being placed in a sitting position in their tombs, with the legs and
body upright. This exceptional mode of interment was most frequently
adopted, though not exclusively, by the barbarians; and the fact of
Charlemagne having been so interred makes it peculiarly interesting.
“Washed and laid out,” as we read in Legrand d’Aussy’s “Sépultures
Nationales,” “arrayed in his imperial robes, at his side a sword with
a golden pummel, on his head a golden crown, holding in his lap a New
Testament written in letters of gold, he was seated upon a throne of
gold. Before him were placed his golden sceptre and shield, which had
been blessed by Pope Leo. The vault was filled with perfumes and many
treasures (_thesauris multis_); it was closed, and even sealed
down, and over it was erected a golden arcade, upon which was engraved
the epitaph handed down to us by Eginhardt, and is the oldest extant of
all those which tell of our earliest kings.”
When the pagans adopted the custom of interment (Fig. 348), they
laid by the side of the dead the insignia of his profession, and any
objects which had been dear to him during his lifetime; to this they
added various vases containing food and drink, to serve him as a
_viaticum_ during his more or less prolonged journey to a better
world. In the coffins of Christians, on the contrary--even from the
earliest times--the funeral furniture appears to have been next to
nothing: a phial containing some perfume, with one, two, or perhaps
three vases, of wood, glass, or clay, filled with holy water.
[Illustration: Fig. 348.--Gallo-Roman Tomb, representing the
deceased laid upon a funeral bed, and surrounded by her weeping
family and household.--Monument of the First or Second Century,
found during excavations made in Paris. After a Plate in the
“Statistique de Paris,” by M. Albert Lenoir.]
The perfume-phials had disappeared so early as the Merovingian period,
but the custom of placing the other vases in the coffin lasted, in
some countries, even down to the eighteenth century. Their presence
in a place of burial is not, therefore, a proof of its antiquity. The
liturgists have endeavoured to explain the origin and the meaning of a
custom so general and so long maintained; and William Durand suggests,
in his “Rationale,” that these funeral vases, of whatever shape they
might be, were intended for containing incense. A miniature of the
fourteenth century would appear to confirm this theory, for we find
that it represents, at the four corners of a coffin covered with the
pall, small pots placed in a row with the tapers (Fig. 349); and there
is reason to believe that the incense in them was burnt during the
funeral service. In fact, the pots represented in this miniature are
white; the reddish colour of the holes with which they are perforated,
and the smoke issuing from them, show that there was fire inside.
Perhaps this was only the fire of red-hot coals, since they have been
found to contain ashes mixed with pieces of coal.
[Illustration:
Fig. 349.--Funeral Service, in which are shown, between the
candelabra, the incense vases which were deposited in the
coffin.--Drawing of the Fourteenth Century.
Fig. 350.--Absolution Cross of the Eleventh Century, in lead,
found in a coffin in the Abbey of Bury St. Edmund’s (1855).
From “Les Sépultures Gauloises, Romaines, et Franques,” by the
Abbé Cochet.]
After the ceremony, these vases were placed, while still alight, in
the coffin. And this brings us to another Christian usage, which
has been ascertained to have existed in France and England from the
eleventh to the thirteenth century. During this period, a cross was
placed upon the breast of the deceased person. This cross, in wood or
in lead, sometimes in silver, was called an _absolution cross_
(Fig. 350), because the formula of absolution given to the dead man
was generally engraved upon it--and even his name was stated in the
formula. A fact related by Mabillon, in his “Annals of the Order of St.
Benedict,” sufficiently proves the importance and universal extent of
this custom. In 1142, after the death of Abelard, Eloisa, Abbess of the
Paraclete, asked Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny, for a formula
of absolution to place upon the tomb of the illustrious theologian.
