museum, is of white marble, sculptured upon three sides. The front represents various hunting scenes, in which Jovinus is taking part, with a spear in his hand, accompanied by a spirit which has the attributes of Minerva. It is very probable that this sarcophagus, which had been previously used for the burial of some pagan, was used for its fresh occupant without any change being made in its artistic features. An exactly similar one was made for the King of Austrasia, Carloman, the brother of Charlemagne; an analogous subject was also sculptured upon it, and it was elevated upon four columns near the tomb of St. Remigius.

The sarcophagi were sometimes made of a more costly material than stone; that of St. Cassianus, at Autun, for instance, was of alabaster. But these were only exceptional cases; and Maurice, Archbishop of Rouen, prohibited these funeral extravagances in 1231. It is curious, however, to note the representation of scenes in profane history upon Christian coffins. Sauval describes one that was discovered in the Church of St. Geneviève, Paris, in 1620, which contained a box full of gold and silver medals representing the boar-hunt of Meleager. Christian and pagan emblems are sometimes found side by side: upon the sarcophagus of St. Andoche was represented a wheel, a bird, vine-foliage and grapes, a hatchet, and, amidst all these ornaments, a cross.

After the reign of Theodosius, there were in use throughout Gaul sarcophagi the emblems of which were exclusively borrowed from the Christian religion. As a general rule, the front surface is divided by arcades of raised architecture, and between each of them is represented a subject taken from the Old or the New Testament. Arles, in fact, appears to have been the centre of a special manufacture which executed this kind of work for all the south of France, until the middle of the sixteenth century. There were also manufactories of stone sarcophagi at St. Pierre l’Etrier, St. Emelion, and, more notably, at Quarrée-les-Tombes.

During the reigns of the first rois fainéants, the successors of Clovis, the decoration of the sarcophagi was affected by the barbarian style of art. There were no longer any figures in relief—nothing but the monogram of Christ, XP, with a circular or oval border. At that period the sarcophagus took the exact shape of the coffin, being narrower at the feet than at the head. The lid was a large stone of the same character as the coffin, generally decorated with concentric circles or the scales of fish, in memory of Christ’s monogram, ΙΧΘΥΣ (ὶχθὺς, fish).

Funeral sculptures did not flourish during the time of Charlemagne; the bodies of the kings were placed in ancient tombs, which were everywhere very plentiful. Thus, the sarcophagus in which the body of Charlemagne himself was placed represented the abduction of Proserpine. It is true that upon that of Louis the Pious was represented the Passage of the Red Sea, but this was manufactured at Arles. The churches in course of time became so full of tombs that the councils were obliged to prohibit interment in them, and this order, though only partially observed, effected a change in the mode of burial. People preferred to have the coffins placed in the ground, especially as they were better protected in this way from the robbers who violated the sanctity of the grave. Thus, from the ninth to the beginning of the tenth century, sarcophagi gradually fell into disuse.

Fig. 355.—Tomb of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, in the Church of Marburg, Hesse (Thirteenth Century). She is represented upon her death-bed, and the angels are offering her soul to Jesus, who is blessing it, and to the Virgin. To the right are Duke Louis with the cross of the Crusades, St. John the Evangelist, the special protector of St. Elizabeth, St. Catherine, and St. Peter; to the left, St. John the Baptist, St. Mary Magdalene, and a bishop. It was before this bas-relief that the pilgrims knelt in prayer, and their knees have worn hollows into the pavement around it.

Burials above ground again came into vogue after the eleventh century, and from that epoch dates the development of funeral art in the Middle Ages. At first, the tombs, even of the highest personages, consisted only of a plain block of stone or marble, varying in shape, placed upon the ground, or, as was more often the case, raised upon short columns. In the twelfth century we meet with a new kind of monument: tombs in the form of square altars, or altar-tables, with the image of the deceased in relief or cut out on their upper surface. These tombs were in general use throughout the Middle Ages (Fig. 355), and were combined, subsequent to the thirteenth century, with another mode based on quite a different principle. As, in spite of the decrees of the councils, the churches were still full of graves, it was sought to make the tombs erected in them as little cumbersome as possible; and hence arose the custom of placing tablets or sculptures upon the walls, at a certain elevation above the ground, betokening the presence of a coffin in the vault beneath. There were, besides, the flat tombs, the pompous epitaphs on which were effaced by the footsteps of those who walked over them. These were in vogue from the time of Philip Augustus, and the use of them did not die out till the reign of Louis XIV., especially in the northern provinces of France.

