The practice of decorating the corpse is mentioned by many old writers. In “Romeo and Juliet” (iv. 5), Friar Laurence says:
“Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary
On this fair corse; and, as the custom is,
In all her best array bear her to church.”
Queen Katharine, in “Henry VIII.” (iv. 2), directs:
“When I am dead, good wench,
Let me be us’d with honour: strew me over
With maiden flowers.”
It was formerly customary, in various parts of England, to have a garland of flowers and sweet herbs carried before a maiden’s coffin, and afterwards to suspend it in the church. In allusion to this practice, the Priest, in “Hamlet” (v. 1), says:
“Yet here she is allow’d her virgin crants,
Her maiden strewments, and the bringing home
Of bell and burial.”
—crants[739] meaning garlands. It may be noted that no other instance has been found of this word in English. These garlands are thus described by Gay:
“To her sweet mem’ry flow’ry garlands strung,
On her now empty seat aloft were hung.”
Nichols, in his “History of Lancashire” (vol. ii. pt. i. p. 382), speaking of Waltham, in Framland Hundred, says: “In this church, under every arch, a garland is suspended, one of which is customarily placed there whenever any young unmarried woman dies.” Brand[740] tells us he saw in the churches of Wolsingham and Stanhope, in the county of Durham, specimens of these garlands; the form of a woman’s glove, cut in white paper, being hung in the centre of each of them.
The funerals of knights and persons of rank were, in Shakespeare’s day, performed with great ceremony and ostentation. Sir John Hawkins observes that “the sword, the helmet, the gauntlets, spurs, and tabard are still hung over the grave of every knight.” In “Hamlet” (iv. 5), Laertes speaks of this custom: