■&:& I *-&» ^ >■ rNT/ ^& ;-■•'/**. V,.' J r*./^>V" " *r : ■"•"' . •!<■ -*£.•• i-; :<%M-' *&'\ %m ■.£'$. ' V;:?\ ;>?" i>* . ->■ "-■ Surgeon General's Office | 1^5 l>3i jccticn, is^/'t) t> M fcG*^ N< -A( ;HJO G'S OO Q Cj.g.'..-L?-'-' .^_1' - - ^ <^e Ik. i. * Jt v^^V^W \TV^V% S xx J &a >£V X %^ AN EXPOSITION DANGERS OF INTERMENT ILLUSTRATED BY AN ACCOUNT OF Eiie iFuneral i&ttes an* (jtustoms OF THE HEBREWS, GREEKS, ROMANS, AND PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS; ANCIENT AMD MODERN ECCLESIASTICAL CANONS, CIVIL STATUTES, AND MUNICIPAL REGULATIONS J CHEMICAL AND PHYSICAL PRINCIPLES. CHIEFLY FROM THE WORKS Of VIC<4 ITjUUT of France, and Prcf. SCIFI0NE PIATT0L1, of Moden.»; WITH ADDITIONS By FELIX PASCALIS, M.D. be. NEW-YORK: PUBLISHED BY W. B. GILLEY, BROADWAY J. SETMOUR, PRINTER.. 1823. i iz3 pt'C-wv AJr . 5"/ / 7 71* ' / Souttent District of New-York, ss. BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the eleventh day of July, in the forty-eighth year of the Independence of the United States of America, Felix Pascalis, M. D. of the said District hath deposited in this office the title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as autber and proprietor, in the words following, to wit: " An Exposition of the dangers of Interment in Cities; illustrated by an account of the Funeral Rites and Customs of the Hebrews, Greeks, Romans, and Primitive Christians; by ancient and modern ecclesiastical canons, civil statutes, and municipal regulations; and by chemical and physical principles Chiefly from the works of Vicq D'Azyr of France, and Prof. Scipione Piattoli, of Modena; with additions, by Felix Pascalis, M. D. kc." In conformity to the Act of Congress of the United States, entitled, " An Act for the ftncouragement of Learning, by securing the copies pf Maps, Charts, and Books, to the au- thors and proprietors of such copies, during the time therein mentioned." And also to an Act, entitled " an Act,.supplementary to an Act, entitled an Act for the encourage- ment of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the be- nefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints." JAMES DILL, Clerk of the Southern District of JVerv-Yurk. PREFACE. When I published last year some strong admonitory re- marks on the insalubrious influence of our numerous places of interment, I did not presume to indulge the most distant expectation that I should see, before the return of another season, a legal prohibition of interment in the city, and that many other writers would engage their services in the cause of this salutary reform. Although I have not the honour of being the first (A) that deprecated a practice introduced by slow degrees, in the dark ages, through the superstition of the majority, against the better sense, the purer piety, and the repeated efforts of the more enlightened few, and which is now established among every class of society,—yet I was, at the time, rebuked very severely for supporting this doc- trine, which was defined to be as novel as it was false. The task of acquainting my fellow-citizens with the dan- gerous consequences of city interment, and of illustrating the subject by references to historical facts, civil and reli- gious statutes, and to results drawn from the principles of natural philosophy, a task which I thought I might accom- plish, with the assistance of the writings of Vicq d'Azyr and Scipio Piattoli, has proved a much more difficult one than I imagined it would be, from my previous acquaint- ance with those works. Much of the controversial matter 4 Preface. is in a canonic, legal, or technical form, or mixed with scho- lastic and Catholic questions, not very familiar nor intelli- gible to a protestant public. Those two writers having written at different periods, and in different languages, they often repeat the same arguments and quote the same autho- rities There were two things continually demanding at- tention in the translation : the one, from the necessity of re- trenching repetitions; the other, from the erudite notes in elucidation of the text, which were of too great number and variety to be tested by any theological library in this city. A plan, susceptible of developement for the classification of the materials selected from those works, was therefore necessary, and was adopted. The first chapters of the " Exposition," are condensed from a long dissertation on ancient modes of burial. The ninth, was partly abstracted from the preliminary discourse of Vicq d'Azyr. In the tenth are assembled together the legal acts scattered throughout the text of both writers. The eleventh is abridged from Piattoli. While I cannot trace an exact line between the translated and annexed matter in the work, I may say, that for the authorship of the four last chapters, I alone am responsible. If translators and expositors of works on polemic subjects were to content themselves with the authority of the notes to the text, without giving them to the reader, their labours would be of small value; even the compilations of Piattoli and Vicq d^Azvr, complete as they are, if they had not been warranted by the universal references that fill every page, would not have been handed dow n to us through a lapse of more than fifty years, as works of undeniable authority and unquestionable veracity. It would not have been doing them justice, to have divested this work entirely of these notes, although, in the main, they were intended for a Roman Ca- tholic community, and were only applicable in a Roman PREFACE. 5 Catholic country. Such of them, however, as were abso- lutely requisite, have been placed in the Appendix, numeri- cally arranged. The documents at the end of the work are chiefly of local import and interest. I now beg leave to take this method of congratulating my fellow-citizens on the firm and wise plan of operations be- gun by our magistrates and the Board of Health. In en- deavouring to rescue our city from the visitation of malig- nant fevers, they have scrupulously avoided enlisting them- selves under the banners of this or that theorist on the origin of summer and fall fevers. With more prudence and philosophy, they strike at the root of every ostensible source of a calamity that more probably is the effect of a combination of several causes, than the effects of a single one. This procedure has been constituted one of their offi- cial duties by the legislature in 1813, which directed them " to regulate or prevent the interment of the dead within the city.v May they continue to prosecute their task success- fully. Public officers are seldom rewarded with public ap- probation ; and the testimony of upright intentions is too often their only recompense; but I hope, that these, more fortunate than the generality, will deservedly enjoy the per- fect confidence of the community, and the harmonious con- currence of their fellow-citizens in their measures for the present emergency. New-York, July Uth, 1323. I CONTENTS. PSA» CHAPTER I. A general view of the modes of inter- ment, or disposal of the dead, in an- cient times.................... (J ■----------II. Burial at a distance from dwellings practised among the Hebrews---- 16 ----------III. Burial among the Greeks.......— 20 ----------IV. Funeral ceremonies of the Romans.. 22 -----------V. Funeral rites of the early Christians 28 -----------VI. Introduction of interments into towns and churches.................. 34 -----------VII. Acts of councils against the privilege of interment in churches ........ 38 -----------VIII. Ordinance of the Archbishop of Toulouse concerning interment in churches----.................. 45 -----------IX. Modern statutes against interments, &c........-.................. 57 ---------- X. Medical inquiries into the dangers of interment..................... 65 ----------XI. Facts and observations to prove the pernicious effects of animal decom- position ____.................. 75 ~----------XII. Chemical explanation of the causes that infect the atmosphere........ 91 -----------XIII. Topography of the city of New-York in relation to public health ......100 -----------IV. Refutation of the objections against the prohibition of interment, &c. .. 109 -----------XV. Plan and description of a general ceme- tery or Polyandrium............118 NOTES.......................................... 129 \PPENDIX............. . ----......... ,147 EXPOSITION Of THE DANGERS OF INTERMENT, &o. CHAPTER I. A general view of the modes of Interment, or disposal of the dead, in ancient times. The necessity of interment at a distance from inhabited places, is founded on the dangerous na- ture of the exhalations proceeding from animal decomposition; and has been acknowledged by the general opinion of the most celebrated nations of antiquity, sanctioned by religious tenets in every age, and in our own has, in several instan- ces, been countenanced by civil authority. Our inquiries, however, into the modes of burial, or destruction of the remains of the dead among an- cient nations scarcely civilized, or among barba- rian tribes, have presented to our view many super- stitious and absurd or contradictory customs, that are of little use as precedents; especially as history teems with more uncertainty and obscu- rity the nearer we approach its early t>r fabulor^ 2 10 Ancient Interments. periods. It would be of little avail to follow Hero- dotus, Cicero, Lucian, and Spondanus, through re- lations, in which they inform us that some Asiatic nations feasted on the slain, and murdered and devoured the sick and the aged; that others threw the dead to the ferocious animals of the neighbouring forests; that others, on the borders of seas, lakes, and rivers, cast them into the cur- rent, or the deepest part of the water; that the Scythians buried them in snow; and that where fo- rests afforded fuel, the survivors frequently dis- posed of the departed by means of fire. (1) But in a more advanced stage of society, the voice of religion, reason, and policy, called for the careful interment of the dead. The Egyptians attached to public burial an idea of honour; they considered it a recompense for virtue, and an ex- citement to public emulation. The severe ex- amination into the life of the deceased, on the verge of the gloomy lake where it was decided what character he should hold in the eyes of pos- terity, seemed to invest interment with mysterious importance, and rendered it a desirable object. Religion then, giving the consoling prospect of a fu- ture life, where the soul should still preserve a re- collection of its earthly existence, excited a respect for the tombs of those who had lived virtuously. (2) It was a crime to disturb the repose of the dead in their last abode; and a high desire of becoming wor- thy of funeral obsequies, was universally cherished. A reverence for tombs thus became a part of reli- gious worship; and to pay promptly the last du- Ancient Interments. 11 ties to the dead, was held as a sacred obligation. To pass a corpse on the road without strewing earth over it, was thought a monstrous impiety. To break open tombs, or graves, and to scatter here and there the disinterred bones, was an awful sacrilege. He who touched a dead body, was guilty of a profanation which only lustral wa- ter could wash away. In some places, those were accounted to have contracted an impurity who had trodden on a grave. They, therefore, would neither build houses, nor erect walls, nor construct temples, on grounds that had been used for inhumation, a precaution that tended to sepa- rate widely the dead from the living, and to re- strict interment to the most distant situations. The Assyrians, Medes, Parthians, Tyrians, Phe- nicians, Ethiopians, the Egyptians also, and the Persians, had always vaults in particular places, destined for interment. The Chinese and the Peruvians, situated on the opposite sides of the globe, had the same practice. There are tombs of kings and great men of distant ages which are excavations in rocks, upon the most solitary moun- tains. Gyges, king of Lydia, was buried at the foot of mount Tmolus. The remains of the kings of Persia were entombed on the Royal Mountain, near the town of Persepolis; Silvius Aventinus was buried on the hill that bears his name; and king Dercennus was interred within a high moun- tain, as Virgil attests.—[Virg. JEneid, 1. 11. 850) The ancient Russians transported the bodies of their deceased princes to the deep caverns along VJ. Ancient Interments. the Boristhenes; travellers, led by curiosity, still visit them. The Danes constructed artificial hills for the sepulchres of their kings. (3) ?■ The loss of a beloved object required to be re- placed ; and, doubtless, the art of delineation arose from the attempt to trace an outline of features, vi- vidly impressed on the recollection. This de- sire, which, at the first thought, may have seemed of but little influence on the state of society at large, has, however, been turned to its advantage. But man is generally impelled by his passions be- yond the bounds of reason. Instead of portraits, busts, or stamps, he wished to retain the very ob- ject itself. The affectionate zeal of an afflicted fa- ther, son, widow, or. lover, invented at length the art of giving a species of perpetuity to the in- animate form; and the Egyptians embalmed the dead by drying, salting, varnishing with wax, smearing with honey and cedar dust, and by using every art capable of preventing the action of the air upon the stagnant humours, to preserve the bo- dy from corruption, and to secure it in such a man- ner that it might be kept without danger to the liv- ing. Self-love gave wide encouragement to this art; and it was thought that as long as the form remain- ed entire, the soul hovered near the body to which it had formerly been united. This opinion was very favourable to embalming; the consequences of which seemed at length so dangerous as to de- termine the public authorities to abolish the cus- tom. At first, the bodies embalmed were kept in distant districts, in vessels of glass or clay, placed Ancient Interments. 