Fig. 356.—Tomb in the Church of St. Waudru, at Mons, of Adelaide or Alice, Countess of Hainault, who died in 1168. This tomb is of stone, devoid of all decoration, with a triangular top in the shape of a cross. (Twelfth Century.)

Some detailed account may now be given of the square blocks of stone employed as funeral monuments. These raised tombs (for that is their proper name) were, in the eleventh century, larger at the top than at the sides. They were ornamented with mouldings at the top and at the bottom, and either rested upon a stone slab or upon short columns. Other tombs, equally massive, were prism-shaped, with three, four, or five sides, and they too rested in the same manner. The oldest of these monuments are almost exactly like coffins, and their surface is devoid of all ornamental work (Fig. 356). The presence of sculpture about a tomb constitutes one of the distinctive marks of art in the reign of Philip I. (1059–1108). The sculpture generally consists of simple circles enfolding busts surrounded with foliage. The solid square tombs of that date are decorated with arcades in bas-relief, like the altars of the period.

From this species of vault, is derived the monument in the shape of a table, the dimensions and decorations of which continued to increase during the reign of Louis VIII. It was a block of stone surmounted by a table upon which rested a statue of the deceased, with his hands crossed upon his breast. Tables of this shape were chiefly used for the bronze tombs which became very numerous in the early part of the twelfth century. These bronze tombs, upon which the statue was laid, had for supporters four or six couched lions. When Suger restored his Abbey of St. Denis, he removed to the middle of the choir the grave of Charles the Bald, and erected over it a bronze table with lions for supports, and a statue designed to represent the features of the monarch.

The personages thus typified in stone, marble, or bronze, are always represented with their insignia; kings and sovereign princes with a crown and a mantle; knights bareheaded, with their armour, sword, and spurs of knighthood, and, in many cases, their coat of mail and armorial bearings (Fig. 357); nobles, not knights, with their armorial shield, one or two hounds couched at their feet, a falcon upon the wrist or the glove with which the bird was held in their hand,—that is to say, with emblems signifying their right to take part in the chase, which was the special privilege of the nobility.

In the same way women, lawyers, and the secular and the regular clergy, had the dress betokening their condition upon their tombs; but the sculptors and carvers did not always adhere very closely to the variations of fashion, and they often represented a personage of their own day in a costume belonging to a previous generation. Thus, for several centuries, kings were represented with the primitive mantle clasped or tied in front; the knights appeared, even down to the time of Henry II., with the halberd and the helmet worn only by the ancient order of chivalry. Funeral sculpture had its conventional and traditional rules, like all other arts in the Middle Ages.

Fig. 357.—Tomb erected in the Church of the Dominicans, at Puy-en-Velay, to the memory of Du Guesclin, by Marshal de Sancerre, his friend.—This tomb dates from the close of the Fourteenth Century.

Archæologists have endeavoured to discover the meaning of the recumbent figures—some in full dress, others without clothing—which were placed upon the tombs of Christians, and they think that this usage is but an instinctive return to the customs of the ancient Etruscans, who represented upon the top of the tomb the body of the deceased, either bent double or in a sitting position, or stretched at full length or leaning upon his elbows, according as he had been laid in his grave. The early funeral sculptors, as unskilful as they were ignorant, copying only some particular model set before them, fashioned merely an imperfect and roughly executed figure, with scarcely any approach to bas-relief. In process of time the statue became better defined, and, in the reign of Louis VII., was altogether in alto relievo. The monks of the Abbey of St. Germain des Prés did for their benefactor, King Childebert, what Suger had done for the illustrious dead who had for several centuries been interred in the basilica of St. Denis, and erected a cenotaph with a life-like figure of the monarch, the artist hollowing out the upper part of the tomb in the shape of a basin, so as to make the features stand out. The king is represented holding in one hand a model of the small church which he had founded, and in the other his sceptre.

With the advent of Gothic architecture, towards the middle of the twelfth century, the tombs were decorated with vaulted arches in the shape of quarter-foils, and these arches were afterwards made to serve as a framework within which the bas-reliefs were placed. Within the pointed arch of one is represented a monk mourner, one of those who were hired to assist at the funeral ceremonies. The figure lying upon the table was called the gisant, as is proved by old account-books containing the following item: “So much to a certain person for having carved the figure of a gisant.” The essentially French art of funeral architecture and sculpture reached its apogee in the fifteenth century, and nothing can be more perfect or beautiful than the tombs of the dukes of Burgundy at Dijon, and of the dukes of Berri at Bourges.

