Death, Religion, and the Family in England, 1480–1750

Houlbrooke, Ralph

doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208761.001.0001

Cited by 37 publications

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“…In the English studies that there are, the focus has often been theological, or on the magnificent monumental sculpture of the period (Almond, 1994;Penny, 1977). The unusual burials explored here receive no mention in the more general standard works (Houlbrooke, 1998(Houlbrooke, , 1999Rugg, 1999). Nor have they been critically surveyed in a scholarly article, though a few have received individual studies White, 2001).…”

Section: Parametersmentioning

confidence: 91%

“…The burials considered here are far rarer than that, though it is, of course, impossible to tell exactly how many of them took place altogether, as more will gradually come to light in other printed sources and among the hundreds of thousands of wills of the period held in the National Archives at Kew and in record offices around the country. This study does not cover interments in dissenting burial grounds, although these were still relatively few in number, or where the stated intention was simply to be laid to rest according to the standard practice of a particular minority denomination (Houlbrooke, 1998;Stock, 1998). Nor does it cover the unusual forms of burial that were meted out as punishments; the burials in this study were voluntarily chosen.…”

Section: Parametersmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…By the eighteenth century, the use of coffins was practically ubiquitous and, for the better off, the sermon played an important role in the ceremony. Again for those with some wealth, there was a wide range of goods to enhance the ''decency'' of the funeral, supplied by the newly formed profession of undertaking (Gittings, 1984;Houlbrooke, 1998Houlbrooke, , 1999. For the truly rich, a feature new to the eighteenth century might be the construction of a mausoleum, often built on unconsecrated land, generally on the estate of the deceased (Mausolea and Monuments Trust, n.d.; Pearson, 2002;Saumarez Smith, 1990).…”

Section: Historical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Eccentric or enlightened? Unusual burial and commemoration in England, 1689 – 1823

Gittings

2007

Mortality

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This article shows how personalized funerals, pre-planned by the deceased, did not first occur in the later twentieth century, but had already appeared in England between 1689 and 1823. Twenty-six interments are surveyed, revealing who had unusual burials, why they did so, and what influenced them in their choices. All but two were male, mainly elderly, and most were professionals with sufficient wealth for their wills, which are a major source in this study, to be proved in the highest of the probate courts. These unusual burials have not previously been analysed collectively and doing so provides insights into a period less studied by historians of death in England. Some key factors emerge. One is the desire to challenge the concept of burial in consecrated ground. Emphasis on earthly memorial is another, though a minority deliberately chose oblivion. Differing views of how identity is embodied appear through choices such as heart burial, dissection, embalming, or destruction with quicklime. The inspirations of these 26 interments reflect some important eighteenth-century themes: a feeling for nature and a sense of place, Biblical references, classical models, and traditional secular customs. That these people faced little opposition reflects the less regulated nature of eighteenth-century English burials, and provides some modern precedents.

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Section: Parametersmentioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Parametersmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Historical Backgroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Eccentric or enlightened? Unusual burial and commemoration in England, 1689 – 1823

Gittings

2007

Mortality

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“…The pietistic paraphernalia which accompanied the succor of needy souls, lambasted as Catholic profiteering, severed links between the living and the dead. How far this was accepted by congregations has been debated by historians such as Eamon Duffy (1992), Phillip Morgan (1999) and Ralph Houlbrooke (1998), but it is the archaeology of churches which attests to popular apprehension regarding perfunctory reform. Lindley's (2003) attempts to appraise medieval statuary in Tewkesbury abbey revealed multiple instances of concealment around the church.…”

Section: Changing Forms and Persistent Practice: Manipulating Death Imentioning

confidence: 99%

The Reformed Elect: Wealth, Death, and Sanctity in Gloucestershire, 1550–1640

Owen

2006

Int J Histor Archaeol

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The cleansing of the parish space in the sixteenth century provided opportunities for the laity to state the case for their own sanctity within the spaces formerly occupied by the didactic imagery of the Elect. Pietistic superiority in death, rendered in stone with reference to a popular ideal set forth in the Ars Moriendi elevated the moneyed over the living congregation. This paper compares the emphases of memorials in Gloucestershire, England, with that of selected Ars Moriendi texts in order to comprehend how wealthy patrons farmed themselves as a novel focus for popular adoration and what they hoped to achieve by doing so.

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“…Cressy has analysed Tudor and Stuart funerals as part of a wider, socially constructed life cycle (1997, pp. 379-473), while Ralph Houlbrooke (1998) has contextualised them within changing familial relationships between c.1480 and 1750. More recently, Tarlow has made some use of folklore, among other sources, in an attempt to reconstruct early modern attitudes to the dead body (2011, pp.…”

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confidence: 99%

Drawing the pillow, laying out and port wine: the moral economy of death, dying and bereavement in England, c.1840–1930

Frisby

2014

Mortality

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In 1997, Gillian Bennett and Steve Roud of the Folklore Society (FLS) highlighted the resources available to historians of death, dying, funerals and bereavement within the archives of the FLS. They contended that, despite the outdated scholarly apparatus employed by the Victorian and early twentieth century folklorists, the FLS archive nonetheless contains a wealth of valuable, yet largely neglected ethnohistorical data. In 2000, Simpson and Roud remarked that 'There are many books on upper and middle-class funerals [but] [t]here is no single study of folk customs at funerals'. This article is an attempt to remedy this continuing deficiency, drawing upon evidence from Folklore Journal and other contemporary folkloric sources in order to reconstruct working and lower middle-class experiences of the Last Things in later nineteenth-and early twentieth-century England. In so doing, I refer not so much to the well-established narratives of aspirational imitation and conspicuous consumption, but argue that evidence from the folkloric record is testament to the existence of a meaningful, internally consistent 'moral economy' of customary social relationships, not only between bereaved people but also between the living and the newly dead in Victorian and early twentieth-century England. Literature reviewHistory is written into the fabric of Death Studies, some of the earliest studies of death, dying, bereavement and funerals being historical, or at least nostalgic, in nature: notably Gorer's Death, Grief, and Mourning in Contemporary Britain (1965) which derived its rhetorical force from a nostalgic comparison between funerals and mourning during Gorer's Edwardian childhood, and at the time of writing. Similarly, Mitford's exposé of unscrupulous, exploitative practices in the mid-twentieth-century American funeral industry turned upon an unfavourable contrast between funerals in the past and the present: [s]implicity to the point of starkness, the plain pine box, the laying out of the dead by friends and family who also bore the coffin to the grave -these were

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Death, Religion, and the Family in England, 1480–1750

Cited by 37 publications

References 0 publications

Eccentric or enlightened? Unusual burial and commemoration in England, 1689 – 1823

Eccentric or enlightened? Unusual burial and commemoration in England, 1689 – 1823

The Reformed Elect: Wealth, Death, and Sanctity in Gloucestershire, 1550–1640

Drawing the pillow, laying out and port wine: the moral economy of death, dying and bereavement in England, c.1840–1930

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