The Materiality and Spatiality of Death, Burial and Commemoration

Christoph Klaus Streb, Thomas Kolnberger, Christoph Klaus Streb, Thomas Kolnberger

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000460803
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Death in Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

Death, dying and burial produce artefacts and occur in spatial contexts. The interplay between such materiality and the bereaved who commemorate the dead yields interpretations and creates meanings that can change over time. Materiality is more than simple matter, void of meaning or relevance. The apparent inanimate has meaning. It is charged with significance, has symbolic and interpretative value—perhaps a form of selfhood, which originates from the interaction with the animate. In our case, gravestones, bodily remains and the spatial order of the cemetery are explored for their material agency and relational constellations with human perceptions and actions. Consciously and unconsciously, by interacting with such materiality, one is creating meaning, while materiality retroactively provides a form of agency. Spatiality provides more than a mere context: it permits and shapes such interaction. Thus, artefacts, mementos and memorials are exteriorised, materialised, and spatialized forms of human activity: they can be understood as cultural forms, the function of which is to sustain social life. However, they are also the medium through which values, ideas and criteria of social distinction are reproduced, legitimised, or transformed.

This book will explore this interplay by going beyond the consideration of simple grave artefacts on the one hand and graveyards as a space on the other hand, to examine the specific interrelationships between materiality, spatiality, the living, and the dead.

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Mortality.

Post-medieval burial customs in Germany – an archaeological perspective on materiality and spatiality

Hauke Kenzler

ABSTRACT

People generally behave conservatively when dealing with their deceased as very few alterations in the funerary customs are detectable over centuries or even millennia. There were certain periods, however, when this was different and more rapid and radical changes occurred. There is, for example, a marked changeover in mortuary practices in central Europe during the transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern era following the years around 1500. Another major shift becomes visible in the 18th and 19th centuries. This paper serves as an overview concerning the archaeological research on the changing burial customs from the high medieval period until the early 20th century in Germany. Only a few excursions across the modern state borders into the wider German-speaking area are made. The main focus lies on the later post-medieval times with a special emphasis on the different beliefs in Catholic and Protestant areas and their archaeological manifestation. Of course, explanations for the discovered changes will also be suggested. Graves were used as a means of symbolic communication between this world and the hereafter. Therefore changes in burial custom – such as the location of the cemeteries, the location of the individual graves, and their furnishing with graves goods – always express changes in living culture as well.

1. The rediscovery of medieval and post-medieval cemeteries

In comparison to the early medieval period, and even high and late medieval times, the archaeological research of post-medieval graves – especially those of the 18th century and later – is still limited. Due to the numerous written and pictorial sources, it was assumed that no new knowledge concerning funerary practices could be gleaned. Thus, Christian burials were considered free of grave goods and their archaeological excavation had a somewhat dubious touch in professional circles because of their young age. If any documentation was done at all, they were regarded as disturbances of more important features, such as church walls. This attitude has shifted only within the last 25 years thanks to an increasing societal acceptance of medieval and post-medieval archaeology in general (see Kenzler, 2011, 2016; Thier, 1999; Wittkopp, 1997). The mortal remains of marginalized social groups – particularly those of executed criminals (Auler, 2008–2012), inmates of administrative detention facilities (Reitmaier, 2017), or concentration camps (Kola, 2000) – have received increased attention by archaeologists.

But even with this budding enthusiasm, the study of younger graves is not easy. Given that no excavations for research purposes may be carried out on known cemeteries, archaeology relies solely on observations during construction projects. This means that all funerary-related archaeological excavations are salvage excavations, done by governmental heritage departments or private companies and not by universities.

Only because the practice of burying the deceased within city boundaries was abandoned in the 19th or early 20th century, archaeological investigations are possible today. The Prussian states, for example, had determined in 1794 that no bodies were allowed to be buried within inhabited areas (Fischer, 1996, pp. 36–40). Thus, large communal cemeteries were established outside the gates of the towns. The older burial grounds then quickly vanished from the public memory. The catholic cemetery in front of the Weender Gate in Göttingen may serve as a prime example of this phenomenon (Großkopf, 2015). The catholic cemetery’s last burial was carried out in 1910. Yet when conducting renovations to the church in 2011, just over one-hundred years later, the discovery of the first of 148 skeletons by a mechanical excavator proved to be a big surprise. Even in such cases when the church develops such projects, the existence of a former burial ground on the premises is unknown. Although the existence of a cemetery around every parish church has to be assumed, very often it is just good luck when a professional archaeological excavation of a post-medieval cemetery becomes possible.

But even when the excavations can be planned in advance by the heritage departments, the results are often unsatisfactory. Most excavations are limited in terms of their duration and the investigated area. Often only a few burials of much larger cemeteries are able to be examined, with the remainder subjected to destruction from pipe laying, lightning protection, or drainage systems around churches (Figure 1). In response, the heritage departments are trying to avoid expensive excavations by minimizing building activity on former cemeteries. It must also be noted that the preservation and restoration of grave goods is an extremely time consuming and costly process, because of the different materials and the sometimes very large number of finds, especially in post-medieval graves. Lack of money to fund such necessary processes is also the main reason why anthropological studies are usually missing.

