A History of Mourning

by Richard Davey

Fig. 10.—An Anglo-Saxon Widow Lady. The upper garment is of black cloth, edged with fur, and a veil of black gauze hangs from the head.—9th Century MS., National Library, Paris.

S the Church emerged from the Catacombs, and was enabled to take her position in the world, her funereal ceremonies became more elaborate and costly. Masses for the dead were offered up in the churches, to the accompaniment of music and singing; and the funereal ceremonies which attended the burial of the Empress Theodolinda, A.D. 595, the friend and correspondent of Pope St. Gregory the Great, lasted for over a week. The Cathedral of Monza, where she was buried, was hung with costly black stuff, and the body of the Empress was exhibited under a magnificent catafalque, surrounded with lights, and was visited by pilgrims from all parts of Lombardy. Many hundreds of masses were said for her in all the churches, and all day the great bells of the cathedral and of the various monastic establishments tolled dolefully. At the end of the week the body of the illustrious Empress was placed in the vault under the high altar, where it remains to this day; and above it was a shrine filled with extraordinary relics, many of which still subsist, as, for instance, her celebrated "Hen and Chickens"—a plateau or tray of silver gilt with some gold chickens with ruby eyes upon it—and the famous iron crown, which is, indeed, of gold, having one of the nails said to have been used at the Crucifixion beaten in a single band round the inside. Napoleon I. crowned himself, at Milan, King of Italy, with this singular relic.

Fig. 11.—An Anglo-Saxon Priest wearing a black Dalmatic, edged with fur, ready to say a Requiem Mass.—From an early MS., 10th Century.

Our Catholic ancestors spent large sums of money upon their funerals. The pious practice of praying for the dead, which they doubtless derived from the Hebrews, induced them to secure the future exertions of their friends, by building chanteries and special chapels in the churches, with a view of reminding the survivors of their demise. Guilds, which by the way, still exist, were created for the purpose of binding people together in a holy league of prayer for the souls of the faithful departed. We find in the laws established for the Guild of Abbotsbury, the following regulations:—"If any one belonging to the association chance to die, each member shall pay a penny for the good of the soul, before the body be laid in the grave. If he die in the neighbourhood, the steward (secretary) shall enquire when he is to be interred, and shall summon as many members as he can, to assemble and carry the corpse in as honourable a manner as possible to the grave or minster, and there pray devoutly for his soul's rest." With the same view, our ancestors were ever anxious to obtain a place of sepulchre in the most frequented churches. The monuments raised over their remains, whilst keeping them safe from profanation, recalled them to memory, and solicited on their behalf the charity of the faithful. The usual inscription on the earlier Christian tombs in this country was the pathetic "Of your charity, pray for me." In the Guild of All Souls, in London, when any member died, it was the custom of the survivors to give the poor a loaf for the good of the soul; and the writer can perfectly remember, that some thirty years since, in remote parts of Norfolk, when anybody died, it was the fashion to distribute loaves of bread in the church porch as a dole. The funeral of an Anglo-Saxon was thus conducted:—The body of the deceased was placed on a bier or in a hearse. On it lay the book of the gospels, the code of his or her belief, and the cross, the signal of hope. A pall of silk or linen was thrown over it till it reached the place of interment. The friends were summoned, and strangers deemed it a duty to join the funeral procession. The clergy walked before or on each side, bearing lighted tapers in their hands, and chanting a portion of the psalter. If it were in the evening, the night was passed in exercises of devotion. In the morning, mass was sung and the body deposited with solemnity in the grave, the sawlshot paid, and a liberal donation distributed to the poor. Before the Reformation, it was the excellent custom for all persons who met a funeral to uncover and stand reverentially still until it had passed. The pious turned back, and accompanied the mourners a part of the way to the grave. It is pleasant to notice that this essentially humane habit of taking off the hat and behaving gravely as a funeral goes by, which is universal upon the Continent, is at last becoming more and more general here. The homage of the living to the mortal remains of even the humblest is excellent, and one which should be earnestly encouraged, being far more beneficial in its results than the heaping of costly flowers upon a hearse, which no one notices as it passes, laden with its ephemeral offerings, to the cemetery.

Fig. 12.—Funeral of St. Edward the Confessor, January 5th, 1066. The body, covered with a silken pall adorned with crosses, is carried by eight men, and followed by many priests, to Westminster Abbey, which he had founded. Under the bier are seen two small figures ringing bells.—From the Bayeux Tapestry, worked by Matilda of Flanders, Queen of William the Conqueror, and preserved in the Cathedral at Bayeux—11th Century.

The funeral of Edward the Confessor was exceedingly magnificent, and the shrine built over his relics, behind the high altar of the glorious abbey which he founded, is still an object of reverence with our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens, who, on St. Edward's Day, are permitted by a tolerant age to offer their devotions before the resting-place of the last of our Saxon Kings. But our first Norman King was buried with scant ceremony. He died 1087, at Hermentrude, a village near Rouen, having been taken suddenly ill on his way to England. No sooner was the illustrious king deceased, than his servants plundered the house and even the corpse, flinging it naked upon the floor. Herleadin, a peasant, undertook at last to convey the body to Caen, where it was to be buried in the Abbey of St. Stephen, Prince Henry and the monks being present. Scarcely, however, was the mass of requiem begun, when the church took fire, and everybody fled, leaving William the Conqueror's hearse neglected in the centre of the transept. At last the flames were extinguished, the interrupted service finished, and the funeral sermon preached. Just, however, as the coffin was about to be lowered into the vault, Anselm Fitz-Arthur, a Norman gentleman, stood forth and forbade the interment. "This spot," cried he, "is the site of my father's house, which this dead man burnt to ashes. On the ground it occupied I built this church, and William's body shall not desecrate it." After much ado, however, Fitz-Arthur was prevailed upon by Prince Henry to allow the body to be buried, on the payment of sixty shillings as the price of the grave. In the 17th Century the Calvinists ravaged the tomb and broke the monument. It was restored in 1642, but finally swept away, together with that of Queen Matilda, in the Revolution of 1793.