Funerary practices

In Byzantium

Byzantine Funerary Rites and Customs    

The populations of the north-eastern Mediterranean basin, who had been integrated into the Roman and then the Byzantine Empire, attached great importance to funerary practices. Burying the dead was not only an heir’s filial obligation but also a very important religious duty. The dead who were refused burial were, in fact, said to be condemned to wander between the two worlds—that of the dead and the living. The funerary rites and customs provided, as they did elsewhere, a means to redress the imbalance created by death—the social imbalance created by the death of a member of the community, and the religious imbalance between this world and the one beyond. The importance of this Byzantine ritual partly explains its conservatism: it comprised a set of burial customs, in which traditions from pagan antiquity existed alongside more recent Christian traditions. These customs were observed during the three main parts of the funerary process.

From death to the wake

In Byzantium, death wasn’t a rapid, but rather a progressive process, which began with the separation of the soul from the body and continued until the person departed from the world of the living. The rites associated with preparing the dead for burial were accompanied by lamentations. The last breath acted as a signal for the funeral rites to begin: the women in the house alerted the neighbours through the expression of their grief, which comprised semi-improvised chants, interspersed with screaming and crying. Although they were frowned upon by the clergy, these lamentations continued to be sung in Greece, Turkey, and in parts of the Balkans up until the twentieth century. The women in the family washed the corpse with water and wine, and applied perfume. When a priest was present, the corpse was sprinkled with holy water, which was intended to purify it. The corpse was then wrapped—it was sometimes dressed in everyday clothes first—in a linen shroud, which also symbolized purity. Once prepared, there was a period of mourning and a wake in the two days following the death. During this period, mourners said their last goodbye to the dead. The corpse was placed facing in the direction of the door, friends came to pay their last respects, and a meal was organized in the corpse’s presence.

The funeral procession and the burial

Ancient expressions of grief existed alongside specifically Christian rites during the funeral procession. The women continued their lamentations, which were accompanied by acts of self-mutilation: they cut their chests and faces; they undid and tore out their hair, and wrung their hands and held them up to the sky[1]. New elements included the following: the participants held candles and palm leaves—Christian symbols of heaven. Likewise, the Christian tradition of burning incense represented the odour of heaven, and was designed to save the deceased from torments after death.

The procession then stopped at the church, which the deceased’s closest relations didn’t enter: they kept their distance during the period of mourning. The funeral service was organized around the singing of psalms that related the miracles of the Old Testament. The worshippers thus asked God to work the miracle of salvation in the deceased’s soul. The funerary iconography employed these themes and added the miracles of the New Testament: the resurrection of Lazarus was represented alongside Daniel saved from the lions[2]. The participants then ate funerary food made of cereals and nuts, which was called kollyva and prepared on the day of the death. This was eaten again at the graveside and during the commemorations.

The procession’s arrival at the place of burial marked the height of the mourning process. The corpse was very often buried with funerary offerings. As in antiquity, objects of finery that no doubt belonged to the deceased were placed in the grave. Objects used for the funerary rituals were also placed in the grave: miniature vases containing perfumes and unguents[3]. These were accompanied by objects for dining, the main commemorative rite: jugs, wine vessels, pots, plates, and goblets, possibly to enable the deceased to take part in future commemorative rites that brought them back cyclically from beyond the grave. Archaeological excavations on Thasos Island have revealed that the deceased were sometimes covered with freshly cut grass, possibly symbolizing the cycle of life and death. Finally, objects that facilitated the passage to the other world were placed in the grave. The most commonly used objects were coins, like the mythical obolus (Greek silver coin) used to pay Charon for the passage of the deceased across the Styx. The cross was also placed in the grave as a symbol. It was supposed to protect the deceased from demons who came to share the sinner’s soul in the hours following the death—a particularly dangerous time for the dead and the living. The cross quickly became the most frequently used funerary symbol to protect and sanctify the grave. A meal at the graveside ended the burial process—a rite that was repeated many times after the burial, and served to develop relations between the dead and the living.