13 in some isolated cave, or in dry sand, or under sandstone impervious to water. But these cus- toms at length degenerated so much, that houses were filled with these vessels; they were kept as a most precious family deposit, and the most sa- cred civil pledge. This superstitious practice, however, could only have been prevalent among the great and the rich. (4) The people, that is the greater number, were contented with sim- ple inhumation; and there have been whole na- tions, among whom burial was practised generally and without interruption. > Contagious diseases that broke out in the midst of the Egyptians, and baffled every remedy, led them to remove all the embalmed to a distance. The great number of dead after the carnage of battle, obliged them to have recourse to burning, and preserving the ashes. These examples were care- fully employed to destroy the too frequent custom of embalming, and succeeded the more easily as the reigning opinion regarded the latter practice as productive of disease. In a short time the face of things was entirely changed, and tombs and vases were used only for the ashes of the funeral pile. Even nations that till then had regularly practised burial, began to make use of fire to consume the dead. Long wars, frequent transmigrations, and the ruin or rebuilding of cities, had in the course of time, overturned whole countries; and bones con- fided for years to the dust, were unavoidably dis- turbed and exposed. The fear of this profanation determined the general adoption of burning the 14 Ancient Interments. dead ; a measure which, it was thought, could not but secure their repose. They went still further, and even excluded these ashes, venerated as they were, from within the walls and precincts of cities; and deposited the urns in the places consecrated to burial. The highways were, for a long while, bordered with tombs and slabs of marble covered with inscrip- tions. Thus the glorious deeds of his ancestry were continually before the eyes of the passenger; and examples of excellence and subjects of emulation were presented to all indiscriminately. A glance on the graves of the great or the good, was a si- lent reproach to the unworthy. And more : in con- sequence of stationing the tombs upon the roads beyond the gates, towns attacked, were not as liable to slaughter, conflagration, and destruction ; the citizens felt constrained to leave their walls for the defence of those sacred relics, which it would have been base to abandon to the power of the enemy. S Then religion introduced new dogmas that fa- voured this custom. Philosophy theorized on the nature of spirits and the activity of fire, which, it said, would the most promptly disengage the soul from its cumbrous prison, purify it by delivering it from the burthen of a perishable body, and ra- pidly elevate and unite it to the soul of the uni- verse. The industry of the Egyptians discover- ed a new means of preserving the ashes of the dead by the use of the incombustible amianthus. From the expensive nature, however, of the fhne- Ancient Interments. li> ral pile, with its accompaniments of rich drugs, spi- ces and perfumes, we presume that the people in general never obtained that distinction. (B) If we search through history, we will find that soldiers have been mostly employed to construct roads ; and that subterranean cavities and excava- tions have always been made at a distance from ci- ties. It is also certain that in several countries there have been public funds assigned for the erec- tion of tombs ; and for the maintenance of pyres that were in constant requisition in very populous states. Among so many customs, produced by ca- price and the love of change under different cir- cumstances, the natural sense of man, his religious doctrines, and his laws, have ever agreed in re- moving the dead from the living; and the motive for which tombs were located at a distance from cities, has been always kept in view. We will now give a cursory summary of these rites among the three most interesting nations in history, the Jews or Hebrews, the Greeks, and the Romans. The elements of our own customs, in this particular, we will find in their funeral ce- remonies. 16 Interments of the Hebrews. CHAPTER II. Burial at a distance from dwellings practised among the Hebrews. Although the primitive church drew her prose- lytes from Greece and Latium, the first foundations of Christianity were laid among the Jews. The tra- ces of Judaic antiquity, preserved perfectly pure and inviolate, lead us back to the most ancient times in which inhumation was a general practice. Death was brought into the world by an awful crime. Cain, after having dared to raise his hand against his brother, thought to conceal the deed by cover- ing the body of his victim with earth.—{Joseph. An- tiq. booki. chap. 3.) It must have been from this example that the bodies of those who died were inhumed, whether in open fields or tin inhabited places. The ridiculous traditions of the Rabbis, adopted by some of our historians, have accredit- ed the story of the bones and skull of our first forefather having been scrupulously preserved by Noah until the deluge. Abraham bought from the Children of Heth the cave of Hebron, and deposited in it the corpse of Sarah. He himself was buried there, as was Isaac after him, and Re- becca and Leah also. The tomb of Rachel was placed aside of the road from Jerusalem toEphrata. Interments of the Hebrews. 17 Jacob bought likewise from the children of Sche- chem a piece of ground, where he had a tomb erected. He was buried there with much pomp, by Ins son Joseph, who had him transported thi- ther from Egypt, where he died. Joseph and all his brethren received the honour of interment in the same place. (5) During the Egyptian capti- vity, the tombs of the Israelites were undoubtedly placed in some distant spot, according to the cus- tom of the people in whose country they were. Their long wanderings through the desert serv- ed to give still more stability to this custom. Mo- ses was interred, by the command of God himself, in the valley of Moab, over against Beth-peor; Mi- riam, his sister, at Kadesh; Aaron at Hor; and. Eleazarthe son of the latter, as well as Joshua, on the mountains of Ephraim. After the entrance of the Jews into the promised land, the establishment of the Judaic law, and the inauguration of the reli- gious ceremonies it prescribed, they found that the commands of God forbade them to allow the dange- rous vicinity of the dead. According to them, those who touched a corpse contracted a legal impurity, to efface which their clothes must un- dergo the cleansing of water. If the dead were buried in the houses of individuals, it rendered them unclean. This rule made them very atten- tive to remove the dead from their dwellings. They so dreaded any communication with them, that passengers and travellers were prohibited from treading on the graves which were mark- ed by little pillars. They were also very careful 3 1* Interments of the Hebrews. to paint the tombs white, and to renew the coat- ing every year. They were, however, permitted to inter at their country-seats, and here was dis- played all the luxury of the grandees of the na- tion. The nurse of Rebecca and Deborah was buried at the foot of a tree. The unfortunate Saul had the same fate. (6) The priests were buried on their own estates, and sometimes in the royal se- pulchre.—(7/. Paralipom. ch. 24 v. 16.) Vaults dug in the hill of Zion, under the foundations of the temple, and in the royal gardens, were destined for the last abodes of the kings of Judah. The course of time brought no great change in prac- tice, although this people underwent such event- ful vicissitudes. To judge by the three following passages of scripture, it would appear that only a few foreign customs, such as burning the dead (7) and embalming, were introduced among them. In Paralipomenes, and the books of Jeremiah, the ceremony of burning the dead is spoken of as a rite introduced in favour of the kings only. (8) Per- haps this custom was of short duration, and only peculiar to a ^ew. The bodies of Saul and Jonathan were burnt to ashes by the people of Jabesh-gilead,to rescue them from the insults of the Philistines. (9) Some received the honours of embalming, certainly not on the same account. The fetid smell which exhaled from the body of Lazarus, four days after death, would lead us to conjecture that the gums, perfumes, and essences, poured upon the dead, were only intended to thick- Interments of the Hebrews. 19 en the texture of the linen in which they were wrapped, to confine the disagreeable effluvia. Thus we see, that caverns and fields were the places appropriated for interments. (Calmet. Diet. Bibl. art. sepulchrum.) Elijah was inhumed in a grotto where other bodies also were placed, among which was one that, according to the Holy Scriptures, miraculously recovered life as it touch- ed the bones of the prophet. A grave for young Tobias was dug in the same field where the other unfortunate husbands of Sarah were deposited. The monument erected by Simeon at Medina in favour of the Maccabees is well known. They were carrying the son of the afflicted widow of Nain out of the city, to place him in the same spot with the rest of his family, when he was met by Jesus Christ. The maniac possessed with devils, whose name was Legion,{St. Luke viii. 27) and who had often broken his bands and fled to the wilder- ness, "• abode not in any house, but in the tombs/' Lazarus was buried at Bethany, fifteen furlongs from Jerusalem. Joseph of Arimathea, a man of high standing among the Jews, had had his tomb hewn out of stone in a garden near to Golgotha, and which became the sepulchre of Jesus Christ. Many holy persons, who were resuscitated at the death of our Saviour, were entombed out of Jeru- salem ; for it is written in the Scriptures, that as soon as they arose, they returned into that city. Each town always had a public cemetery be- yond the walls. Some think, that that of Jerusa- lem was in the vallev of Cedron. near which the 2o Burial rites of the Greeks. Pharisees bought the field of Vasaja as a buri- al-ground for strangers. A custom so steadily maintained, and faithfully pursued by a people who adopted it in obedience to the commands of God. should bean example of authority to Christians CHAPTER III Burial rites of the Greeks. The most ancient custom among the Greeks was inhumation. Pausanias has left us an exact enu- meration of the most remarkable graves in his time; but his account seems rather fabulous. He tells us they were situated in the open fields or along the sea-shore, at the foot of mountains or on their summits. In the end, the custom of burning the dead was introduced among them al- so. (10) They enclosed the urns which con- tained the ashes in private houses, within cities. and, sometimes, even in their temples. These ex- amples were at first rare, and the distinction grant- ed only to the chiefs of the administration, and ge- nerals who had saved their country. Inhumation was always more universal in Greece than any where else, and there, the salutary custom of com- mitting the body to the earth beyond the limits of Burial rites of the Greeks. 21 cities, was never infringed. The Thebans, the Si- cyons, the people of Delos and Megara, the Ma- cedonians, the inhabitants of Chersonesus, and of almost all Greece, had the same customs in this respect. (11) The most celebrated legislators made it an interesting point of their codes. Cecrops of Athens wished that the dead should be transport- ed beyond the walls; Solon adopted and re-estab- lished this wise regulation in all its vigour; and there was not at Athens, until the latter days of the Republic, but a small number of persons buried within the city; and this had only been allowed as an honourable distinction, in favour of some he- roes. It was thus that they buried in the public walk of the Ceramicus, the bodies of those who had died in defence of their country. (12) Plato in his Republic would not even permit inhumation in fields fit for cultivation, but reserved for that purpose sandy, arid ground, that could not be ap- plied to agricultural uses. The same laws were in force in Grecia Magna. The Carthaginians found outside of Syracuse the tombs of the inhabitants of that city; and they met the same at Agrigentum. (13) With them, this custom was sanctioned by religion. (14) The ho- liness of tombs, many of which became the tem- ples of certain deities, and which were viewed as sanctuaries to the unfortunate and the guiltv, the respect shown to the memory and the ashes of their ancestors, the punishments with which the rules of their sacred institutions threatened the violators of these customs, the maledictions such l± Funeral Ceremonies of the Romans. received from their priests, and in a word the whole religious doctrine and mythology of the Gre- cians, tended to support the laws that removed the bodies of the dead completely from the habita- tions of the living.—{Arnob. I. 6. Marcel c. 6.) CHAPTER IV. Funeral Ceremonies of the Romans. Nothing is more interesting in the history of that celebrated nation, than the endless variety of rites, laws, and forms, which they scrupulously ob- served towards the dead. One half of the ruins or emblematical antiquities remaining, relate to this. Their great respect and religious observance originated in their firm belief that the souls of theunburied must wander a hundred years along the borders of the Styx, before they received their final award. If, therefore, the body was lost, the friends of the deceased would erect an empty monument, tumulus inanis, or cenotaphium, around which they would perform the usual solemnities—(Vid. JEneid* iii. 304. vi. 326—605.) Hence their practice of strewing a little earth over a neglected corpse, met by chance.—{Horat. Ode 1. 28.) They also held it criminal to deprive even a slain enemy of decent burial, or to disturb the contents, or the Funeral Ceremonies of the Romans. 2p silence of the grave. The spirit and intention of these practices were, of course, wholly incompati- ble with the profanation of the temples of the gods, with what they accounted unclean; no priest would have any connexion with funeral affairs, deeming it an act of impurity or contamination to touch or to look upon what belonged to the infernal regions and deities. (15) These are all subjects for the classic or literary critic, or the antiquary; but our inquiries into their causes and practical applica- tion will show, that they were occasioned and sanc- tioned by a wish for the promotion of the public welfare, and the preservation of health. Numa Pompilius was buried on the Janiculine hill, not then enclosed within the walls. The suc- ceeding kings were buried in the Campus Martius, a large plain along the Tiber. But these places, where many valiant and illustrious persons who had deserved the gratitude of the public had been deposited, were at a distance from the city, which then had only three or four gates. Valerius Pub- licola and Tubertus obtained the honour of inter- ment in Rome; with the former of these it extended to his posterity : but no such distinction was after- wards granted except on account of great services rendered to the nation. It is well ascertained that ancient Rome permitted none of her citizens to be interred within her walls, save the vestal virgins, who enjoyed singularhonours and privileges, unless they had violated their vows, in which case they were buried alive in the Campus Sceleratus, the field of execration. 24 Funeral Ceremonies of the Romans In the course of time, great heroes, and chiefly military characters, were allowed the honours of interment within the walls, and wealthy patrician families found means to gratify their ambition and pride with the same privilege, which gave them the power of erecting, in some frequented situa- tion, their splendid sepulchral monuments. This abuse, however, was abrogated at the commence- ment of the fourth century, by the law of the twelve tables, which was enacted by the decemviri; the seventh law prohibits the burial or burning of the dead within the city : Hominem mortuum in urbe, ne sepelito, neve urito. The mode of destroying the dead by burning, had been introduced into Rome owing to the impossi- bility of interring all the human remains left expo- sed throughout the territory, during the many wars of the Republic and the incursions of the Bar- barians. -The entire neglect of these would have seemed impious to the superstitious Romans. Im- memorial experience had taught them, that they could not with safety indulge in the interment of the dead among themselves and their dwellings. Effectually to protect the remains of their vene- rated chiefs or companions in arms, the fu- neral pyre was also adopted in imitation of the Greeks; (16) the various forms and ceremonies tending this rite, for the rich as well as the common people, composes a most interesting collection of facts, well worthy the study of the arcbeolo«;ist, and was the full amount of all their Funeral Ceremonies of the Romans. 