This absolution was placed, as is related by a Benedictine writer,
upon Abelard’s breast. The text is so interesting that it is worth
quoting, though written in Latin. Peter the Venerable, alluding therein
to the unwillingness of the monks of St. Marcel to give up the body of
Abelard, says, “Ego Petrus, Cluniacensis abbas, qui Petrum Abaëlardum,
in monachum Cluniacensem recepi, et corpus ejus furtim delatum Heloïsæ,
abbatissæ et monialibus Paracliti concessi, auctoritate omnipotentis
Dei et omnium sanctorum absolvo eum pro officio ab omnibus peccatis
suis.” Ancient burying-places are sometimes discovered with bodies
which have been bound in chains, or, at all events, are loaded with
iron and brass fetters. Thus at Couvert, near Bayeux, a skeleton was
discovered a few years back laid upon the face (_ad dentes_),
upon a wooden cross, with a small chain round the neck. This is a
peculiarity having its origin in certain rules of penance which were
in force from the eighth to the tenth, and probably to the eleventh,
century.
The pagan rite prescribed that a piece of money should be placed in the
urn or coffin; and many antiquaries have suggested that this must have
been the _obolus_ for Charon. This custom was perpetuated by the
Christians, for, throughout the Middle Ages, a coin was always placed
on the bier; and this practice still prevails in Poitou, Alsace, and
other places.
The interments of the barbarians, even after their conversion to
Christianity, are specially characteristic, because, no matter to what
nation they belonged, they adhered to their own particular manner of
burial. They were interred in their finest clothes, with their weapons,
and, in some cases, with their war-horse. The women and children, whose
burial-place is easily discoverable, wore jewels, necklaces, rings,
fibulæ, girdles, buckles, &c., to which are still found adhering bits
of tissue, the remains of some splendid costume.
Researches and excavations made in France of late years have led to
the discovery of numerous barbarian cemeteries, and have enabled us to
ascertain what were the Merovingian, or, as it would perhaps be more
accurate to say, the Germanic funeral customs. These customs evidently
were replaced by others when the barbarian finally settled in Gaul,
that is, about the middle of the ninth century. The habit of placing in
the coffin various pieces of black, red, or white pottery (Fig. 351),
together with small vases which seem to have been intended for the same
purpose as those used in Christian burials, existed during this period.
These vases, often very numerous, no doubt contained food; they were
frequently accompanied by a small wooden jar, the handle of which was
very richly mounted, and which the _savans_ at one time took to
be a Merovingian diadem. But a chemical analysis of the solid residue
found in one of these jars, led to the discovery that they were filled
with an alimentary substance which gave out a strong odour of fermented
beer.
[Illustration: Fig. 351.--Gallic or Gallo-Roman Pottery, dug up
in Paris and in the neighbourhood.]
Subsequently to the period when the barbarians were no longer interred
with their weapons of war, there still remained some traces of this
primitive custom in Christian society, both in France and Germany;
thus, kings were buried in their royal robes, with sceptre and crown.
This continued to be the case throughout the Middle Ages; but, in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the sceptres and crowns deposited
in the coffins were made of brass or tin, in order that thieves might
not be tempted to steal them. Such was also the case with bishops and
abbots, as is shown by Gregory of Tours, when he speaks of Saint Gall,
the Bishop of Clermont, in Auvergne, of the Abbot Mars, of the hermits
Marian, Leobard, and Lupicin, being buried in their robes of ceremony.
They were covered at their death with the most brilliant insignia of
their dignity; but after a certain epoch nothing was placed beside them
in the coffin but a wooden crozier, a chalice, and a tin paten. They
were always dressed, however, in their pontifical vestments, the gold
lace and embroidery of which has, when these tombs have come to be
opened, often been found undecayed, while the vestments themselves have
crumbled into dust.
In the monasteries and communities, the old barbarian rite was observed
after the tenth century, and the monks were buried with all their
clothing on them; but as the woollen material of which they were
made was consumed by age, it is impossible for the archæologist to
reconstruct on opening these coffins the monastic dress as it must have
been when the body contained in it was buried.
At present we have considered only the different modes of burial during
the Middle Ages, but we may now proceed to speak of the coffin and
the tomb. No work of art is more curious, or fuller of historical and
picturesque information, than the funeral monuments of all ages. But
it must be remembered that there is a marked distinction between the
coffin and the tomb, one being the receptacle of the dead, the other
only a monument raised to mark the spot of ground in which the coffin
has been interred.
At all periods Christians have used coffins cut out of stone; and
this custom only ceased in the thirteenth century, to make way for
the use of lead coffins. The stone sarcophagi were only for persons
of a certain rank. Soldiers, townsmen, and country people were buried
in coffins made of wood. The Franks gave the name of _off_ or
_noff_ to these coffins, which are alluded to in the Salic law.