The commemorations

The most significant characteristic of the Byzantine funerary ritual was the sheer length of the mourning process and the commemorations. The schedule had hardly changed since antiquity. Visits to the grave, during which funerary food was eaten, took place on the ninth, eleventh, thirtieth, and fortieth day after the burial, and again after a year[4]. The day of death became the anniversary day for the commemoration, which was celebrated every year with food at the graveside and mourning. This phenomenon can be seen as representing the slow and progressive process of death in Byzantium. The frequency and repetition of the mourning can also be explained by the importance that women—they were the main actors in the mourning process—attached to these practices. Although women were normally not allowed to speak in public, these commemorations enabled them to express themselves publicly.

The ever-present relations between the living and the dead

 According to Byzantine Christian theory, the deceased were supposed to maintain some form of activity in their new state—even if sleep also symbolized their state—, while waiting for the Last Judgement. While they waited, the deceased could receive prayers and gifts made in their favour by the living. They could also, particularly if they’d been granted sainthood, intercede on behalf of the living, and encourage them to repent before a sudden death that was announced to them by apparitions. These relations were codified in rites controlled by the Church, which comprised masses and prayers for the dead, and requests for intercession made to saints or martyrs, usually during a pilgrimage to their tomb. A form of interdependence developed between the dead and the living.

The wealthy families thus financed monastic communities, who were responsible for praying for the souls of the dead and commemorating their memory by celebrating the anniversary of their death every year.

The richness of the Byzantine funerary ritual, which maintained ancient practices alongside new customs, corresponded with the omnipresence of the dead—whether ordinary mortals or saints—in the world of the living.

H. B.

In Western Europe

Catacombs: the first Christian necropolises

In classical antiquity, sepulchres were usually located outside towns and grouped together in necropolises; individual tombs stood next to family mausoleums. However, with the rise of Christianity, from the third century AD, large collective cemeteries developed around Rome, and, to a lesser extent, around cities like Naples and Syracuse. These were catacombs, superposed levels of subterranean galleries in which places were hollowed out for the bodies, in a cavity called loculus. Some of the more important sepulchres were topped with an arch, the arcosolium, which was designed to embellish them. Lastly, there were also groups of sepulchres in funerary rooms (cubiculum). The body, stripped of jewellery and finery, was wrapped in a shroud with spices, placed in the cavity, and sealed with a slab.

The tombs’ plots were identified with signs: for example, the fish, in the cryptical sense, each letter of the word fish, or ichthys in Greek, was the acrostic of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Saviour. Drawings or paintings, based on the holy Writings, elaborated the first Christian iconography, a repertoire of images that primarily evoked the resurrection and eternal life. Jonas (in Hebrew Yona, in Arabic Yunus), escaped from the whale’s belly after three days, and prefigures Christ’s resurrection after three days in the tomb. The same goes for Daniel who came out of the lions’ den alive, or the three young Hebrews who escaped from the Babylonian furnace, for example. Even more explicitly, the resurrection of Lazarus was often represented.

Sepulchres in cemeteries and churches

During the High Middle Ages, burial sites were moved into the town centres. The cemetery (etymologically, the place where one sleeps while awaiting resurrection) created a new relation between the living and the dead, who, in antiquity, had been separated from urban areas, especially out of fear of ghosts and phantoms. Christian cemeteries, however, were religious and holy places that united the community in waiting for eternal life. Certain categories of the population were excluded—pagans, heretics, those who committed suicide, children who hadn’t been baptized, the excommunicated, and Jews (who had their own cemeteries)—and this implied exclusion from salvation too. It was considered to be a place of asylum and refuge, and was consecrated by the bishop (the rite was first mentioned in the tenth century).

