"Eleazar Malory, Joiner at the Coffin in White Chapel, near Red
Lion Street end, maketh Coffins, Shrouds, letteth Palls, Cloaks,
and Furnisheth with all the other things necessary for Funerals at
Reasonable Rates."
(_b_) The dead were formerly buried in woollen, which was rendered
compulsory by the Acts 30 Car. ii. c. 3 and 36 Ejusdem c. i., the first
of which was for "lessening the importation of Linen from beyond the
seas, and the encouragement of the Woollen and Paper Manufactures of
the Kingdome." It prescribed that the curate of every parish shall keep
a register, to be provided at the charge of the parish, wherein to
enter all burials and affidavits of persons being buried in woollen. No
affidavit was necessary for a person dying of the plague, but for every
infringement a fine of £5 was imposed, one half to go to the informer,
and the other half to the poor of the parish. This Act was only
repealed in 1815. The material used was flannel, and such interments
are frequently mentioned in the literature of the time.
(_c_) Misson throws some light on the custom of using flannel for
enveloping the dead, but I fancy that it is of much greater antiquity
than he imagined. However, he asserts:--
"There is an Act of Parliament which ordains, That the Dead shall
be bury'd in a Woollen Stuff, which is a kind of a thin Bays, which
they call Flannel; nor is it lawful to use the least Needleful of
Thread or Silk. This Shift is always White; but there are different
Sorts of it as to Fineness, and consequently of different Prices.
To make these dresses is a particular Trade, and there are many
that sell nothing else; so that these Habits for the Dead are
always to be had ready made, of what Size or Price you please,
for People of Every Age and Sex. After they had washed the Body
thoroughly clean, and shav'd it, if it be a Man, and his Beard be
grown during his Sickness, they put it on a Flannel Shirt, which
has commonly a sleeve purfled about the Wrists, and the Slit of the
Shirt down the Breast done in the same Manner. When these Ornaments
are not of Woollen Lace, they are at least edg'd, and sometimes
embroider'd with black Thread. The Shirt shou'd be at least half
a Foot longer than the Body, that the feet of the Deceas'd may be
wrapped in it as in a Bag. When they have thus folded the end of
the Shirt close to the Feet, they tye the Part that is folded down
with a piece of Woollen Thread, as we do our stockings; so that the
end of the Shirt is done into a kind of Tuft. Upon the Head they
put a Cap, which they fasten with a very broad Chin Cloth, with
Gloves on the Hands, and a Cravat round the Neck, all of Woollen.
That the Body may ly the softer, some put a Lay of Bran, about four
inches thick, at the Bottom of the Coffin. Instead of a Cap, the
Women have a kind of Head Dress, with a Forehead Cloth."
Funeral invitations of a ghastly kind were sent out, and Elegies,
laudatory of the deceased, were sometimes printed and sent to friends.
These were got up in the same charnel-house style, and embellished with
skulls, human bones, and skeletons. Hat-bands were costly items.
"For the encouragement of our English silk, called a la modes,
His Royal Highness the Prince of Denmark, the Nobility, and other
persons of quality, appear in Mourning Hatbands made of that silk,
to bring the same in fashion, in the place of Crapes, which are
made in the Pope's Country where we send our money for them."
(_d_) The poor in Anne's time had already started Burial Clubs and
Societies, and very cheap they seem to have been.
"This is to give notice that the office of Society for Burials, by
mutual contribution of a Halfpenny or Farthing towards a Burial,
erected upon Wapping Wall, is now removed into Katherine Wheel
Alley, in White Chappel, near Justice Smiths, where subscriptions
are taken to compleat the number, as also at the Ram in Crucifix
Lane in Barnaby Street, Southwark, to which places notice is to be
given of the death of any Member, and where any person may have the
printed Articles after Monday next. And this Thursday evening about
7 o'clock will be Buried by the Undertakers, the Corpse of J. S.,
a Glover, over against the Sun Brewhouse, in Golden Lane; as also
a child from the corner of Acorn Alley, in Bishopsgate Street, and
another child from the Great Maze Pond, Southwark."