Gregory of Tours, speaking of the plague which desolated Auvergne in
571, says, “The mortality was so great at Clermont that it was found
necessary to inter as many as ten bodies in the same grave, because
there was a dearth of wooden and stone coffins.”
These ancient stone sarcophagi are met with in great numbers in those
localities which were the ordinary places of burial. They have been
found by thousands in certain towns and villages, such as Alichamps,
Drevant, and Grou, in the department of the Cher, as well as at Meunes
and Naveil, in the department of the Loir-et-Cher. The most ancient
coffins are easily to be recognised by their large dimensions, their
thickness, and their regular shape (Figs. 352 and 353). They are, so
to speak, chests with a massive stone cover, two metres and twenty
centimetres (about seven feet two inches) long, and in some cases more.
They are square, and resemble a rectangular trough. The lid, sloping in
the shape of a roof, is quite free of all decoration.
[Illustration: Fig. 352.--Stone Coffin discovered during
excavations made in the Rue de la Cossonnerie, Paris. In the
Cluny Museum.]
[Illustration: Fig. 353.--Stone Coffin of Gallo-Roman origin, in
the Cluny Museum.]
In the sixth and seventh centuries the dimensions of the sarcophagi
began to decrease, being rarely more than two metres (six feet seven
inches) in length. Another distinctive mark of that period was that
the coffin, narrower at the foot than at the head, was covered with a
large stone, hewn like that of the antique coffins. Moreover, it was
often a trifle less deep at the foot than at the head; but this is the
special characteristic of the coffins of the eighth century. After this
period, coffins narrower at the foot than at the head, but of the same
elevation on both sides, again came into use.
In the eighth century, many coffins were found to contain a small cell
cut into the stone for holding the head of the corpse. This cell was
generally square, but sometimes round.
The further we get into the Middle Ages the more difficult it becomes
to ascertain the antiquity of a coffin. After the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, if not the tenth, the lids are ornamented with
roughly-executed sculpture work, crosses in bas-relief, triangular
facets, indistinct tracery work which have a distinct resemblance to
the Roman sarcophagi.
The ancient cemeteries of the French provinces also contain coffins
moulded in plaster; and the Cluny Museum has some interesting specimens
of these coffins, which were in use from the ninth to the fourteenth
century. Their sides are roughly decorated with very primitive
ornaments, round, lozenge-shaped, and convoluted, with emblems which
enable us to ascertain approximatively their date of execution. Thus,
when a plaster coffin is decorated with the fleur-de-lis, we may be
sure that it cannot be of earlier origin than the thirteenth century.
In the last few years of the twelfth century was invented a kind of
stone coffin, hewn outside in such a way as to produce the shape of the
head, and to represent the whole body as enveloped in its shroud, just
like a mummy.
In the early part of the fourteenth century personages of rank were
buried in stone coffins lined with lead. In the time of Charles V.
stone was altogether replaced by wood and lead, even in the burials
of the rich. The coffins of that epoch resemble boxes made in a great
hurry by joining together sheets of lead of various thicknesses.
[Illustration: Fig. 354.--Raised Stone, near Poitiers.--After a
Plate in the great work of Count de Laborde, “Les Monuments de la
France:” in folio, 1816.]
Square stone troughs, about twelve or fourteen inches in length by from
eight to ten inches in breadth, are also to be met with in considerable
numbers; and they were employed to receive the bones that had fallen
from disused burial-places, and from the vaults beneath churches when,
in the course of repairs, unknown or forgotten graves were disturbed.
When these repairs led to the disinterment of the coffins appertaining
to some personages of note buried in the church of which they had been
the parishioners and the benefactors, it sometimes happened that in
moving them they were burst open, and, in this case, the remnants of
the broken coffins were placed in these small troughs, which took up
less room. The tombs, that is to say the visible monuments of burial,
were of nearly the same shape as the coffins, from the earliest ages
down to the close of the ninth century, the only distinction being
that they were made of choicer materials and decorated with more or
less magnificence. Thus, all the coffins which contained the bodies of
martyrs, nobles, prelates, or kings, were exposed to the view of the
faithful, and served for tombs, so that these illustrious persons were
not, in the true sense of the term, interred. The stone chest in which
the body was placed being both a coffin and a funeral monument, was not
hidden beneath a tombstone, but remained visible in a church--not in a
sepulchral cave, but above ground, often, indeed, raised upon columns.