25 religion could require to constitute a regular bu- rial ; even the ashes remaining were carefully col- lected by the friends of the deceased, enclosed in an urn, and deposited in a monument, or in the ca- tacombs ; some of which still exist with several ranges of niches for the reception of urns. We suppress many details in relation to the burials of the Romans, which only serve to prove that, in concert with the Egyptians and Grecians, their predecessors and contemporaries, they held every thing sacred and inviolable that had any reference to the dead; and felt besides a conviction of the danger and impropriety of crowding the dead into places of deposit among their habitations and tem- ples ; or, as one of the commentators of their laws eloquently expresses himself on the subject of the law of the twelve tables,—Corpus in civitatem infer- ri non licet, nefunestentur sacra civitatis. The empe- rors Diocletian and Maximian enacted the same prohibition in the Code, lex. 12. on the places consecrated to the worship of the gods : Ne sanc- tum municipiorum jus polluatur. (Paulus lib. Sen- tent. Tit. 21. s. 2.) It appears that at the period of their conquests, the Romans neglected agricultural pursuits, be- cause foreign countries supplied them plentifully with treasures and provisions. The most illustrious houses, at that period, were in the habit of providing burial places and monu- ments for their families in their own lands, with certain portions of ground annexed to them; which. of r.ourse, remained uncultivated. Government, ■i 26 Funeral Ceremonies of the Romans. therefore, perceiving the abuse and injury result- ing from these appropriations, endeavoured to sup- press the scattered vaults and grave-yards; those of the Metelli, the Claudii, the Scipiones, the Servilii, and the Valerii, were removed and located with their architectural ornaments, beside the public roads, at a short distance from the city. This or- dinance could not fail becoming popular, because it increased the magnificence of Rome, even in the suburbs. From this measure originated the names of the roads, Via Aurelia, V. Flaminia, V. Lucilia, V. Appia, V. Laviniana, V. Julia, &c. Some graves were allowed on the summit of the Collis Hortulorum above the Campus Martius ; and the plan became equally consonant with their reli- gious principles, and their desire for the public good, of which the Republic never lost sight. Hence Cicero informs us (de Lege. 1. 2.) that the law of the twelve tables against burials in the city, was fulfilled, without exposing the places of assem- blies to any danger even on a religious pretext, " quod iniquum esse putareant locum publicum privata religione obligari.^ Thus, in the course of years, from the great number who had been buried in the fields, and in the surrounding territory of Rome, that interesting result took place, which proves that their measures were actuated by a religious veneration for the dead, as well as motives of political expediency;—the family of the Gracchi after much labour, intrigue, and many party contentions, failed in their attempt to intro- duce the Agrarian law, through the popular dread Funeral Ceremonies of the Romans. of committing a sacrilege, in giving the remains of so many Romans into the indiscriminate possession of any, whether worthy or unworthy, to keep the sa- cred deposit: the law for the division of lands was consequently rejected.—( Vid. Elien. var. Hist. 1. ii.) The people were also privileged to have their dead consumed in a place for the purpose called ustrina: their cemeteries were out of town; Hoc miserm plebi, stabat commune sepulchrum. Horat. lib. i. ode 8. These were called puticuli, because they were like wells, into which their bodies were thrown; they were mostly on the Esquiline Hill; we are told also that Gemellius Bebius, and other wealthy citizens, in order to secure the votes, or favour of the people, gave them large tracts of land in the vicinity of Rome, to enlarge the public places of inhumation. From all these laws, customs, and usages of the Romans, in relation to their modes of burial, which, with few exceptions, continued in force until the reign of the Caesars, it is evident that the immense city of Rome was bet- ter protected against the recurrence of epidemic diseases than many of our own capital cities. The burning of dead bodies was, however, entirely dis- continued under the emperor Gratianus; proba- bly because it had frequently occasioned fires; the puteoli also were closed, owing to a suspicion that they had become dangerous by their exhala- tions ; instead of which, large catacombs were erected at different places, of which we will have occasion to speak in the following section. (16) Funeral Rites of the Early Christians CHAPTER V. Funeral Rites of the Early Christians. The three nations who concurred to form the primitive church, found inhumation already estab- lished among them by the dogmas of their religion and the laws of their country. It was only the no- ble and the rich that had adopted the custom of burning the dead; and burial beyond cities was equally obligatory on all. The exceptions were few in number, and never allowed to the great mass of the people, nor to any but such as died invested with some honourable station or dignity. The most unjust, and most unmerited contempt, having at first been the portion of- this holy and high religion, which in its rapid and miraculous progress has since enlightened nearly the whole earth, (17) the mode of burial of the first Chris- tians, was that of the people, or of the least distin- guished individuals. When they began to be a dis- tinct and acknowledged body, they had their own peculiar funeral ceremonies, which were derived partly from the Jews and Gentiles. Inhumation thus became established among the Christians; this was the only practice of the Jews, the regula- tions of which did not interfere with their creed. If to these considerations we add their small num- ber, their extreme poverty, the fear they were in Funeral Rites of the Early Christians.' <-2\\ of the Jews, and their decided aversion for every thing resembling paganism, (18) we will easily ac- cede to what has been already advanced,—that the burial of the Christians was that of the com- mon people, of whom they were a part. Ananias, of whom it is said, in the Acts of the Apostles, that he expired at the feet of St. Peter, was carried away by some Christians and placed in the earth; they buried besid# him the body of Sapphira, his wife. The martyr Stephen was carefully buried by the Christians, who wept bit- terly over his grave. We find mention of these two burials, without its being recorded where they took place. (19) But the persecutions which the Christians were obliged to undergo in the Roman Empire, and the cruel slaughter, of which the barbarous Nero, set an example, and which has been often followed, increased the number of martyrs : the faithful were surrounded by their dead brethren, and exposed to the insults of the Pagans. The most tender and grateful attachment, united with the voice of religion jn an appeal to the survivors. The Christians resplved to seek for these bodies, that they might be concealed from the fury of their persecutors; they were hid at first, in the houses of individuals who carried them, under cover of night, to the public cemete- ries. The greatest privacy and the most vigilant guard were necessary on these occasions. The catacombs, which some have wrongly confounded with the putenli of the ancient Romans, appeared 30 Funeral Rites of the Early Christians. well suited to secure the repose of these sacred re- mains. (20) The Christians frequently assembled in these gloomy retreats for the celebration of their myste- ries ; and St. Jerome declares that the profound obscurity and horror of these sepulchral caverns, figured to his mind an image of hell. (21) The awe in which the place was held, and the funeral ceremonies of the early Christians, contri- buted to render the catacombs of still greater sanctity. The dignity of their sacraments, the august ceremonies by which they consecrated themselves to their Creator, the participation of the sacrifices at the altar which were celebrated there, and the holy and irreproachable lives so common in those times of fervour, excited for the Christians a deep and deserved veneration. Par- ticular places were set apart for the ashes of mar- tyrs, and for all such as died in the odour of sanc- tity. No others of the faithful were interred in the same spot, lest the remains should become confounded. From that came the custom of dis- tinguishing the. bodies of martyrs by symbols, which designated what manner of death they had suffered. Among the Jews, the religiously disposed erect- ed synagogues and chapels near the tombs of those remarkable for virtuous lives, and repaired thither for prayer.—(Basnage's History of the Jews, 1. 7. ch. 6.) The Grecians offered sacrifices beside graves; and it is a well-grounded opinion that the temple- Funeral Rites of the Early Christians. 3 i of the deities of mythology sprung from tombs of ancient heroes, who were worshipped through gra- titude. The Romans constructed over the hipo- gcea, or public vaults, halls, where they assembled to render the last services to the dead, and to go through the customary duties. They had also chapels and altars at which they sacrificed to the god Manes. Following these examples, the early Christians undoubtedly built over the catacombs those re- treats, so venerated by the lovers of antiquity, to which they resorted in crowds to perform the mys- teries of their religion, and to attend the agapes, or collations, provided at funerals. They, therefore, erected altars over the graves of martyrs: these hallowed the ceremonies borrowed from the pa- gans, and gratified a feeling inspired by piety and devotion. This eagerness for the preservation of remains, did not, however, prevent the Christians from en- deavouring to anticipate the mischief which might have resulted from the vicinity of these bodies to their places of assemblage and worship; they carefully filled with earth, whatever places were left empty in different parts of the catacombs, (vide Boldetti, Arringo, Marangoni, fyc. The numbers of the faithful were increasing daily, and the, fiery sword of persecution was not yet sheathed; a truce seemed to have been granted for a while, only that this species of warfare might be recom- menced with greater fury; the number of martyrs was surprising, and the places which had beei> 32 Funeral Rites of the Early Christians. first appropriated for their burial were no longer sufficient to contain them. Some citizens of Rome, who had joined the church, applied their wealth and lands for the purpose of forming burial grounds; and many pa- tricians and Roman ladies also offered extensive tracts with the same pious intention. Such was the origin of Christian cemeteries. (22) In these places, altars were raised, and chapels construct- ed, which served as a shelter during the perfor- mance of the obsequies, and other religious solem- nities. The law of the twelve tables had by the gra- dual infringements of the great, become nearly ob- literated, till it was restored by Adrian to its ori- ginal vigour; and Antoninus Pius extended it to the whole empire. A new law, or a law just re- newed, is always strictly observed. The dead must therefore have been then transported out of the city; but they soon began to evade the regula- tion, and a hundred and fifty yeais after, Diocletian and Maximian were obliged to strengthen it by new decrees. In the three first ages of the Church, the circum- stances and difficulties in which the Christians were involved, and their situation in relation to the government and legislation of the Caesars, served to maintain the custom they had cherished from the birth of Christianity. The horizon of the Church at length became calm and serene. Peace was restored to it by the conversion of Constantine. The temples of the dnls were already out of favour, and wpcp scarce- Funeral Rites of the Early Christians. 3J ly resorted to; after having been purified, they were transferred to the worship of the true God. The same altars on which the holy mysteries had been celebrated in the obscurity or retirement of catacombs, or cemeteries, were transported into the cities, (23) and the places of the heathen dei- ties were occupied by the relics of martyrs. By this revolution, religion substituted her heroes for those of the day. In each church there was but one service, and one altar; and the faithful would have thought that the unity of their religion was violated, had their attention, when assembled. been divided among choirs and chapels. (24) They ornamented the cemeteries with great care, and each at length became the sites of consecrated temples. (25) After a short period, Pope Julius was obliged to construct three cemeteries alongthe same roads, where formerly were the tombs of the Roman families; others also have been laid out since, and the date of their establishment is indi- cated by inscriptions. The wish of retaining the dead within cities seemed to increase even by impediments. It be- came regarded as an enviable privilege to be al- lowed to occupy after death the places where ho- ly persons had been in the habit of offering their prayers to Heaven. And at length they carried their respect so far as to believe that there were emanations from the bodies of saints, of power to warm the hearts of the devotional, and to yield im- pressions capable of disposing to fervour and piety. :\4 Interments in Towns and Churches. CHAPTER VI. Introduction of Interments into Towns and Churches. Owing to the belief in the efficacy of the ashes of saints and martyrs, the catacombs became crowded with the dead. Until this period, there had been no favour shown to priests, bishops, prin- ces, nor even popes, unless they had been signally zealous in the cause of religion. When the body of the Emperor Constantine was allowed inter- ment in the vestibule of the Holy Apostles, this con- cession was considered a testimony of the highest honour and distinction. Chrysostom speaks of the importance of such a favour, which added new lus- tre to the supreme dignity of the greatest earthly potentate. (26) Several successors of Constan- tine were distinguished in the like manner; but they had been great patrons of the Church. The same honour was afterwards granted to founders and benefactors of churches, who had liberally supplied the funds necessary for the ceremonies and the decorations of the altar. The resem- blance between the regal dignity and the priest- hood, was an argument in favour of an