After the thirteenth century, one or two lions, or a dog, were placed at the feet of the gisant; and the war ballads relate that these symbolic animals were termed cagnets or cagnons—the lion being the emblem of force, and the dog of fidelity (léauté).

The tomb of a personage of rank or wealth was often decorated with secondary figures, carved in relief in marble or stone—sometimes the Virgin, or some saint, or some scene from the Old or the New Testament; upon one side the personification of the virtues, upon the other, mourners, or perhaps the family of the deceased. Thus there are carved figures of the princes and princesses of the second House of Burgundy around the tomb of Philip de Marle at Lille; a funeral ceremony was represented upon that of Philip the Bold at Narbonne.

In the fourteenth century, the sculptors surmounted the tomb with a bed, upon which a figure of the deceased was carved, with a kind of stone dais or canopy; two angels with outstretched wings held a spread-out veil, upon which they were bearing aloft a small naked figure, standing erect, and meant to represent the soul of the deceased person. In other monuments, the angels had a censer, with which they are scattering incense upon the soul of the departed, as at Neuilly-sur-Marne, upon the tomb of the famous preacher Foulques, who died about the year 1200. In others, the angels are represented holding the helmet and shield of the deceased, bearing up his train, or presenting him on their knees an open prayer-book. The tomb of Philip Pot (Fig. 358), formerly in the abbey-church of the Cistercians, was supported by eight statues of women dressed in mourning. Some of the statues placed upon the tombs were carved out of hard limestone instead of marble; those of Charles VII. and his consort were of alabaster. In many cases the hands and the head only were of alabaster or marble, and the rest of the body of stone. The tomb of the Sire de Barbazan, who died in 1432, was entirely of bronze; that of Charles VIII. at St. Denis, constructed of the most valuable marble, had on it the statue of that prince in bronze, flanked by four angels, each with the royal shield.

Fig. 358.—Tomb of Philip Pot, Grand Seneschal of Burgundy, who died in 1494; formerly in the Abbey of Citeaux, now in the Museum at Dijon. The knight is laid out upon a sepulchral stone, which is being borne up by eight mourners, each of whom carries on the arm a shield of his family alliances.

From this period French art had to give place to Italian art, which Charles VIII. had brought back as a trophy from his expedition to Naples, and which eventually took root in France, and expanded with all the splendours of the Renaissance until the close of the sixteenth century. Foreign artists began to distinguish themselves in the composition of tombs. Francis I., who had been struck with admiration by the monuments of this kind at Florence, Rome, and Milan, determined to have some equally remarkable in his own kingdom. The tomb of Louis XII., the chef-d’œuvre of a Florentine artist, served as a type and a model for those of Francis I. and Henry II., which were completed with still greater magnificence by the French artists Pierre Bontemps and Germain Pilon, under the superintendence of Philibert de Lorme. These funeral monuments are the most marvellous of all that have been produced by French, in imitation of Italian, art (Fig. 361).

Fig. 359.—The beheaded Knight holding his fleshless head in his hands.—A bust in the Namur Museum, dating from 1562, with this inscription: “A day will come when my account will be squared” (“Une heure viendra qui tout paiera”). This sinister cry of vengeance was no doubt addressed by the widow or the family of the victim to his murderer.

Fig. 360.—Tomb of Louis, Duke of Orleans, and Valentine of Milan, his spouse; executed by order of Louis XII.—Formerly in the Church of the Celestines, Paris; now in the Church of St. Denis. (Sixteenth Century.)

