THE EARLY MODERN AGE
AND THE 19TH CENTURY
AND DEATH
The end of the Middle Age meant a new world for many in Europe. The Catholic Church lost a lot of its power over a good part of Europe – something that would cause a lot of pain and suffering. This breach in the faith could cause a good deal of changes in the ordinary man’s view on death. But of course it did not, it just modified it.
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Religious changes
The 16th and 17th centuries
The 18th century
The 19th century
Religious changes
In a religious perspective the 16th century was a time of great changes. It all began with Martin Luther and his criticism of the Catholic Church. He was not the first one to do so, far from, but the breech that came from this was totally new and meant that Europe was split up in two parts. This of course was not a clean cut throughout Europe but instead different parts made different choices, often based on what the reigning monarch chose.
The result shown in the history-books has much to do with death and destruction, and it is easy to forget what fundamental changes in believes it meant. One of the great changes was that all saints were taken away, including the veneration of the Virgin Mary. There was no easy way to get to Heaven, you could not pray, and you could not let your family, left behind after your death, do it for you. The only way to reach salvation according to Luther, and other reformers of the church, was to live a good life. Of course still easier said than done.
The way to live ones life was therefor to work hard, pray a lot, avoid sinning and hope that God could see your true merit and in the end save you. In some ways one could see this as a step away from the middle ages where it was easy to see the whole population as just one mass and towards an individual view of humans. But on the other hand, saying that it is very easy to forget that the individuals was very much a part of a collective well into our own modern times, and religion was hardly something private.
There was a great breach between the catholic and reformed churches in northern Europe. But it is also obvious that how this would change differed between places and countries. Therefore I chose to look closer at one specific region, that is Scania in today’s southern Sweden – which was at the time a part of Denmark. Some of the changes are probably to be seen in many other places in Europe, others are more regional.
The 16th century was a time when Scania had a good economical and social development. This meant that there were quite a lot of people with a rather good economy. This, of course, did not include everyone in society but rather a small elite. But it was a new elite when it came to being buried in splendour. For it very early became evident that even though the dead did not need to remind the living of their presence to make them pray to ease the way into the next world the habits surrounding it changed only marginally. To have a big stone to mark ones grave seems to have become even more important now when it was not needed out of a religious perspective.
The altars were now all removed, except of course for the main one, and this meant that there was no point any more for people to be buried close to any other part of the church but the chancel. This was quite common now, but even this should be meaningless, according to the theology of the time. No place was more sacred than any other and even if it was so it would not help those buried there since it did not help their case in any way once dead. But people just did not care but held on to old traditions – perhaps even without knowing exactly why.
The tombs and effigies used before were still available for the richest elite, but just as before the upper classes could use big stone-slabs with writings and pictures over the deceased and their view on their religion – the religious motive being most important. But the stones grew bigger. A medieval tombstone could not cover a complete human body, but those after reformation was often many times bigger than an ordinary modern bed. They could have measures like 124x231 centimetres, or 149x222. With other words, they were quite monumental, and not easy for anyone miss.
The 18th century
The 18th century was a time of economical decline in Scania, which had now become a part of Sweden. The wars in the 17th century had taken its toll on the population and on the economy. There was also great changes when the greatest city in the region was no longer within eye-sight of the capital (i.e. Copenhagen) but many hundreds of miles away. Scania become a province, one among many others. This also showed itself in the graves from the period.
The stones from this time were still limited to the rich, and probably (at least in the town they lived in) famous. But it was not the same as when Scania was Danish and the province richer. The stones became smaller and the full-length portraits that was there in previous centuries disappeared. This was not only due to changed circumstances but also new ideals when it came to style. The heavier baroque was followed by the lighter rococo. But many ideals were the same, one wanted to be remembered long after ones death and therefore it was important to have a beautiful, and big, grave-stone and having it placed good, close to the church – or, preferably, inside the church. The best place was still in front of the altar.
But it is also obvious that it was not all that important to be modern when it came to these manifestations over ones dead person. In St Peter’s church in Malmoe there was quite a commerce in gravestones, which was most prominent inside the church. Places that no longer had any owner – places inside of the churches were inherited just like any other form of property, but when the family all had died away it was another matter – could be bought from the church. This mostly included the original stone and it was mostly kept. To make a new one was very expensive indeed and mostly the new owners were satisfied with an additional inscription. This practice was of course not limited to the 18th century but started long before – it only became more obvious in this century when the space in the churches could become quite filled up.
The 19th century is really the great time for those interested in beautiful, or pompous, gravestones. Anyone who could afford it chose big stones, with broken pillars, crying angels and biblical sentences. The greater the better and many times a modern viewer can get a feeling of ‘the sky is the limit’ in a very literal sense. But it was also now more common people actually could afford a marker for ones grave in a more lasting material than wood. But the poorest still had to be satisfied with simpler marks, that even though it is a little more than a hundred years ago has not survived.
But it was also a time of hygiene. This meant that the habit of burying people inside of churches had to be abandoned – it was just by far to smelly:
By the early nineteenth century few churches can have been without at least a handful of family vaults, while many were nearly filled to capacity beneath the floor. In many instances neither the coffins nor the vaults were sealed in an airtight state permitting the aroma from decomposing bodies to permeate the church. Contemporary records speak of the intolerable stench, particularly in the City of London. It is therefore small wonder that measures were taken not only to stop the practice of intramural burials but also to put sealing layers of clay, charcoal or rammed chalk over graves before lying new floors.
Warwick Rodwell – Church Archaeology
So the fancy burials had to move outside – but still, up till this day, it is one of the few possibilities for an ordinary man or a woman to put up a monument over him- or herself to be remembered by long after they are gone. And even though some choose other forms of burials today it is still very, very popular.
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The Middle Ages