The early Christians of Gaul, those at least who were distinguished
for their achievements or their virtues, were interred in this fashion
in sarcophagi ornamented with allegorical subjects, very like those
in which pagans were buried. A case in point is the sarcophagus at
Rheims of Jovinus the patrician, master of the cavalry under Julian,
and, it is said, founder of the Church of St. Agricole, since called
St. Nicaise. This monument, removed from this ancient church to the
cathedral and afterwards to the museum, is of white marble, sculptured
upon three sides. The front represents various hunting scenes, in which
Jovinus is taking part, with a spear in his hand, accompanied by a
spirit which has the attributes of Minerva. It is very probable that
this sarcophagus, which had been previously used for the burial of some
pagan, was used for its fresh occupant without any change being made in
its artistic features. An exactly similar one was made for the King of
Austrasia, Carloman, the brother of Charlemagne; an analogous subject
was also sculptured upon it, and it was elevated upon four columns near
the tomb of St. Remigius.
The sarcophagi were sometimes made of a more costly material than
stone; that of St. Cassianus, at Autun, for instance, was of alabaster.
But these were only exceptional cases; and Maurice, Archbishop of
Rouen, prohibited these funeral extravagances in 1231. It is curious,
however, to note the representation of scenes in profane history upon
Christian coffins. Sauval describes one that was discovered in the
Church of St. Geneviève, Paris, in 1620, which contained a box full
of gold and silver medals representing the boar-hunt of Meleager.
Christian and pagan emblems are sometimes found side by side: upon
the sarcophagus of St. Andoche was represented a wheel, a bird,
vine-foliage and grapes, a hatchet, and, amidst all these ornaments, a
cross.
After the reign of Theodosius, there were in use throughout Gaul
sarcophagi the emblems of which were exclusively borrowed from the
Christian religion. As a general rule, the front surface is divided
by arcades of raised architecture, and between each of them is
represented a subject taken from the Old or the New Testament. Arles,
in fact, appears to have been the centre of a special manufacture which
executed this kind of work for all the south of France, until the
middle of the sixteenth century. There were also manufactories of stone
sarcophagi at St. Pierre l’Etrier, St. Emelion, and, more notably, at
Quarrée-les-Tombes.
During the reigns of the first _rois fainéants_, the successors of
Clovis, the decoration of the sarcophagi was affected by the barbarian
style of art. There were no longer any figures in relief--nothing
but the monogram of Christ, XP, with a circular or oval border. At
that period the sarcophagus took the exact shape of the coffin, being
narrower at the feet than at the head. The lid was a large stone of
the same character as the coffin, generally decorated with concentric
circles or the scales of fish, in memory of Christ’s monogram, ΙΧΘΥΣ
(ὶχθὺς, _fish_).
Funeral sculptures did not flourish during the time of Charlemagne;
the bodies of the kings were placed in ancient tombs, which were
everywhere very plentiful. Thus, the sarcophagus in which the body of
Charlemagne himself was placed represented the abduction of Proserpine.
It is true that upon that of Louis the Pious was represented the
Passage of the Red Sea, but this was manufactured at Arles. The
churches in course of time became so full of tombs that the councils
were obliged to prohibit interment in them, and this order, though only
partially observed, effected a change in the mode of burial. People
preferred to have the coffins placed in the ground, especially as they
were better protected in this way from the robbers who violated the
sanctity of the grave. Thus, from the ninth to the beginning of the
tenth century, sarcophagi gradually fell into disuse.
[Illustration: Fig. 355.--Tomb of St. Elizabeth of Hungary,
in the Church of Marburg, Hesse (Thirteenth Century). She is
represented upon her death-bed, and the angels are offering her
soul to Jesus, who is blessing it, and to the Virgin. To the
right are Duke Louis with the cross of the Crusades, St. John
the Evangelist, the special protector of St. Elizabeth, St.
Catherine, and St. Peter; to the left, St. John the Baptist, St.