extension of the same privilege to the bishops: their holiness of life, and the eminence of their station, seemed to justify this innovation in the discipline of the Church. The motives that rendered this distinr- Interments in Towns and Churches 35 tion valuable, were of too interesting a nature to be disregarded by the pious of any rank whatso- ever ; the first claims to it had been the exercise of priestly functions, or a life spent in the retirement of the cloister; but the laity having no such titles to the privilege, intrigued for others, by offering large gifts to the Church, and by giving alms libe- rally. (27) This revolution was not general; many church- es evinced a strong attachment to the ancient rules. while the relaxation of discipline was complete in others. The contradictory contemporaneous ex- amples in ecclesiastical history, are owing to this circumstance. (28) The disposal of this favour being left entirely to the bishops, it is easy to com- prehend that, in one diocess, rare piety or high and dignified stations, might be the only titles ad- missible, and in another, that any slight claim would be thought sufficient. Nevertheless, at this period, the public burial grounds were still loca- ted in distant places; and the number of those per- mitted to rest in churches was, as yet, inconside- rable. The bodies of the profane, however, were not yet mingled with those of saints and martyrs. The tombs were arranged along the walls within and without churches. As the pious resorted there to pray for the dead, some covering was necessary to protect them from the inclemencies of the weath- er. (29) On this account they built vestibules and porticoes ; and as the number of tombs and graves increased, cemeteries around the churches be- 3ti Interments in Towns and Churches. came necessary. Some vestiges of antiquity in proof of this, still remain. Small subterranean chambers and arcades outside and along the walls of churches, called exedrce, were in existence du- ring the time of Baluse. It appears an incontestable fact that interments in Constantinople, and other cities of the empire, at one period became general; Theodosius the Great, a prince of exemplary piety and great zeal for the church, in concert with the emperors Gra- tian and Valentinian II. was obliged to renew the edicts of his predecessors. (30) His intention was to prevent the infection caused in the atmosphere by the dead being, as it were, heaped in crowds, among the living. He prohibited interment in towns; and ordained that the bodies, urns, and mo- numents, within the walls of Rome, should be re- moved to a distance; he wished that that city, should, under his administration, equal in this point, her ancient state. This law was soon in force over the whole Roman empire. The first infractions of the law of the Justinian Code sometimes arose from pious motives ; at others, from local circumstances. Monasteries and religious orders scrupulously adhered to the se- verity of the law, (St. Benedict himself receiving no distinction,) until Walfred, abbot of Palazzolo in Tuscany, desired that he should be interred in the cloister of his own Abbey. This innovation happened in the eighth, and was succeeded by others in the ninth century. Previous to this, the question had been some Interments in Towns and Churches. Jj7 time agitated, whether the relics of holy martyrs had any peculiar power over those interred in their vicinity. St. Augustine on this account wrote on the nature of the duties due to the dead; his opinions were very different from those introduced in the middle or dark ages. The question was revived in the time of Gregory the Great; and was sharply contested under Nicholas I. who was con- sulted on this subject by the Bulgarians. From the answers of this pontiff it seems that he consi- dered the fate of the deceased to depend on their conduct during life, and the fervent prayers of their fellow-christians. The prohibition of Theodosius was respected for a long period. The dead were mostly depo- sited without the churches; and interment within, near the walls, was a great prerogative. These observations led to an important reflection. How- ever the ideas of the Pagans and Christians may have differed with regard to a future state, how- ever dissimilar may have been the customs, practi- ces, and ceremonies introduced into the Christian Church, still, the most enlightened sovereigns have maintained or established laws, which had for their object, the preservation of the public health from the dangers of indiscriminate interment. The primitive canons, the bulls of the popes, and the authority of tradition, concurred to relieve cities from the fatal presence of the dead. (31) Butsuper- stitions daily arose that blinded the pious to their danger; and the flattering hope of participating in the merits of the just by being consigned to the 38 Acts against Interments in Churches. dust which had been consecrated by their ashes. and the honour it was to have been judged worthy of this favour, warmed the religious zeal of some, and excited the self-love of others, until the reign- ing custom was a total breach of the law. An ho- nour, once the highest earthly distinction and re- served for emperors, became the portion of the low- est citizen, or rather a right common to all equally. CHAPTER VII. lets of Councils against the privilege of Interments in Churches After the sixth century,in which, as we have just seen, abuses of the privilege of interment had be- come very general in cities, not only synods but councils took them into consideration, and endea- voured to abolish them, and restore the ancient discipline of the church. The Portuguese Coun- cil, held at Brague, instituted one memorable ca- non, by which, not only interment in churches was prohibited, but also cities were declared to have a right to prevent burial within their limits. (32) In the early ages of Christianity, the bodies of martyrs were allowed the exclusive possession of the places they occupied. The Council of Auxerre wished to prevent interment in the interior of bap- tisteries, either understanding by this name such edifices as were built near basilicks or metropolitan Acts against Interments in Churches' 39 churches, to administer baptism, or else designa- ting the churches themselves, in the vestibules of which they then began to erect the baptismal font. (33) Gregory the Great often expresses him- self in his works in such a manner as to give reason to believe that on this subject he did not think like the vulgar. He frequently complains that the privilege of interment in churches was obtained by bribing with offerings, styled,4 voluntary gifts.' Another century passed, and the barriers that re- strained this custom became too weak: it was powerfully and widely diffused in the West, where it was almost universal, but was, as yet, hardly known in the East. Fortunately for the Church, a new era fixed the attention of the bishops on this subject. Charle- magne, at the end of the eighth century, and be- ginning of.the ninth, employed himself in restoring the arts and sciences, and the ancient ecclesiasti- cal discipline. He assembled frequent councils throughout his kingdom, and from these resulted that body of public statutes so often mentioned in history. Theodolphus, an Italian by birth, and bishop of Orleans, a man of eminence in those days, and much respected by Charlemagne, found the churches in France almost turned into cata- combs. (34) He, therefore, made a regulation . that neither priest nor layman should be buried in a church, unless remarkable for holiness of life. As for the tombs, he had them destroyed, and wished that for the future, they should never b<- 40 Acts against Interments in Churches. raised above the level of the ground: he added, that if this statute could not be fulfilled, the altar must be taken down and removed to some other place, leaving the church to be occupied as a ce- metery only, (35) The statutes of Charlemagne, to put an end to the quarrels between Theodol- phus and the other prelates of France, deprived laymen of the privilege of interment within church- es, and afterwards forbade the same to all persons indiscriminately. The sixth council of Aries, (36) the council of Magouza, and the council of Meaux permitted only the interment of bishops, abbots, ec- clesiastics, and laymen of the first distinction. Hinc- mar, archbishop of Rheims, undeniably the greatest man of his age, drew important information on this point from the works of Gregory; desirous of up- rooting the evil at once, he obliged the bishops of his diocess to make oath that they would no longer exact a price for the privilege of interment; (37) and he ordered still more positively, that in- terment in churches should be most reservedly withheld. The offerings of Christians were at first volun- tary; custom soon rendered them necessary. Erard, archbishop of Tours, forbade in his diocess, any exaction or any remuneration for interment^ no matter where it was granted. The council of Nantz allowed tombs and monu- ments in the vestibule and porticoes, but rigorous- ly prohibited them in the body of churches. (38) The council of Tribur exhorted the nobles to rest satisfied with burial in the vicinity of their Acts against Interment in Chyrc/ies. 41 cathedral, or near convents and monasteries. The favour, however, was dispensed among the Gauls only by bishops and curates. It appears by the answer of Nicholas I. to the Bulgarians, that in Italy (39) it was sufficient not to have totally lost all character to be a sharer in an honour, which in Gaul, was accorded only to signal piety. Customs on this point were not less various in the Levant. From the verses attributed to St. Gregory of Naziance, it would seem that they bu- ried within churches from the fourth century. He himself attests it by the case of his brother Cesa- rius; and St. Gregory of Nice tells us that his sister Macrina was buried beside the holy martyrs. in the same church where his mother had already been interred. Yet we see that during this period the empe- rors and other dignitaries of the kingdom were bu- ried outside of temples. The tombs of Theodo- sius himself, of Arcadius and Honorius, his sons, of Theodosius the younger, of Eudocia and of Jo- vian, were located in the portico of the basilick of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople. (J\"icephor. d. 14. c. 58.) From time to time it was necessary to re-enact statutes against the intrusion of the dead into churches, as may clearly be seen from the let- ters of Balsamon, to Marcus, patriarch of Alexan- dria, to whom he says, that according to the an- cient statutes, none were buried in churches con- secrated by the bishop, or where the relics of saints and martyrs were deposited. So the law ordained, 6 42 Acts against Interment in Churches. as expressed in the following terms: Nullusin eccle- sia mortuus sepeliatur. And the well-known canon, which so explicitly says: JVon licet quemquam sepelire in ecclesia, ubi scilicet corpus martyris depositum est. (40) The emperor Leo, surnamed the Philosopher, who finished the great work begun by his father Basil of Macedonia, the collection and publication of the Canons of the Church, erased in one of his statutes the old prohibition of burying in church- es. The terms of his decree show that the prohi- bition must have fallen into complete discredit and disuse. He, therefore, chose rather to dis- pense with a law no longer observed, than to com- promise his authority by useless endeavours to car- ry it into execution. (41) Fortunately the new code of Leo had no force in the West, and was soon of little power in the East. Yet we must acknowledge that there was afterwards a great relaxation of discipline, although the Church, always animated with the same spirit, was continually striving to resume her pristine severity. In proof of this, we have the councils held from the tenth to the eighteenth cen- tury, in many Catholic countries: a council at Ra- venna under Gilbert, and again under Silvester II. in 995; the sixth at Winchester in 1076- the fa mous synod of Toulouse in 1093, where it'was de- termined that there should be two cemeteries, one for bishops and nobles, the other for the common people; a council at London in A] 07; one at Cog- nac in 1255 and 1260 ; one at Buda in 1269; one at Nismes in 1284 ; one at Chester in 1292; one Acts against Interment in Churches. 43 at Avignon in 1326; one at Narbonne in 1551 ; one at Toledo in 1566; one at Malinesin 1570; a committee of the clergy of France assembled at Melun in 1579; a synod at Rouen in 1581; one at Rheims in 1583; one at Bordeaux, and at Tours the same year; one at Bruges in 1584; oneatAix in 1585; one at Toulouse in 1590; and one at Narbonne, and another at Bordeaux in J b24: all of these have given on this subject the same pre- cepts, and admitted the same doctrine. (42) In the course of the several centuries which passed between the pontificate of Gregory and the Council of Trent, there was a continual struggle, to free the Church from the imputation of receiving remuneration for interment in temples. Exaction was always proscribed, but voluntary offerings were made, and accepted. The difficulty of pre- vailing on churches to give up this source of reve- nue, was always the greatest obstacle in the way of those bishops who were zealous for the ancient discipline. If on the one side, the spirit of interest could have been eradicated in persons attached to the Church, and, on the other, if the self-love of Christians could have been persuaded that the grave should level all distinctions, and that any spot was the same for their last home, the old cus- tom of cemeteries might have been re-established. St. Charles, bishop of Milan, warmly desired such a restoration, and in his first council, he expressed a strong wish to that effect. (43) With this design in view, he openly attacked the ambition of the great, who maintained this abuse. He knew that 44 Acts against Interment in Churches. at first, graves had been chosen in the vicinage of churches through piety; that then the desire of peculiar favour had penetrated into the temple it- self; that at length permission had been granted so generally, that the only means of distinction was the splendour, the magnificence, of the decora- tions of the mausoleum. This progress was fore- seen by the holy canons, and they had always op- posed it with all their power. The wish of the Bishop of Milan was, that es- cutcheons, portraits, images, and all those orna- ments which vanity had suggested, but which were only mockery over the dead, should be removed; and he himself set the example in his own cathe- dral. A beautiful monument, raised to the memo- ry of one of his ancestors by Pius IV. bishop of Rome, was not spared. He excepted only what related to the glory of the throne, or the majesty of royal dignity. In his fourth council, this pontiff engaged his bishops anew to observe the excel- lent laws and usages of the earlier ages. This reform was somewhat generally adopted, and pope Pius V. forbade all splendour and pomp in the burial of Christians; but he permitted them to build marble monuments, provided they did not contain the bodies of those to whose memory they were erected. (44) May we not conclude from all these authorities, that the actual custom of burying within and un- der churches, should be proscribed as contrary to the spirit of our religion ? We will also under- take to show that it is equally repugnant to the principles of physics. Ordinance concerning Interment in Churches. 