(_e_) Undertakers liked to arrange for a Funeral to take place on
an evening in winter, as the costs were thereby increased, for then
the Mourners were furnished with wax candles. These were heavy, and
sometimes were made of four tapers twisted at the stem and then
branching out. That these wax candles were expensive enough to excite
the thievish cupidity of a band of roughs, the following advertisement
will show:--
"Riots and Robberies--Committed in and about Stepney Church Yard,
at a Funeral Solemnity, on Wednesday, the 23rd day of September;
and whereas many persons, who being appointed to attend the same
Funeral with white wax lights of a considerable value, were
assaulted in a most violent manner, and the said white wax lights
taken from them. Whoever shall discover any of the Persons, guilty
of the said crimes, so as they may be convicted of the same, shall
receive of Mr. William Prince, Wax Chandler in the Poultry, London,
Ten Shillings for each Person so discovered."
(_f_) We get a curious glimpse of the paraphernalia of a funeral in the
Life of a notorious cheat, "The German Princess," who lived, and was
hanged, in the latter part of the 17th Century, and the same funeral
customs therein described obtained in Queen Anne's time. She took a
lodging at a house, in a good position, and told the landlady that a
friend of hers, a stranger to London, had just died, and was lying at
"a pitiful Alehouse," and might she, for convenience sake, bring his
corpse there, ready for burial on the morrow.
"The landlady consented, and that evening the Corps in a very
handsome Coffin was brought in a Coach, and placed in the Chamber,
which was the Room one pair of Stairs next the Street, and had
a Balcony. The Coffin being covered only with an ordinary black
Cloth, our Counterfeit seems much to dislike it; the Landlady tells
her that for 20s. she might have the use of a Velvet Pall, with
which being well pleas'd, she desir'd the Landlady to send for the
Pall, and withal accommodate the Room with her best Furniture,
for the next day but one he should be bury'd; thus the Landlady
performed, setting the Velvet Pall, and placing on a Side Board
Table 2 Silver Candlesticks, a Silver Flaggon, 2 Standing Gilt
Bowls, and several other pieces of Plate; but the Night before
the intended Burial, our Counterfeit Lady and her Maid within the
House, handed to their comrades without, all the Plate, Velvet
Pall, and other Furniture of the Chamber that was Portable and of
Value, leaving the Coffin and the supposed Corps, she and her Woman
descended from the Balcony by help of a Ladder, which her comrades
had brought her."
It is needless to say that the coffin contained only brickbats and hay,
and a sad sequel to this story is that the undertaker sued the landlady
for the loss of his pall, which had lately cost him £40.
According to a request in the will of one Mr. Benjamin Dodd, a Roman
Catholic, "Citizen and Linnen Draper, who fell from his horse and died
soon after," four and twenty persons were at his burial, to each of
whom he gave a pair of white gloves, a ring of 10s. value, a bottle
of wine, and half-a-crown to be spent on their return that night, "to
drink his Soul's Health, then on her Journey for Purification in order
to Eternal Rest." He also appointed his "Corps" to be carried in a
hearse drawn by six white horses, with white feathers, and followed
by six coaches, with six horses to each coach, and commanded that "no
Presbyterian, Moderate Low Churchmen, or Occasional Conformists, be at
or have anything to do with his Funeral."
(_g_) Parisian funerals at the present day present many features common
to those celebrated in England in the last century. The church, for
instance, is elaborately decorated in black for a married man or woman,
but in white for a spinster, youth, or child. The costumes of the hired
attendants, and these are numerous--I counted one day, quite recently,
no less than twenty-four, two to each coach, all handsomely dressed
in black velvet--are of the time of Louis XV. I am assured that the
expenses of a first-class funeral in Paris, in this year of Grace 1889,
sometimes exceeds several hundred pounds.
The _lettre de faire part_, as it is called, is also a curious feature
in the funeral rites of our neighbours. It is an elaborate document in
the form of a printed letter, deeply edged with black, and informs that
all the members, near and distant, of the deceased's family--they are
each mentioned by name and title--request you, not only to attend the
funeral, but to pray for his or her soul.
The fashion of sending costly wreaths to cover the coffin is recent,
and was quite as unknown in Paris twenty years ago as it was in
this country until about the same period. Wreaths of _immortelles_,
sometimes dyed black, were, however, sent to funerals in France in
the Middle Ages. In Brittany, the "wake" is almost as common as it is
in Ireland, and quite as frequently degenerates into an unedifying
spectacle. Like the Irish custom, it originated in the early Christian
practice of keeping a light burning by the corpse, and in praying for
the repose of the soul, _coram_ the corpse prior to its final removal
to the church and grave, certain pagan customs, the distribution of
wine and bread, having been introduced, at first possibly from a sense
of hospitality, and finally as means of carousal.