Mary Magdalene, and a bishop. It was before this bas-relief that
the pilgrims knelt in prayer, and their knees have worn hollows
into the pavement around it.]
Burials above ground again came into vogue after the eleventh century,
and from that epoch dates the development of funeral art in the Middle
Ages. At first, the tombs, even of the highest personages, consisted
only of a plain block of stone or marble, varying in shape, placed
upon the ground, or, as was more often the case, raised upon short
columns. In the twelfth century we meet with a new kind of monument:
tombs in the form of square altars, or altar-tables, with the image of
the deceased in relief or cut out on their upper surface. These tombs
were in general use throughout the Middle Ages (Fig. 355), and were
combined, subsequent to the thirteenth century, with another mode
based on quite a different principle. As, in spite of the decrees of
the councils, the churches were still full of graves, it was sought to
make the tombs erected in them as little cumbersome as possible; and
hence arose the custom of placing tablets or sculptures upon the walls,
at a certain elevation above the ground, betokening the presence of a
coffin in the vault beneath. There were, besides, the flat tombs, the
pompous epitaphs on which were effaced by the footsteps of those who
walked over them. These were in vogue from the time of Philip Augustus,
and the use of them did not die out till the reign of Louis XIV.,
especially in the northern provinces of France.
[Illustration: Fig. 356.--Tomb in the Church of St. Waudru, at
Mons, of Adelaide or Alice, Countess of Hainault, who died in
1168. This tomb is of stone, devoid of all decoration, with a
triangular top in the shape of a cross. (Twelfth Century.)]
Some detailed account may now be given of the square blocks of stone
employed as funeral monuments. These raised tombs (for that is their
proper name) were, in the eleventh century, larger at the top than at
the sides. They were ornamented with mouldings at the top and at the
bottom, and either rested upon a stone slab or upon short columns.
Other tombs, equally massive, were prism-shaped, with three, four, or
five sides, and they too rested in the same manner. The oldest of these
monuments are almost exactly like coffins, and their surface is devoid
of all ornamental work (Fig. 356). The presence of sculpture about
a tomb constitutes one of the distinctive marks of art in the reign
of Philip I. (1059–1108). The sculpture generally consists of simple
circles enfolding busts surrounded with foliage. The solid square tombs
of that date are decorated with arcades in bas-relief, like the altars
of the period.
From this species of vault, is derived the monument in the shape of a
table, the dimensions and decorations of which continued to increase
during the reign of Louis VIII. It was a block of stone surmounted by
a table upon which rested a statue of the deceased, with his hands
crossed upon his breast. Tables of this shape were chiefly used for
the bronze tombs which became very numerous in the early part of the
twelfth century. These bronze tombs, upon which the statue was laid,
had for supporters four or six couched lions. When Suger restored his
Abbey of St. Denis, he removed to the middle of the choir the grave
of Charles the Bald, and erected over it a bronze table with lions
for supports, and a statue designed to represent the features of the
monarch.
The personages thus typified in stone, marble, or bronze, are always
represented with their insignia; kings and sovereign princes with a
crown and a mantle; knights bareheaded, with their armour, sword,
and spurs of knighthood, and, in many cases, their coat of mail and
armorial bearings (Fig. 357); nobles, not knights, with their armorial
shield, one or two hounds couched at their feet, a falcon upon the
wrist or the glove with which the bird was held in their hand,--that is
to say, with emblems signifying their right to take part in the chase,
which was the special privilege of the nobility.
In the same way women, lawyers, and the secular and the regular
clergy, had the dress betokening their condition upon their tombs; but
the sculptors and carvers did not always adhere very closely to the
variations of fashion, and they often represented a personage of their
own day in a costume belonging to a previous generation. Thus, for
several centuries, kings were represented with the primitive mantle
clasped or tied in front; the knights appeared, even down to the
time of Henry II., with the halberd and the helmet worn only by the
ancient order of chivalry. Funeral sculpture had its conventional and
traditional rules, like all other arts in the Middle Ages.
[Illustration: Fig. 357.--Tomb erected in the Church of the
Dominicans, at Puy-en-Velay, to the memory of Du Guesclin, by
Marshal de Sancerre, his friend.--This tomb dates from the close
of the Fourteenth Century.]