45 CHAPTER VIII. Ordinance of the Archbishop of Toulouse concerning Interment in Churches. " Stephen Charles de Lomenie de Brienne, by the grace of God and the Holy Apostolic See, Arch- bishop of Toulouse, Counsellor of the King, &c, to all Ecclesiastics, secular or regular, and to all the laity of this diocess, sends greeting and blessing. " Whereas, the venerable Prevost and Clergy of our Metropolitan Church have represented to us that in violation of the holy canons, interments in that church have increased exceedingly, and that the air is sensibly contaminated by fetid ex- halations from vaults which are not deep, and are continually re-opened for the admission of fresh bodies. 4 " Similar complaints have been transmitted to us from several parts of this diocess; and although we have deferred any notice till now, yet our Dearly Beloved Brethren need not accuse us of neglect, delay, or indifference in this important affair. Wise ordinances require much time for considera- tion, and should be offered to minds prepared to receive them. Measures too prompt might have proved revolting to your sensibilities, or you might have thought such restrictions of your privileges sufficient, as had already been enforced by vanity, 40 Ordinance concerning Interment in Churches. or to which custom lent a justification. To se- cure your docility and compliance, it was necessa- ry that your eyes should be opened to your dan- ger by repeated accidents, sudden deaths, and frequent epidemics. It was necessary that your own wishes, impelled by sad experience, should compel our interference; and that the excess of the evil should call, in a manner, for an excess of precautionary measures. "Believe not, Dearly Beloved Brethren, that our solicitude and anxious care for the public health is the only motive that induces us to break silence. Such is the harmony always existing between re- ligion and sound policy, that what is acknowledged as decorous and useful by the one, is also com- manded and prescribed by the ^ther. To the in- stinct of self-preservation, which calls loudly for a reformation of the present system of burial, we may add the commands of God, which direct us to be careful of our lives, that we may serve him and prepare for a happy eternity; and the orders of the Church, which have always reprobated as a profanation the general admission of the dead within consecrated walls and in places held sa- cred ; and the dictates of our Christian duties, which require an assiduous attendance at the tem- ple, all pretexts and pretences to the contrary not- withstanding. May our subsequent details and remarks enlighten your piety without enfeebling it; and without impairing the respect due to the memory of the dead, confound that inconsistent vanity which follows them even into the grave. (45) Ordinance concerning Interment in Churches. 47 i; This respect is a natural sentiment in everv stage of society; and depraved indeed must those be that do not feel it. No social ties could unite us, if death were able instantly to extinguish affec- tion in the hearts of survivors. He who feels no emotions of grief or pity beside the grave of a fel- low-being, could have borne no love to that being during life. " We respect," says St. Augustine, " every trifle that reminds us of a beloved object; the ring or the dress worn by a father are dear to his children." How then can we other than respect the ashes of those who were dear to us; or how other than endeavour to prolong the exist- ence of their frail remains? (De Civitate Dei, cap. 13.) " Religion renders this natural respect stronger, because it informs us that between the happiness of the just and the punishment of the reprobate, there is a middle state for those " who die well- disposed, but have not yet satisfied divine justice; " and that it is a holy and useful practice to pray for the dead that their sins may be forgiven them?'' 2 Maccab. xii. 46: a sweet and precious doctrine to the dy- ing sinner, and affording also to the afflicted, who have lost companions, friends, or relatives, the consoling task of contributing to their happiness by prayer. " It would then be an infraction of every law, as say Saint Augustine and Origenus, to neglect the burial of the dead, as if they were mere brutes; or to throw away bodies that have been the abodes of rational souls, and temples of the Holy Ghost. But these duties have legitimate limits. 48 Ordinance concerning Interment in Churches. While religion regulates all that can be condu- cive to the rest of the departed, and permits the indulgence of a natural sorrow, it forbids every expression that proceeds from pride and vanity. " Why,'''' says St. Jerome, (in vita Pauli,) " does a de- sire for appearance -exist amid mourning and tears ? why should the dead be clothed in sumptuous vestments ? Can- not the rich rot away unless in the same gorgeous apparel that decorated them when alive ?n—" Pompous funeral processions," adds St. Augustine," and expensive monu- ments, may perhaps console the living, but they cannot be of any use to the dead."—" Of what use to them are these idle distinctions?" exclaims St. Chrysostom. " Their memory and their worth, and not their pe- rishable remains, should be honoured. Since then ye wish to give departed friends rational and Chris- tian-like testimonies of esteem, love, and regret, Do for them, and for yourselves, all that can contribute to the glory of God. If they were virtuous, be so also; if vicious, correct the mischief they have done, and continue whatever good intentions they may have assumed. It is by the virtues of their children that parents are honoured in the grave, and these are their only worthy and acceptable obsequies. " These principles naturally lead us to ascertain what place then should be appropriated to the disposal of our departed brethren. The custom of praying for them probably induced the early christians to deposit them near each other in the same ground; this was the origin of cemeteries. St. Chrysostom informs us, (Horn. 84 in Math.) that Ordinance concerning Interment in Churches. VJ cemeteries were not permitted in cities, because the presence or vicinity of the dead would not only contaminate pure air, but incommode the in- habitants by the stench they would occasion. Nul- lum in civitate sepulchrum struitur. If such, says a council (Horn. 74) is the privilege of cities, how evident it is that a church has a right to exclude interments from within her walls. In the council of Brague, burials in churches were forbidden, and the house of God was decreed to be open on- ly to the relics of apostles and martyrs. Nemo Apostolorum vel Martyrum sedem humanis corporibus cestimet esse concessam, (in the year 563. Can. 18.) The bodies of even emperors were only admitted to the porticoes or chapels of temples. Constan- tine himself, to whom the church was so much in- debted and so grateful, asked no higher favour than to be buried under the portico of the church of the Holy Apostles. (Vid. Eusebius, lib. 4. de vita Constanti. St. Chrysost. hom. 26, in Corinth.) Mar- tyrs and Confessors only were admitted ; because as St..Ambrosius remarks, it was "just that those who had been victims to their faith should be deposited near the altar where was offered the sacrament of the sacrifice of their divine Lord and Master. Vid. St. Ambr. Epist. de Reliq. ss. Gervasii et Protasii.) " Such was the primitive discipline in relation to interment; and what is more interesting in this statement, Dearly Beloved Brethren, is, that legiti- mate exceptions have been used as precedents for its infringement, so true it is, that the slightest com- promise of a law leads finally to its destruction or total violation. 7 HO Ordinance concerning Interment in Churches. " Those who, by an exemplary life, had acquired a reputation for holiness, were allowed to partake of the privilege of martyrs; but this holiness was not as easily substantiated as the heroism of those who sealed their faith with their blood; and as the numbers of the Christians increased, proofs became still more difficult and obscure. Indul- gence was then used; appearances soon assumed the place of reality, and equivocal signs of piety obtained prerogatives due only to genuine zeal. " The clergy on account of their sacred functions, and the nobility whom their high rank made more desirous to shun the dishonour or scandal of vice, claimed to be interred within the temple. Foun- ders of churches became invested with the same right, and transient benefactors required the same reward for their donations. The descendants of both claimed as a patrimony, that which had only been granted to individual merit. When the pri- vilege was thus general, a refusal was an excep- tion that threw an odium on the unsuccessful applicant. Where the admission of any one was a favour, none could be excluded whohad any pre- tence to offer. In the early ages, burial in church- es had been expressly forbidden, or even inhuma- tion within cities. But by the gradual increase of a fatal condescension, the evil has arrived at a height that demands attention. Cemeteries in- stead of being beyond our walls, are among our habitations, and spread a fetid odour even into the neighbouring houses. The very Churches have be- come cemeteries. (46) The burial of Christians in an Ordinance concerning Interment in Churches. ol open place set apart for the purpose, is consider- ed a disgrace ; and neither the interruption of the holy offices, occasioned by the repeated inter- ments, nor the smell of the earth imbued with pu- trescence and so oftfcn moved; nor the indecent state of the pavement of our churches, which is not even as solid as the public street, nor our repug- nance to consign to the house of the Lord the im- pure bodies of men worn out with vice and crimes, can check the vanity of the great, whose empty ti- tles and escutcheons must be hung on our pillars for the sake of their empty distinctions, or of the commonalty, who must ape the great. Death at least should level all men; but its lessons are lost. and the dearest of interests, self-preservation, must yield to the reigning foible. "The progress of this evil, Dearly Beloved Brethren, may be determined by the efforts of the Church to overcome it. Sometimes her prohibi- tions have been express; at other times they have been intended to restrict the favour to a few of the faithful. When she has permitted interment in the purlieus or porticoes of temples, (47) it was to pre- vent it in the church itself; when she has admit- ted all ecclesiastics, it is because they were pre- supposed to be all of holy lives; when founders were favoured, and even benefactors, it was to exclude by such an exception, all others. She permits exceptions without a view to their becoming hereditary, and tolerates unfounded rights to endow her ministers with greater power 52 Ordinance concerning Interment in Churches. for the adoption of measures for the prevention of 'the evil effects of her former condescension. " The Gallican Church has shown much zeal in endeavouring to recall the ancient discipline upon this point; interment in chufches is prohibited by almost every council held in this kingdom ; (48) almost all our rituals and synodal statutes forbid it; and latterly, many bishops, and particularly those of this province, have done their best to cor- rect this abuse. (49) "But without derogating from the respect due to their wisdom and their labours, may we not say (hat th.s temporizing pkn has rendered their whole work useless ? ■' If inhumation around churches is to be allowed, can cities be perfectly salubrious ? If Priests and Laymen, distinguished for piety, are to be buried within, who shall judge of this piety, or who pre- sume to refuse their testimony ? If the quality of founder or of benefactor is a title, what rate shall fix the privilege ? If the right is hereditary, must not time multiply the evil to excess, and will not our churches at length be crowded as now, be- yond endurance ? If distinctions in ranks are to exist after death, can vanity know a iy limitation or judge ? if these distinctions are to be procured for money, will not vanity lavish riches to procure them ? and would it be proper for the church to prostitute to wealth, an honour only due to such as have been rendered worthy by the grace of God ? We are disposed, Dearly Beloved Brethren, to show all possible moderation in this necessary reformation : Ordinance concerning Interment in Churches. though charged to be strict in the fulfilment of our pastoral duties, we are allowed a discretionary power, and can consult your habits, your opinions, and even your prejudices, and all that may conci- liate your interests with the glory of God; but wo to us, if blinded by weakness, we lose sight of the experience of past ages, and suffer things still to continue, that have till now served, and can only serve, to perpetuate ihe disorder! " The only real means of reform is to re-establish the ancient rules and observances, as did Pope Urban IV. when he wished to abolish the indecent custom, which had insensibly crept into the church of St. Peter at Rome, of burying together the pious and the profane, the saint with the sinner, the just with the unjust; and to unite to the detriment of Chris- tians and the destruction of the respect due to the church, what God would eterna'iy separate. And St. Charles Borromaeus ordered that, the neglected custom of interring in cemeteries should be resumed en- tirely. The same was done in the last century by the bishop of Senlis, and some few having appealed from the ordinance, it was confirmed by the Par- liament of Paris. The civil law could not but agree on this point with our religious canons, be- cause the preservation of the lives of the mem- bers of a community is a duty of the first magni- tude ; and it suffices to enter our churches, to be convinced of the baneful effects of the fetid exha- lations in them. " Some of our Dearly Beloved Brethren may blame the rigour of our ordinance ; but can they j4 Ordinance concerning Interment in Churches. make any reasonable complaint ? Churches were not intended for sepulchral monuments; and so little was such a use of them ever expected, that, according to the remark of a celebrated canon- ist, there is no prayer in the liturgy relating to such a ceremony, while there are some expressly intended for the benediction of burying grounds. And do you think that titles, whose abuses would con- tinually cry out against them, are to prevail over the dignity of our temples and the sanctity of our al- tars ? " Would you insist for this privilege on account of the standing, the offices, the rank, you hold in society? We have every reason to believe, that those who have the greatest right to the distinc- tion will be the least eager to obtain it. Excep- tions are odious, and multiply pretences and ob- jections. Who will dare to complain, when the law is general; and what law can more