The cemeteries could also contain dwellings, and cloisters, cells in which women, after a mass for the dead that symbolically separated them from the world of the living, shut themselves away in prayer for the rest of their lives—they were fed through a hatch. These were places for daily activities, including preaching, gathering, rendering justice, concluding transactions, and organizing celebrations. Their identity was closely connected with the parish communities they were part of, and their proximity to the churches ensured coherence and continuity. In certain cemeteries of the central west of France, lanterns of the dead—openwork towers where a flame burned all night—took on symbolic significance. As the cemetery was restricted to a limited space, particularly in the towns, sepulchres were avoided, and the remains were placed in ossuaries. The accumulation of human remains close to dwellings often created insalubrities. In Paris, the Cimetière des Innocents (today’s Halles district), which went back to the Merovingian era, was closed and moved at the end of eighteenth century, because it had become a veritable cesspit, and a disreputable place to boot!

The monasteries had their own cemeteries, but also served as burial places for laymen, especially members of aristocratic families, who increasingly handed down legacies for this purpose. The convents of the mendicant orders housed many sepulchres at the end of the Middle Ages. And, from the end of antiquity, churches were used as burial sites. While the latter practice was initially reserved for the clergy (St Ambrose, bishop of Milan, was buried in AD 397 in the basilica that he had founded), thereafter, great people and aristocrats were buried in the shrines, especially near the tombs of the martyrs and saints (ad sanctos), in order to benefit from their sanctifying presence. Henceforth, the aristocracy was usually buried inside churches. At the end of the Middle Ages, the bourgeoisie also chose these places for their sepulchres, and they founded funerary chapels at great expense. There are many examples, including the funerary chapel of Joost Vijd in the St John of Ghent church (which became the Cathedral of St Bavo), for which he commissioned the altarpiece of the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb, by Hubert and Jan van Eyck.

Funerary practices and the commemoration of the deceased

From late antiquity, the Church helped the dead, commended their souls to God, assisted in the preparation of their remains, organized a funeral wake, and prayers were said before the tomb. In the era of pope Gregory the Great (AD 590–604), the souls of the dead were commended (Memento of the dead) at the end of the mass. From the Carolingian era onwards, the commemoration of the dead became more structured, with a specific service before burial, the mass for the dead (known as the Requiem), and private masses—to rest the soul—, consigned to literary collections, the ‘Books of Life’ or ‘Memorial Books’ (the origin of obituaries). Celebrations took place every year on the anniversary of the person’s death. Around 1030, St Odilon, abbot of Cluny, introduced All Souls’ Day, which followed All Saints’ Day, on 2 November. Perpetual anniversary masses developed, which also perpetuated the memory of noble lineages. However, these practices, with their pagan origins, like eating on the tomb of the deceased, coexisted for a long time alongside Christian rituals.

With the development of the mendicant orders and the pastoral revival in the thirteenth century, new conceptions developed: the emphasis was placed on individual salvation, and the necessity for spiritual preparation for the afterlife through prayer. In addition, up until the twelfth century, it was thought that after the person’s death they went to either Paradise or Hell. But, the introduction of the notion of Purgatory, as a place where the dead waited in penitence before entering Paradise, provided a new chance to redeem oneself. Thus, the prayers of the living could redeem the dead, and this would later turn into the emergence of brotherhoods of the souls of Purgatory. Above all, this explained the need to recall the memory of the dead to solicit the approbation of the worshippers. Death was given an emphatic role, with imposing gisants (recumbent statues), funeral services that exalted the deceased, and the bodies of important figures were carried in processions; exalting on this occasion a veritable dynastic continuity. The fourteenth century’s very high mortality rate, due to the Black Death and recurrent famines and wars, had a significant impact on perceptions. Christians were reminded that they should always be prepared for death, and the obsession with this theme led to increasing references: the danses macabres (dances of death), the ‘transis’—a macabre and more decomposed, emaciated variant of the gisant—conveyed a stark message to the living. Works dedicated to the ars moriendi (Art of dying well) ensured the spiritual preparation for this trial, a necessary passage to a new life for the Christian, for, as St Francis said: ‘And in dying we are born to eternal life’.

Th.S.