Figure 1. Bayreuth, Germany.

Typical exacavation of a churchyard, in this case a drainage ditch around the Heilig Dreifaltigkeit (Holy Trinity) church in Bayreuth (Bavarian State Department of Monuments and Sites).

Nevertheless, excavation results of about 100 post-medieval burial grounds have already been published for Germany, with the cemeteries of the 18th and 19th centuries making up the smallest number and with Protestant burial grounds outnumbering the Catholic burial grounds. Yet an essentially larger figure is still waiting to be scientifically processed. The many excavations of crypts, which are often carried out by building or art historians, are not even included in the aforementioned number (e.g. Fingerlin, 1992; Ströbl & Vick, 2007). The rapidly increasing archaeological interest in medieval and post-medieval burial grounds brought many new facets to light, which can now be compared over larger regions and across different denominations. Developments in Germany can now also be assessed in a transnational context alongside the already-published reports from other European countries (Jonsson, 2009; Tarlow, 2015).

2. Approach

To illustrate the differences between high and late medieval (Orthodox) and post-medieval (Catholic and Protestant) burial customs and ultimately the motives behind them, different aspects must be compared. For this purpose, the focus will go from a broad to a narrow scale. To begin, the burial ground as a whole will be considered, followed by an examination of the individual grave and its furnishings. Hasty burials near places of execution, on battlefields, or other exceptional varieties will be left unconsidered (e.g. Auler, 2008–2012; Lütgert, 2002; Maier, 1989).

On a cautionary note, archaeology can only detect specific aspects of the funeral ritual. Nothing can be said about the granting of the last sacraments in the Catholic belief or about the celebration of the Last Supper by the Protestants. The announcement of death, bell-ringing, wake, funeral procession, and funeral services are ultimately withdrawn from view. On the other hand, to a large extent written sources remain silent on the archaeological results. Not everything was written down and not all commandments were obeyed. Only in the synthesis of the different sources a more or less complete picture can be obtained.

3. The cemetery and its organization

The religious changes that came about during the Reformation demanded modifications in the location of the burial grounds and the position of the individual graves. How these modifications were enforced and how they subsequently affected Catholic burial grounds will be briefly presented. Significant changes, however, continued to occur well after the Reformation.

3.1. Medieval cemeteries

In the Christian Middle Ages, burials were usually placed around the church and therefore within the towns or villages (Figure 2). A burial ad sanctos was of great importance. In the medieval churchyard, the dead profited from the beneficial effects of the relics of the saints and the divine service nearby. The purview of the relics, calculated for actual distances by various synods, determined the size of the consecrated churchyard. A Roman Council essentially restricted the effect of the relics onto a vicinity of 60 steps for the main churches and 30 steps for the chapels in the year 1058 (Werner & Werner, 1988, p. 247). They therefore established, in an idealized way, a circle around the church that could not be expanded at will (Sörries, 2002, p. 90). Equally fundamental was the idea of purgatory as a place for the cleansing of the soul. This idea was outlined conceptually by theologians in the 12th century but was already centuries older. Pope Gregory the Great (590–604) already mentioned exemplary rescues through posthumous intercessions and masses (Kuhl, 2005, pp. 56–57).

Figure 2.Excavation plan of the cemetery of Breunsdorf near Leipzig, Germany.

The excavated graves date from the first half of the 12th to the late 19th century. Some of the more obvious 17th to 19th century grave rows are marked in black (after Kenzler, 2002, fig. 12).

During excavations, the frequent overlapping of graves became visible within the enclosed churchyards. These show the limited space for burials as well as the minor importance of occupying an individual grave in aeternum. Only to stay within the churchyard, which was included in the celebrations of the divine service, was essential. By no means must the anonymity of graves be evaluated as impiety. Even in death the individual was part of the community and expected his or her resurrection on Judgement Day. This alliance also extended up to the living, who used the churchyard not only for ecclesiastical actions, but also mundane purposes, such as a meeting and market place, theatres, meadows for livestock, orchards, or hay-fields (e.g. Illi, 1992, pp. 37–39).

Any inner order, apart from the general orientation of all burials to the east, is hardly recognizable in high and late medieval cemeteries. The only cemetery to be completely excavated and published thus far is the one around the parish church of Breunsdorf near Leipzig. Here, the density of graves increased towards the church and therefore towards the saints. Children who presumably died unbaptised or were stillborn were sometimes buried along the eaves and behind the choir, where they would be continuously blessed by the gutter water (Kenzler, 2002, p. 150). But this custom seems to be more typical for post-medieval times (cf. Ulrich...