justly be general than one that relates to the grave ? " Would you say that we are depriving a holy life of its rewards and prerogatives ? If the voice of the public testified to the sa »ctity of your career, how joyfully would we receive your bodies into our temples, as those of the martyrs were welcomed by the primitive church ! But piety, while merit- ing and obtaining the honours reserved for the saints, is far from assuming them as her right; and while she feels that peculiar benedictions have been passed upon public burying grounds, she acknowledges that the most magnificent obsequies are of no use to the sinner. Ordinance concerning Interment in Churches. bo • Would you reproach us with depriving you of a right, bought by the donations of your ancestors t But do you think that those virtuous men, from whom you are proud to derive your descent, wished to leave to their posterity a right to dis- turb our holy mysteries, and to spread pestilence among their fellow-citizens? Then take back their gifts, if these are to be construed into titles in fee simple. Our rules for the future must not be violated ; and the church will satisfy your ava- rice rather than your pride. " We will not suspect our worthy coadjutors in the clerical function of regretting the privilege so long granted to their holy habits. We are obliged daily to sacrifice ourselves for the happiness and weal of our people, and will therefore think the less of the renunciation of a gratification that might be harmful to them. Our most precious advantage is the power we enjoy of being examples to them in all that is useful and religious; and great in- deed will be our pleasure, if our example engages others to allow without murmur or complaint, the re-establishment of a law equally necessary for the good of society, and of religion. " Ye whom the vows of the cloister have united under the yoke of the Lord! will you object to the retrenchment of your funds that this ordinance must produce ! No; for you wish not to support existence at the expense of the lives of others. We will do all for you that just toleration will allow; but you yourselves would blame us, if rather than deprive you of a source of revenue, we were to 5ti Ordinance concerning Interment in Churches. authorize your chapels to continue or to become, centres of infection and death. Render your tem- ples, worthy of the presence of the deity ; gain the attendance of the faithful by assiduous and fervent prayer; inspire confidence by the decorum of your conduct, and the purity of your manners, and you will find the gratitude of the pious lavish alms upon you to supply the loss you have cheerfully undergone for the public weal. , " And you, right worthy magistrates, who are charged with the care of the laws, be assured that it is with no view to pass the bounds of our powJ ers, that we revise our canons. We know that interment is a civil affair. We would direct no- thing relating to it without your agreement and participation. Then let the perfect accordance of our measures, blend our united decrees into one authority; and while we speak in the name of God, whose ministers we are, secure obedience to our mandates in the name of the king; for this affair touches not only the credit of the church, but the interest of the people. We have investigated and examined the request of our venerable chapter; the petitions from divers parts of our diocess; the proces-verbaux of the inspection of many parishes, from which it appeared that the abuse of church- interment was carried to its height; and finally the reports and opinions of physicians on the perni- cious consequences of this custom; And therefore we, as far as in our power lies, and in full confi. dence that, the civil authorities will sanction our ordinance, have ordained and enacted, and do or- dain and enact. &c." (50) Modern Statutes against Interment, fyc. CHAPTER IX. Modern Statutes against Interment in Churches and Towns. It may not be amiss to recapitulate what we have clearly proved in the preceding pages. The prohibition of inhumation in towns was establish- ed in the Roman law of the Twelve Tables enact- ed by the Decemviri; it continued to be incorpo- rated in the laws of all the succeeding forms of go- vernment. The prohibition after Constantine was explicitly laid down in the code of Theodosius, A. D. 381; and the admission into churches of the bodies of even holy personages, was pointedly for- bidden. The same was renewed in the Justinian code. At the commencement of the sixth centu- ry the Senate of Rome had not yet permitted any cemetery in or near the city of Rome. The Capi- tularies or civil and religious statutes of Charle- magne, forbid interment in churches. Though the discipline of the church after this, through the in- terested motives of individuals, became relaxed to an alarming degree, yet continual efforts were made to restore its pristine integrity by the de- crees of more than twenty councils convened at different periods from the 8th to the 18th century. The Parliament of Paris, in 1765, took a decisive stand against the abuses of interment. It will not be unnecessary to observe that parliaments in 8 ab Modern Statutes against Interment France had a portion of legislative and executive authority in their districts, and were thirteen in number. A court of Parliament was also an inter- mediary power between the people and the sove- reign, whose orders remained without force until registered therein. Parliaments, in fine, were high courts of civil and criminal judicature, composed of many presidents, and about thirty privy counsel- lors. The following decree (arret) of the Parlia- ment of Paris is the more remarkable, because it was occasioned by an almost universal complaint from the inhabitants of parishes on the noisome and sickly influence of churches and cemeteries. It is asserted in the preamble, that " daily com- plaints are made on the infectious effect of the pa- rish cemeteries, especially when the heats of sum- mer have increased the exhalations; then the air is so corrupted, that the most necessary aliments will only keep a few hours in the neighbouring houses : this proceeds either from the soil being so completely saturated that it cannot retain or ab- sorb any longer the putrescent dissolution, or from the too circumscribed extent of the ground for the number of dead annually interred. The same spot is repeatedly used ; and by the carelessness of those who inter the dead, the graves are, per- haps, often re-opened too soon." The provisions of the act in nineteen articles are absolute and admit of no exceptions. 1st. All cemeteries and churchyards in the city of Paris were to be closed, and to remain unoccu- in Churches and Towns. 59 pied for the space of five years, or longer, if thought necessary by proper officers and physicians. 2d. Eight cemeteries were to be established forthwith at a distance from the suburbs; each to be of a size proportionate to the number of parishes to which it should belong, and to be fenced with a stone wall eight feet in height; an oratory chapel to be erected in the centre and a small dwelling for the keeper at the gate; the graves not to be mark- ed by stones; and epitaphs, or inscriptions, to be placed on the walls. 3d. To facilitate the transportation of bodies, there was to be a conveniently situated house of deposit for every cemetery; the walls of it to be four feet high, with iron spikes on them; the build- ing six feet high, surmounted with a dome, open at top: one or two rooms to be connected with each place of deposit, where clergymen, selected in ro- tation by the rector of the parish, might have charge of the bodies until removed. 4th. Every day at two o'clock in the morning from the 1st April to the 1st October, and from 4 A. M. from October 1st to April 1st, the bodies were to be carried from the deposit to the ceme- tery in a hearse covered with a pall, and drawn by two horses; and the hearse to be attended by one or more clergymen and some torch-bearers, who were to be grave-diggers. In this decree there were no regulations for proprietors of vaults, dig- nitaries of the church or public officers, except that for the sum of 2000 livres, paid to the parish, a bodv might be consigned to a family vault in a 60 Modern Statutes against Interment church, if the coffin were of lead; and that the high ecclesiastics might have their burial in the same manner. It was thought that the great and populous capital of France would by this decree be suffi- ciently protected against the dangers of city ce- meteries and church vaults. But eleven years after, (September, 1774) the same authority was obliged to make another decree against opening vaults for the admission of bodies. On this occa- casion, the court, repeating in the preamble the words of the royal attorney, says, that " as the decrees of the court relating to burial in churches contain the motives which led to those decrees, it would be useless to repeat them, while reasons still more pressing daily call for a strict attention to the re-opening of vaults, the fatal consequences of which demand a general law to be put in force against all interment in churches whatever. This abuse introduced by pride and vanity, is now often laid aside by Christian humility, and the noblest have requested to be interred in cemeteries. This court will reinstate the ancient discipline of the church, and give a new sanction to the rescripts of those sovereigns who maintained it by their authority: the temples will then resume the de- cency and order of appearance which they can- not display while the opening of vaults is permit- ted ; they will also be freed from the fetid smells which render the air in them insalubrious, and which are perhaps the principal cause of the dis- tressing epidemics that have appeared in the pro- in Churches and Towns. 01 vinces. The general complaint against the prac- tice of church vaults is the strongest argument in favour of this decree. The bishops of such places as were afflicted by it, have issued ordinances, and laid them before this court for confirmation, which has been granted to some and solicited by others: pastors of the second degree have united with the higher dignitaries in petitioning for a civil regulation on this point. Medical men assure us, that the vapours exhaling from putrefaction fill the air with chemical compounds dangerous to health and productive of malignant diseases. The epi- demics which prevail in the warm season confirm their assertion. We know, however, that this de- cree is against the wishes of a certain class, who found claims upon a possession in itself an abuse, or upon titles yielded through complaisance, or obtained without any legitimate grant, or upon a permission acquired by means of a small sum, which they imagine entails an hereditary right to burial within a church; as if possession were a right superior to justice, or that a prescriptive in- dulgence should be continued in despite of its in- jury to the public good; or that a certain sum of money were an equivalent for the health and life of their fellow-citizens. But these objections are of li'tie moment, and must yield to considerations of the public weal; and, no doubt, those very indi- viduals, if they can cast aside their erroneous pre- judices and prepossessions, and look only to the advantage of their fellow-citizens, will join with the majority in applauding this decree. The ar- 62 .Modern Statutes against Interment tides 13 and 14 of the ordinance of Francis I. may be cited on this subject; they run thus: " We have ordained, that no one, of whatsoever quality or condition he may be, can pretend to a right, possession, preroga- tive, 8fc. in a church or temple, to Sfc. &{c. &{c. graves or vaults, 8{c. unless he be a patron or founder of the said church or temple, with letters of credence to that effect, or sentence legally pronounced in his favour, on these grounds." It is, moreover, an acceptable service in those intrusted with the power of watching over the welfare of their fellow-citizens, to extend their solicitude to the preservation of the public health, by using the most efficacious means for removing the causes of disease. This object alone, inde- pendent of any other, would have been sufficient to determine this court to institute the following requisitions," &c. The decree extends its prohi- bitions to all the churches within the jurisdictional district of the court; and reduces the right of bu- rial to the ministry of those churches; to patrons, founders, lord chief justices; and such, in fine, as have titles, in good and due form justifying their possession, by inheritance, from concessions grant- ed by the church in favour of great donations, &c. These parliamentary acts prepared the way to a universal reformation of the abuses of interment, not only because they gradually weaned the spi- ritual and temporal lords, and the rich, from seek- ing so-unstable a privilege as the right of burial in churches, but because they were enacted in accordance with public opinion. Louis XV. con- curring entirely in the prohibition of city grave- in Churches and Towns. b\\. yards by the parliament of Paris, granted to the parish of St. Louis, at Versailles, 160 perches of land, (3600 square feet) in the forest of Satori, to be used as a cemetery in place of the old one. That king took a still more active part by a royal declaration, dated March, 1776, the pre- amble of which thus sets forth: that " the arch- bishops, bishops, and other ecclesiastics, in coun- cil assembled last year, in our good city of Paris. have represented to us, that for many years com- plaints have been made to them from different parts of their respective diocesses, o:; the frequent inhumations in churches, and also on the actual situation of their cemeteries, which are too near the said churches, and might be placed more ad- vantageously if removed to a distance from cities, towns, and villages, in the several provinces of our kingdom: we have given to these representations more attention, because informed that our ma- gistrates are convinced of the necessity of a reform in this part of the public police, and have long desired suitable laws in union with the rules of the Church, to provide for the purity of the air, without infringing, if possible, upon the rights of archbishops, bishops, curates, patrons, lords, foun- ders, «&c. in the churches of our kingdom: these wishes having reached us, we think it unnecessary to defer any longer making known our intentions, and we are persuaded that our subjects will re- ceive with gratitude a regulation dictated by our zeal for their preservation." The articles which follow, prohibit graveyards 64 Modern Statutes against Interment in cities or towns, of which the Archbishop of Tou- louse had already given an example in his diocess; and they permit no interment in churches, chapels, orcloisters,butforsuchpersons as have been alrea- dy mentioned in speaking of the decree of parlia- ment; and ordain besides, that even those shall not be interred except under vaults covering a space of 72 square feet, built of stone, and flagged; the bodies to be placed six feet deep in the earth under the lower pavement of the vault: they also invest municipal corporations with the right