Having passed in review the various kinds of funeral monuments in vogue during the successive epochs of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, we may proceed to consider certain accessory works of art; some of which we are only acquainted with by written evidence; which is, however, too detailed to permit of any doubt as to their having existed. Such are the covers (coopertoria, coopercula) under which were hidden the tombs, often plain and humble, of martyrs and saints in ancient churches. These covers were often lined with sheets of metal richly chased and enriched with precious stones. None of them, unfortunately, are now extant, and it is only from the ancient chroniclers that we learn of the marvels of art produced by St. Eloi in the reign of Dagobert. Coming down nearer to our own day, tombs were surmounted by a ciborium, or small cupola. This was made of carved wood, and sometimes of stone, notably in the fourteenth century. Thus the tomb of Marguerite of Flanders, daughter of Philip the Long, was ornamented with open carving of the Gothic order. In most cases a small edifice, with seven or eight supporting columns, was erected over the tomb, and all the resources of art were employed upon its decoration. During the period of architecture rayonnante, these light and elegant constructions consisted of arches surmounted by pointed gable-ends, which themselves served to unite the main supports of the work, which was vaulted and topped with a roof. Erections of this kind are still to be seen in the south of France, above the graves of Innocent VI. (Avignon Cathedral) and of John XXII. (Bourg-de-Villeneuve). The tombs of Charles VI. and Charles VII., at St. Denis, were shut in, so to speak, by similar constructions. In accordance with a usage which dates back to the very earliest times, the tombs of the Middle Ages were often placed in the hollow of a wall arched inward, so as not to be in the way of the worshippers, nor to interfere with the celebration of divine service.

Fig. 361.—Tomb of St. Remigius, erected (1526 to 1530) in the church dedicated to him by Robert de Lenoncourt, Archbishop of Rheims. Around the monument, which has been destroyed, were niches containing marble statues of the twelve peers of France; to the right, the lay peers in royal robes and with crowns upon their heads, bearing the insignia of royalty; to the left, the ecclesiastical peers with the sacred symbols.

We have already stated that, to prevent the churches from being overcrowded with tombs, stone or marble tablets—they were of painted wood sometimes—were fixed upon the wall just above, or not far from, the grave, with an epitaph and sculptural ornaments. Some of these tablets were mounted upon two columns attached to the wall, or placed upon a pillar.

Before the time when statues on tombs were represented in a kneeling posture, the sculptor often represented the deceased in an attitude of prayer, and this figure was placed upon a console at a short distance from the grave, in the chapel belonging to the family or brotherhood. The figures thus reproduced in relief always wore the costume and insignia of their profession, as is shown by certain monuments of the reign of Charles V.

Fig. 362.—Mausoleum of Philip II., King of Spain, near the high altar in the Escurial. This group of gigantic statues in bronze gilt is by Leoni. The king, kneeling in front of a prie-dieu, is arrayed in a mantle, upon which are represented the coats-of-arms of his different states. Beside him are his three wives—Elizabeth of France to the left, next to her Anne of Austria, and, to the right, Mary of Portugal. Behind him is his son, Don Carlos.—“Iconografia Española,” by Carderera.

The flat tombs consisted of a slab six feet six inches long, either of some hard stone or of marble, let into the ground or the pavement above the coffin (Fig. 363). Upon the slab was originally carved the cross, no matter what might be the condition of the person interred, with a crozier for a prelate and a sword for a knight. These objects were reproduced with considerable skill by carving them out of the stone and plastering the hollow with red or black cement, which had the effect of making their outline more distinct. In the twelfth century, the flat tombs were decorated with a bordering around the stone, similarly engraved, and intended to form a fillet within which came the epitaph, with the name of the deceased and the date of his death. Later still, as in the case of raised tombs, the figure of the deceased came to be represented on them. This was so in the time of Louis VII., the statues being made to represent the image of the deceased in the dress of his particular station in life, with his hands crossed upon his breast; and, subsequently, lions and dogs were added as accessories—the whole being carved into the stone. The figure of the deceased was often surrounded with architectural devices. At first the figure was placed under a colonnade; subsequently a very complicated edifice was erected, with the statue of the deceased erect in the foreground (Fig. 364). The hands and feet were often cemented on in white or black marble. Flat tombs made either of brass, silver, or bronze were also used, the last-named metal being much in vogue in the thirteenth century; for example, we find it in the tomb of Ingerburga, wife of Philip Augustus, at St. Jean-en-Ile, near Corbeil; in that of Blanche, wife of Louis VIII., at Maubuisson; in that of Marguerite, wife of St. Louis, and in that of Blanche, their daughter, at St. Denis. Prince Louis, son of St. Louis, is also buried in that church, his tomb being in copper enamelled.

Fig. 363.—Flat Tomb of Sibylle (wife of Guy de Lusignan, King of Jerusalem), who died in 1187. In the church at Namèche, near Namur. The inscription, half effaced, may be translated as follows:—“Here lies the rightful heiress of Samson (a village near Namur), who was descended in a direct line from the King of Jerusalem. Let us pray God for her soul’s consolation.”

