The Dead and the Living in Paris and London, 1500–1670

by Vanessa Harding

• ISBN13: 9780521811262
• ISBN10: 0521811260
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-08-05
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book is an exploration in social history, showing how the practices surrounding death and burial can illumine urban culture and experience. Vanessa Harding focuses on the crowded and turbulent worlds of early modern London and Paris, and makes rich use of contemporary documentation to compare and contrast their experience of dealing with the dead. The two cities shared many of the problems and pressures of urban life, including high mortality rates and a tradition of Christian burial and there are many similarities in their responses to death. The treatment of the dead reveals the communities' preoccupation with the use of space, control of the physical environment and the ordering of society and social behaviour.

Author Biography

Vanessa Harding is Senior Lecturer in London History at Birkbeck, University of London and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	ix
Acknowledgements	x
Note on spelling, sums of money, etc	xiii
List of abbreviations	xvi
Introduction	1	(13)
London and Paris, the setting of life and death	14	(32)
`Lamentable pinfoulds of the deaths of men': parish churchyards and churchyard burial	46	(39)
Innocents and outcasts: civic and non-parochial churchyards	85	(34)
`Making churches charnel houses': the constraints of church burial	119	(28)
`A fine and private place': burial chapels, vaults, and tombs	147	(29)
`Meet and convenient for my estate and degree': funeral conventions and choices	176	(32)
`The whole profit of the funeralls': commercialisation and consumption	208	(26)
`The last love and ceremony': funerals, community, and civic identity	234	(35)
Conclusion	269	(16)
Appendix 1: Mortality in the London parishes, 1664	285	(6)
Appendix 2: Mortality in the Paris parishes, 1670	291	(3)
Appendix 3: Funeral provision of Joan Brytten, 1540	294	(1)
Appendix 4: Funeral provision of Jeanne Passavent, 1582	295	(2)
Appendix 5: A note on sources	297	(5)
Bibliography	302	(29)
Index	331