to obtain and hold, in fee simple, any grounds for new cemete- ries. Thus all that could be devised in point of legislation, to do away the evils of interment in churches and towns, was at length accomplished. The practice of intermixing the dead with the living would never have grown to such an in- tolerable height, though aided by all the pride of the great, all the immorality of the rich, and the desire of distinction inherent to all ranks, if the re- verence for the relics of saints, and the blind be- lief in the power of the Church over souls after death, had not rooted in the hearts of the people a strong conviction that a grave in the cloister, the galilee, the portico, the chapel or the aisle, was a strong hold for protection against the arch-ene- my, and a passport to heaven. As this superstition declined, or became modified, the practice to which it had given rise still continued, and grew more and more immoveable the more it was habitual. It is the same in thousands of instances to this day, even where the original motive is forgotten, and Medical Inquiries, tyc. 65 such is the force of custom, that it continues in cemeteries consecrated by the vicinity of particu- lar churches to so great a degree, that the peace of the grave is continually violated to crowd new te- nants into the spot hallowed to them in life by pi- ous associations. In the year 1777, Mons. Lenoir, Minister of Police, devised the entire abolition of the cemetery of the Innocents, by clearing out its charnels and pits, and removing the remains in- to the catacombs, or quarries, which had been worked from time immemorial under the southern part of Paris. This great design was not prosecu- ted until ten years after; (51) it has, however, been fully accomplished, and the salubrity of Paris sen- sibly promoted. (C) CHAPTER X. Medical Inquiries into the Dangers of Interment, tyc. When the learned work of Professor Scipione Piattoli of Modena, on the dangers of interment, was published in 1774, it was a great mortification to M. Vicq D'Azyr, Regent of the Faculty of Medi- cine of Paris, that a subject so long controverted in France, should be brought to a victorious issue through the labours of a stranger, who had undoubt- edly been aided in his researches by several French 9 >'S Medical Inquiries into the Dangers of Interment. writers, although he had not made them acknow- ledgements for the materials they had afforded him in proof of the necessity of an entire reform of the modes of Christian interment. The first of these writers was Dr. Haguenot, a professor in the University of Montpellier. He had long entertained a full conviction of the dan- gerous effects of the inhumations daily permitted in the city where he resided; and he would not have delayed pointing out the dangers to which his fellow-citizens were exposed by this practice, if the prejudices connected with it had not been so strong as to have deterred him. A dreadful occurrence, however, forced him at length to raise his voice against the reigning abuse. It is the duty of those who by their profession or study, obtain a greater share of knowledge on some points than their fellow-citizens may possess, to remonstrate with them against practices that endanger their own safety, or which are contrary to the well-being of the community at large. On the 17th of August, 1744, towards even- ing, the body of a layman was conveyed to a vault in the Parish of Notre Dame of Montpellier, at- tended by a numerous procession of the clergy * and laity. No less than three men perished sud- denly on this occasion; a fourth was with difficulty recovered from a state of asphyxiation; and a fifth was attacked with severe and alarming symp- toms, which left him for a long while pale and feeble, and his recovery was, very properly, termed a resurrection. The catastrophe took place Medical Inquiries into the Dangers of Interment. 0^ in the following manner: While lowering the corpse, a man first went down to support the cof- fin, and fell senseless; another followed to assist him, and though drawn out in time, was afflict- ed with the severe illness just mentioned ; the third, who had courage to proffer his services, descended With a rope around his waist, and had he not been drawn up immediately, would in- evitably have died; the fourth, a strong and vi- gorous man, trusting to his robust constitution, and only hearkening to the call of humanity, dared the danger, and died as soon as he had entered the vault; the fifth came out once to recover strength, and returned the second time, staggered from the ladder, and fell dead. The bodies were at last drawn up with hooks. Such a tragical event fill- ed all Montpellier with dismay ; and the Intend- ant, Mons. Le Nain, ordered it to be investigated. Haguenot was commissioned for this purpose: and having had the vault re-opened, he made the following experiments. The philosophical reader will find them defective and insufficient; but che- mical science was yet in its infancy fifty years ago : clearer investigation into a circumstance of the kind might be made with ease at the present day. 1st. The cadaverous fetor exhaled was so tena- cious, as to adhere a long time to any substance which was left a few moments in the vault. 2d. Lighted tapers, chips, paper, and tarred ropes, when brought to the edge of the vault, were instantly extinguished, as completely as if dipped in water. 63 Medical Inquiries into the Dangers of Interment. 3d. Small animals, dogs and cats, became in- stantly convulsed, and died in a few minutes; but birds lived only a few seconds, because life in them is known to consume a comparatively great- er quantity of air. 4th. The vapour, or gas, was caught in glass vessels, and, after being kept for six weeks, offer- ed the same qualities, and produced the same ef- fects. The whole of these were witnessed and certified by Dr. Haguenot and a committee of the faculty. Hereupon we will confine our remarks to two points, which should always be kept in view, name- ly, that the decomposition of the bodies in the vault was rendered the more active by the tem- perature of the month of August, in a climate and latitude exactly similar to our own; and that the presence of the external air assisted the extrica- tion of the gases and the elective affinities of car- bon, oxygen, hydrogen, phosphorus, and nitrogen, and volatile and fetid oils connected with those ele- ments, all deleterious or deadly. Dr. Haguenot states the following, to illustrate further the dangers attending improper inter- ment. Beside the terrible effect of these vapours, when suddenly mingled with the air we respire, their more gradual or weaker evolution fills it with malign qualities, the germs of fatal or epidemic diseases, or they aggravate the symptoms of exist- ing prevalences. In the neighbourhood of the church where the above calamity took place, the Medical Inquiries into the Dangers of Interment. G9 small-pox broke out, and raged with great vio- lence ! It is as erroneous to suppose that the stones and mortar of a vault can confine these gases en- tirely, and as fatal to trust to the small number of dead bodies within them, as to depend on a si- milar enclosure against the strength of a stream of water continually accumulating; the force of these gases depends in a measure upon their be- ing pent up as they are formed. A single body may, therefore, cause all this mischief, when re- duced to a perfect state of putrefaction. Dr. Haguenot gives a historical summary of the laws and customs of the Egyptians, Grecians, Ro- mans, and Asiatics, to show how, by embalming, burning, transporting to a distance, or erecting im- mense monumental piles, they endeavoured to protect themselves against the noisome and fatal effects of putrid exhalations: he does not omit the primitive Church canons, which so often en- deavoured to suppress the practice of burial in towns and churches. This practice he ascribes to the interested views of those who had the pow- er to retail false honours to princes and pontiffs, to pretended saints, and also to great sinners, who were encouraged in their wickedness by the hope of resting their bones in holy earth. We owe to the same writer another interesting key to the explanation of some miracles at the tombs of saints, which were nothing more than na- tural causes operating in those sepulchral cham- 70 Medical Inquiries into the Dangers of Interment. bers among human exuviae. Gregory of Tours re- lates that a thief, having for the sake of plunder. entered the tomb of St. Helius, the holy prelate miraculously detained him, and he died. A poor man, who wished to cover the grave of his dead son with a stone, attempted to steal one from the tomb of a holy personage, and was instantly struck blind, deaf, and dumb. (Vid. Spondanus Ccemet. sacra.) Josephus in his Antiquities, tells how the servants of King Herod, who broke open the tomb of David, were killed in the very act. These and similar occurrences may be attributed to the poi- sonous vapours of the grave. Dr. Maret of Dijon, who published his work in 1773, is the next medical author noticed by Vicq D'Azyr. He appears to have treated the subject as extensively, though not perhaps as forcibly, as his predecessor and followers. To avoid repeti- tion we will give such points of his inquiry as seem peculiarly his own. He, still more strongly than Haguenot, confirms the theory of epidemic diseas- es, being engendered or aggravated by the impure emanations from graves and vaults. A simple ca- tarrhal affection, or influenza, existed in Saulieu, a populous town of Burgundy. Two persons who died with it were buried beside each other in graves dug under the pavement of the parish church of St. Saturnine, within an interval of twen- ty-three days. It appears that the coffin of the first, a very large subject, accidentally broke, and a quantity of putrid fluid was effused, which in an instant filled the whole building with a stench, in- Medical Inquiries into the Dangers of Interment, 71 tolerable to the by-standers; out of 170 of these, no less than 140 were seized with a putrid malig- nant fever, which took the symptoms of the pre- vailing influenza, differing only in intensity and fa- tality, which was evidently caused by this tempo- rary diffusion of impure air. Another interesting circumstance mentioned in the Historical Researches of Maret,illustr Luctuary, notice should be given to the City In- spector. 3d. A regular sexton, or the clergyman ap- pointed, should be constantly with the body, from the time it be placed in the deposit, until it is in- terred. 4th. The expenses for transportation to be paid to the sexton. The cemeteries in town call for attention; but they should not be disturbed for ten or fifteen years; after which, for the benefit of the pro- prietors, or the churches to which they belong, and for the improvement of the salubrity of the city, they may be converted into ornamental and healthy squares. At present, the following condi- tions and precautions are requisite to diminish their injurious effects. Burying grounds in the city, or suburbs, should be absolutely closed against interment or disin- terment ; they should, however, be, as usual, un- der the superintendence of the proprietors. Fa- mily vaults should not be entered except during winter, and then, remains in them might be trans- ported by the owners to their new vaults in the Polyandrium ; after being emptied, they should be closed up and be unemployed for any purpose. for the term often years. Such vaults as would not be emptied in three years by their proprietors or claimants, should be entered by inspectors ap- pointed, and the contents conveyed to a general vault prepared in the Polyandrium. To the pub- lic part of Trinity churchyard a declivity of sur- 120 Plan and Description of a face should be given, a layer of clay three inches in depth spread over it, the grave-stones laid flat, and the whole paved with flag-stones. There should be a regular inspector to attend to the enforce- ment of these rules, and the act of disinterment, of opening vaults at an unlawful time, or of break- ing the ground for a grave, should be held a mis- demeanor. The institution of a general cemetery, or poly- andrium, has been commenced by a firm and pru- dent council, that are capable of conducting the plan to a wise and beneficial result. The only remark that remains to be made, is, that this sub- ject is neither a political, medical, nor religious question, but one that interests alike every mem- ber of society; that temporary rules will not ef- fectually promote the public health ; they will be inconvenient to the citizens, will lead to discon- tent on their part, and will be a vexation to those in authority. They who have opposed distant interment with fair and honourable argumentation, will find, on inquiry, that they have entered the lists against principles and results of experience, which will challenge the severest investigation, and defy the most ingeniously captious disputant. Yet in a community like ours, opposition will be afloat, if not among enlightened classes, among those the most under the influence of custom, habit, and prejudice. If the reverend clergy, who have from the pulpit so fine an opportunity of instruct- ing their hearers on moral and physical evils. General Cemetery, or Polyandrium. 