Many tombs were far more sumptuous. Those of Louis VIII. and Louis IX. were in silver-gilt, decorated with carved figures. Alphonse de Brienne, Comte d’Eu, had a tomb of copper-gilt enriched with enamel. It was probably at about the same period that the chapter of the Abbey of St. Germain des Prés (Paris) covered with mosaics and filigree-work the ancient tomb of Fredegonde; for it is difficult to believe, in spite of Mabillon and Montfaucon, that this tomb dates back to her death at the end of the sixth century.

Fig. 364.—Flat Tomb of Alexandre de Berneval, architect of the Church of St. Ouen, at Rouen, and of his pupil.—In the Church of St. Ouen. (Fifteenth Century.

In the fifteenth century the English, masters at that time of a considerable part of France, laid hands upon these plates of copper, silver, and gold to convert them into coin; others which escaped spoliation were melted down during the Revolution, so that we must look to England and Belgium for flat metal tombs still in a state of preservation.

Such are the chief characteristics of funeral monuments in the Middle Ages and down to the period of the Renaissance. These monuments, many of which are still extant, throw great light upon the costumes of their time. We must now proceed to speak of the cemeteries, or places of public burial, in which tombs above ground were legally permitted as soon as the Church had established its authority. Burials within the churches were, in fact, a special privilege for the rich, who were able to purchase it in perpetuity. The presence of these graves in buildings intended for public worship was, moreover, in accordance with the very essence of Christianity, by reason of the practice already alluded to, of placing the body of some saint beneath the altar.

The primitive Latin Church, in the second and in the early part of the third century, performed the ceremonies of worship in the cemeteries of the Christians, that is to say, in the crypts and the Catacombs. The Christians, in imitation of the pagan custom of converting old quarries into places of common burial, called hypogea, sought refuge, during persecution, in some disused quarries near the gates of Rome, and there they celebrated their rites in secret and buried their dead. These are the Catacombs, which constitute a regular subterraneous town, and the galleries of which, composing an immense labyrinth, have been opened in the neighbourhood of and in close proximity to the ancient roads which radiated from Rome towards the surrounding districts. The appropriation of these Catacombs for Christian burial-places unquestionably dates from the first century of Christianity. The best known and the most famous are those which extend beneath the basilica of St. Sebastian, and form part of what was called the Cemetery of St. Calixtus, beneath the Appian Way. Since the sixteenth century, when these Catacombs were first explored and thoroughly studied, this generic name has been given to all excavations which have led to the discovery of Christian graves. Each catacomb was called after the martyr whom the faithful had interred there during the persecutions, and whose relics have been found beneath altars, which were chiefly erected and decorated during the eighth century.

Fig. 365.—Crypt of the Chapel of St. Agnes, in the Catacombs at Rome, set apart for the interment of Christians.—From M. Perret’s work, “Les Catacombes de Rome.”

The Catacombs are composed of very narrow galleries, from ninety-seven centimetres to one metre thirty centimetres in breadth (thirty-eight to fifty-one inches), cut irregularly through the stone. These galleries, most of them very short, crossing each other in such a way as to form an inextricable maze of streets and crossways, had an arched roof supported by masonry here and there. At intervals there were chambers, or cubicula (Fig. 365), hollowed out by the Christians to serve as chapels or oratories; these were either quadrangular or circular, of small dimensions, and often decorated with fresco paintings of different epochs dating from the first to the fourth century. But little fresh air could penetrate into these galleries by the openings which had been made here and there, and also through old shafts situated at intervals of about three hundred yards from each other, which had been used in working the quarries. In the lead-lined partitions, the graves, most of which are still intact, were ranged in rows one above the other. Each grave was a hollow of about the size of a human body hewn lengthwise in the side of the gallery and closed with a large brick, or with a stone or marble slab, set in cement. Five or six bodies—sometimes as many as twelve—were so placed one above the other. The paintings (Fig. 366), the sculptures, and the mosaics of the Catacombs, are the first products of Christian art as it shook off the traditions of paganism, and the subjects represented are generally taken from the Holy Scriptures; such as the Leaving the Ark, Abraham’s Sacrifice, Jonah, the Good Shepherd, the Raising of Lazarus. Many very touching funeral epitaphs have also been discovered on them.

Fig. 366.—Funeral Fresco discovered in the Cemetery of St. Pretextat, in the Catacombs at Rome. The two doves, emblems of marriage, indicate the tomb of the husband and wife.—From M. Perrét’s work, “Les Catacombes de Rome.”

Nor is it merely from the day when the triumphs of Christianity led to the building of the basilicas in Rome that personages of rank have been buried inside the churches. The bodies of bishops and leaders of the Catholic community, those of patricians and of barbarian princes who succoured the Church in her early days, were the first to be received within the sanctuary in as close proximity as possible to the relics of the saint to whom the building was dedicated.

Very soon these burial-places began to be classified according to the individual merit of the dead, and the importance of their rank or fortune. Laymen and priests had a right to be buried in the aisles of the church, or in the part corresponding to the apse, and it is no exaggeration to say that the interior was often so full of graves that they extended outside the building. Such was the case after the seventh century. A small space, either round or square, was left in front of the façade of the churches, to be reserved as a privileged place of burial, and was called the aitre or parvis (paradisus); hence the origin of the rural cemetery which extends along the sides of a country church, or forms a green in front of it.

Fig. 367.—The Cross of the Bureau Family, formerly in the Cemetery of the Innocents, Paris.—Lenoir’s “Statistique Monumentale de Paris.”

Fig. 368.—The Knight of Death, by Albert Dürer.—This celebrated engraving, so characteristic of the fantastic genius of the Middle Ages, represents a fully-armed knight going to the wars with a presentiment of coming evil, and accompanied by Sin and Death, personified as his running footman and esquire.—After the Fac-simile of the original Engraving, dated 1513, by one of the Wiericx (1564).

Burial in the churches was at first interfered with, if not prevented, even under the Christian emperors, by the Roman law, which prescribed that the cemeteries should be extramural. Thus, according to tradition, many of the early French saints were first of all buried outside the towns, and their remains were subsequently placed within some consecrated building or a church, erected over their original grave. The ancient cemetery in some cases developed into an inhabited suburb, as at Tours, where the Quartier de St. Martin occupies the ground where that saint originally reposed. In other districts, the Christian cemeteries occupied the same site down to the thirteenth century, as at Arles, Autun, Bordeaux, the cemeteries of the Aliscan (Elisii campi), St. Seurin, and Champ-des-Tombes. Other cemeteries, rendered necessary by the increase in the size of the towns, were made at about this period. Thus, after the accession of the Capet dynasty, the capital increased so much in size that it was necessary to limit the space accorded to burying-places, and twenty-two parishes on the right bank of the Seine had no cemeteries of their own. A track of waste land at Champeaux, running along the Rue St. Denis, was converted into what was called the Cemetery of the Innocents (Fig. 367), and it consisted of a large enclosure with three gateways; the first at the corner of the Rue aux Fers; the second at the corner of the Rue de la Ferronnerie; and the third in the Place-aux-Chats. Philip Augustus surrounded it with a wall in 1186, to prevent it being overrun by animals and the inhabitants of the neighbourhood. To this wall was afterwards added a covered gallery, called the charnel-house, in which were buried those whose fortune allowed them to purchase the privilege of being interred apart from the masses. This charnel-house, which was damp and dismal, was paved with tombstones, and its walls were covered with epitaphs and funeral monuments. In the thirteenth century it became a fashionable resort in which tradesmen placed their wares for sale, and the abode of death was converted into a place of rendezvous and promenade for the idle.

This long gallery was built at different epochs, out of the largesses given by several inhabitants of Paris. Marshal de Boucicault built part of it in the beginning of the fifteenth century, and the famous Nicholas Flamel, who is said to have had a bookstall in the charnel-house, built at his own cost the whole side which ran parallel with the Rue de la Lingerie, and in which he and his wife Pernelle were buried. This charnel-house was surmounted by large galetas (lofts) in which the bones of the dead were preserved. The famous “Danse Macabre” (Figs. 369–392), that philosophical allegory in which death was leading in the dance “persons of all conditions,” was painted about the year 1430 upon the walls of the charnel-house, on the Rue St. Honoré side.

Figs. 369 to 392.—The Dance of Death, a Fac-simile of Wood Engravings executed after the Holbein Drawings in the “Simulachres de la Mort;” small 4to, Treschel Brothers, Lyons, 1538.—“As fish are taken speedily with the hook (aine), so does death take men; for death spares no man, king nor emperor, rich nor poor, noble nor villain, wise nor fool, physician nor surgeon, young nor old, strong nor weak, man nor woman. Nothing is more certain; all have to take part in death’s dance.”—Explanation taken from the “Forteresses de la Foy,” Manuscript of the Fifteenth Century, in the Library at Valenciennes.