127 would advocate the contemplated improvement, and place it in a proper point of view, their congre- gations, most probably, would more readily con- sent to abandon city interment. There are many motives to lead to their concurrence. Protest- antism rejects the doctrine of the efficacy of holy ground, of prayer for the dead, and the pow- er of relics over them, by which the Church of Rome extended her temporal dominion over the grave it therefore holds out no induce- ment to the appropriation of the purlieus of the church to interment; and moreover, can a pe- cuniary loss be a sufficient reason for allowing a monstrous evil to continue and increase to the detriment of health and life ? In the history of the Eastern and Western Church, it is gratifying to remark, that while superstition and cupidity were slowly introducing the practice of interment in cities and churches, it was the clergy, then the depositories of knowledge and science, that were strenuously endeavouring to abolish the custom by efforts in councils, in synods, and from the epis- copal chair; while France owes her reformation in that particular to the energy of an archbishop. The exertions of the clergy for this reform, may certainly be expected with propriety, since, while free from civic charges and incumbrance, their profession makes it their duty, charitably to fur- ther the public good. Such is the 1 armony, said a great Prelate, always existing between religion and sound policy, that what is acknowledged as decorous and useful by the one. is also 128 Plan and Description of a General Cemetery, fyc. commended and prescribed by the other, (pag. 46) This remark is well worthy the attention of ministers of all Christian denominations. One sect already, and not the least in rank, on account of the austerity of its principles and purity of its doc- trine, scrupulously prohibits city interment; this is the society of Friends, called Quakers. They are not known to have vaults in their religious places of meeting, or burial grounds. Their dead are always transported to a distance from the ha- bitations of the living. The respect they pay to the remains of their friends, is evinced by the great depth and space they allot for each grave. It is but justice to infer, that they wish to avoid annoy- ing the public by the dangers of grave-yards, as they are indifferent to the praise orattention which the world gives to funeral pomp or showy devices, and monumental stones, which they reject. May all Christians imitate them in their wise regula- tions of interment, and then we may emphatically exclaim, not in the meaning of sin, which the pow- er of God only can check, but, in that of sinful evils, which we have accumulated around us under the control of the law, (H) " O Death ! where is thy sting? O Grave ! where is thy victory! NOTE S. CHAPTER I. (1) The customs of different nations have varied greatly with regard to the disposal of the dead. According to Spondanus, {Cvemet. Sacra, p. 20, 21.) the Syrcanians flung their dead to the dogs ; some Indians left them to the vultures ; the Gara- mantians covered them with sand ; the Celts took from them the bony scalp of the cranium, which they set in gold for goblets. The inhabitants of Colchis and Phrygia, say some historians, hu.ig them on the branches of trees. The Lacedemonians and Scythians embalmed their kings in honey. The islanders of Delos buried their dead in the neighbouring islands ; and the Megarians in the island of Salamines. The Grecians and Ro- mans never allowed the bodies of children to be burnt: they believed that the principle of resurrection was in the teeth, which in children were too tender to resist the action of fire. Many Jewish rabbis still believe that there is in the skeleton a bone called luz ; they place it somewhere in the spine, and con- sider it iudestructible. (See Diemerbroek, Treatise on Anatomy.) (2) The Egyptians underwent after death a public examina- tion into their conduct during life, on the borders of a marshy lake, Acherusa, whither they were carried for that purpose. The bodies of virtuous and worthy citizens were placed by or- der of the judges in a bark, which transported them to the other side of the lake, where the public cemetery was established in a delightful situation. Those considered unworthy were de- prived of this honour, and cast into a loathsome pit, which pro- 17 I JO NOTES. bably took the name of Tartarus, from the use to which it was destined. This gave rise to the fables of the river Lethe—Cha- ron the boatman—of the three judges of hell—and the hundred years of wandering on the Stygian shores. (Diod. Sic. 1. 7.) (3) In some countries the earth has the power of consuming more rapidly the bodies inhumed in it; this has been observed in Troas, Lycia, and some other countries of the east. (Pliny, 1. 36. c. 17.) There are two churches at Toulouse, and one at Bordeaux, where the process of exsiccation in the vaults is complete, the flesh turning into a dry, friable, and spongy substance. The preservation of the mummies of the Guanchios,* at Te- neriffe, is remarkable : the bodies were daubed with balsamic ointments, soaked in ley, dried in stoves, and sewed up in goat- skins ; they are arranged in caves, some standing, others lying on beds of wood hardened by a peculiar art. Most of these bo- dies are entire, the features perfect, and beard and hair pre- served. While the bodies in the caves of Teneriffe are so en- tire, those in the caves of Canada, though fixed also in sacks, are consumed. [Med. Repos. vol. iii. p. 156.) The phenomenon of the drying of dead bodies in vaults, or in the earth, is probably owing to the absorbing quality of the sur- rounding materials, and is as certain a fact, as the transforma- tion of human substance into adipocire, or fat resembling sper- maceti. These surprising effects, or the like, have been noticed in cold as well as in hot climates. There are extensive regions in Asia, and in South America, where the high but uniform tem- perature consumes corruptible materials, and where epidemic, malignant, or pestilential diseases have never, or very rarely occurred. (4) Nothing impure was allowed to contaminate these cere- monies. They made use of no woollen stuffs, but only linen. Small figures in copper, marble, or clay, of Osiris or Pluto, Isis or Proserpine, have been found in the mummies. Precious * A people inhabiting the Canaries before the arrival of the Spaniard? NOTES. 131 vessels, or large sums of money were enclosed with the dead. The Spaniards in the West Indies found graves filled with gold and valuable articles. The Jews buried heaps of treasure with the dead. Plutarch and Strabo relate that the kings of Persia and Macedonia ordered their treasure to be de- posited in their tombs. This custom was frequent among the Romans, and is of the highest antiquity The pagans always put m the mouths of the deceased a piece of money, which they called obolum or trientem. Virgil therefore often calls the dead inopem turbam. {Spond. p. 59. 61. 70. & 111.) CHAPTER II. (5) It is believed, as commentators declare, that the remains of all the illustrious patriarchs above mentioned were assembled in the Cave of Hebron with the bones of Abraham. (Vid. Cal- met. ad. Act. Apost. c. 7—16. & ibid.) (6) He was buried under a tree at Jabesh-gilead (1. Samuel c. xxxi. v. 13.) From there David carried his remains, or his bones burnt to ashes, to the sepulchre of Kish, the father of Saul, in the country of Benjamin. (2 Samuel c. xxi. v. 14.) (7) According to Spondanus, {Ccemet. Sacra, p. 153) the He brews burned perfumes upon the dead ; this was called Combustio, from which, he says, it has been wrongly concluded that they burned the bodies also. (8) A continual fire, that consumed carcasses and all the filth of the city, burned always in the deep pit of Topheth, in the valley of the children of Hinnom. [Isaiah c. xxx. v. 33.) This tradition has furnished the name and the idea of what is called gceuna or gehenna. [Calmet Diet. Bibl. art. Cedron.) (9) Necessity at the moment obliged them to follow this course. (1. Samuel xxxi. 13.) That kings and the great were interred at their country-seats, see Kings, passim 132 NOTEt. CHAPTER III. (10) Some traced back the origin of this custom to Hercules, who wished to carry to king Licinius, the last remains of his son Argivus, slain in battle. {Horn. Scoliast. Iliad.) The greater number think that this custom dates from the war of Troy, where the horrid carnage, and the example of the Phrygians deter- mined the Grecians to assume this mode as the most simple, (Vid. Potter, Archmology, book 4. chap. 6.) (11) Lycurgus was the only one who permitted tombs in ci- ties, in the temples, and in the public places frequented by the people. He did this, wishing to accustom the Spartan youth to bravery and courage by familiarizing them to the idea of death. It seems that this end might have been as well attained by fol- lowing, in what related to the rites of burial, the customs adopt- ed by the rest of Greece. (Vid. Instit. Polit. book i. c. 1. § 13.) (12) Towards the close of the government of Athens, Sopho- cles found none buried in that city, although it was besieged by the Spartans ; and Sulpitius, at a still later period, could not ob- tain a permission to inter Marcellus there. (13) The Tarentines followed the same customs. On some occasion of their consulting the oracle, they received for answer that they should be much happier, si cum pluribus habitarent. Polyb. book 8. The true sense of the oracle, was, that they should use means for the increase of their population ; mistaking the manner of doing this, they thenceforward allowed the dead to be buried within their walls. (14) No nation was ever more jealous than thai, of Greece for the honours of burial. The Athenians often neglected oppor- tunities of gaining splendid victories, to fulfil this duty. And they often, even when victorious, sacrificed excellent generals because they had not shown themselves sufficiently attentive to jie burial of soldiers slain during the action. Those who vio- NOTES. 133 iated tombs, were looked upon as victims irrevocably devoted to the wrath of the Gods. The auguries, prayers, and vows they made upon graves, show how deeply the depositaries of the pre- cepts of their religion had impressed upon their minds a respect for the dead. The Grecian writers, especially the poets, have left us interesting details on this subject. (Vid. Anthol. and Brodozus. Epigr. gr.) It may be added that oaths for the most solemn occasions were as sacred when pronounced over a tomb or grave as at the altar. All know how Alexander, before under- faking the Asiatic war, sacrificed upon the grave of Achilles. CHAPTER IV > (15) The respect shown by the Romans to places of burial i- undeniable. They consecrated them by very solemn ceremo- nies. Those who stole any thing from the sacred place of in- terment, were capitally punished ; aud all thoroughfare and idle assemblage about it were prohibited. A body that had been in- terred could not be exhumed and placed elsewhere without the consent of the priests ; and in the provinces, without the con- sent of the magistrates. (Hein, Ant. Rom.) (16) Many of the most illustrious Roman families did not adopt this custom. The Cornelian family, for instance, buried its members till the time of Sylla, who ordered, by his will, that his body should be burned, which he is supposed to have doner lest any one should dig up his body, and dissipate his remains, as he did those of Marius. (Cic. Plin. Varr. ubi Scalig. £ Turneb.) CHAPTER V. 7 (17) Those who had expired under the infliction of punish- ment for any crime, were denied burial by the Roman law. The place to which their body was dragged, and from which it was thrown, was called Scales gemoniv, and was looked upon as infa- mous. (L. 48. ff. fit- 24. rte Cadav. PuniL) The political and 134 NOTES. religious system of the Greeks must have rendered the privation of burial the severest of punishment. (Fid. Homer. Odyss v. 66.) Their most bitter imprecation was to hope that the corpse of an enemy might be left exposed. Of course, the greatest culprits, those who had committed sacrilege or desertion, were punish- ed in this manner. [Potter, Archceolog. Grec. b. 4. c. 1.) Among the Grecians and Romans, interment was thought so s.acred a duty, that after battle they were particular to bury their enemy's dead, as well as their own ; and when the generals wished to encourage their soldiers, they promised them, if they fell, an honourable funeral. The respect in which the Egyptians always held the last abodes of mortality, furnished them with a means of vengeance against their enemies. The greatest outrage they could inflict upon them, was to disinter their dead and beat them with rods (Sp. p. 450.) The customs of the Jews were dissimilar. In the ordinary course of justice, no crime deprived the culprit of burial. But this rigorous punishment was sometimes put in practice against the uncircumcised, those irreconcileable enemies of the Israel- ites. Joshua threw into the cave of Makkedah, five kings to- gether. (Jos. x. 24.) Joram, and Jezebel, in compliance with divine command, (2 Kings ix. 26. 36 ) This was intended as the greatest possible punishment. (Jer. viii. 2. Eccl. vi. 3.) Some authors assert that the valley of Topheth was to the Jews what the Scales gemonia: was to the Romans. (18) Tertullian gives another motive, which to some appears more likely and proper. They believed that the soul, or at least a part of it, remained with the body, and they considered it their duty to take care of the precious remains. (Propterea nee ignibus juneranduvi aiunt, parcentes superfluo animoe. De. An. 51.) (19) It is most probable from the text of St. Luke, that he was buried in the same spot where he was stoned, that is to sa?K out of the eitv. NOTES 135 (20) Pomponius Festus speaks of them in de biterpretati. The catacombs were excavations in the neighbourhood of Rome, for the use, as some say, of the pagans, who afterwards abandoned them. The name is derived from the Greek, and means a place dug to a depth. The catacombs should not be confound- ed with the cemeteries ; each of these words has its own signi- fication, and the most celebrated church writers, have always used them distinctively. (21) St. Jerome says that every Sabbath he visited the cata- eombs. «' When I found myself," says he, " in that dense night, I used to think the words of the Psalmist were verified to me, Descendit in infernum vivens." (Hieron. in Ezech. chap. 4. Greg. Turon. 1. 1. H. Fr. chap. 39.) (22) In the environs of ancient Rome there were as many as forty cemeteries. Ecclesiastical history has preserved their names. (Vide Baron, ad an. 226. Panv. Hospin.) and Prud. gives a fine description of them, hymn 11. (23) In the second century the Christians began to have churches ; the sites of these have been determined, but we are ignorant of their construction and appearance. The church of Antioch, which the emperor Diocletian destroyed, was erected in the third century. The altars therefore were not always raised upon the relics of martyrs. It was not until the Church had been long and peaceably established, that they were trans- ferred to cities. (24) (Ignai. ad Philadelph. Euseb. H. E. 1. 10. c. 4.) This was the origin of basilicks, and principal churches on which others depended. The Christians of one district acknowledged but one altar, and one service, at which one bishop officiated There were chapels in the suburbs, which depended on some principal church. (25) The sites of graves often became those of temples even 136 NOTES. among the pagans ; from which the words temple and sepulchre have been sometimes used synonymously ; so Virgil: Practerea fuit in tectis de mannore templum, Conjugis antiqui miro quod honotc colobat. CHAPTER VI. (26) Constantinum JMaguumflius iugenti honore se adfectuvum txistimavit, si cum in Piscatoris vestibulo conderet; quodque im- peratoribus sunt in aulis janitores, hoc in sepulcro Piscatoribu^ sunt imperatores. Atque illi quidem veluti domini interiores loci partes obtinent; hi autem veluti accolce, et vicini prazclare sccum agi putant; si ipsis vestibuli janua adsignetur. (Horn. 26 in II. Epist. Cor.) (27) Thomassin assigns this as the commencement of relaxa- tion in the discipline opposed to interment in churches. (Part 3. 1. I.e. 65. § 2. and also St. Greg.) (28) These were exceptions in favour of exemplary piety ; but the admission of the laity was on the whole an innovation. Muratori demonstrates that the custom was not introduced by the cupidity and superstition of the priesthood, in the time of Pope Gregory, as Kepler pretends. The most ancient instances he produces, and which are of the fourth or fifth century, are all of persons remarkable for their piety. Many bishops, who with holy humility thought themselves unworthy of such an honour, declined making use of their prerogative. (Vid. Muratori Anecdot. 1. 1 disq. 11- & t. 2. disq. 3.) (29) This was the origin of chapels. The pious resorted to them to meditate or to pray over the dead. At first these small buildings were separate from the church, but were at length united to it by the porticoes and arcades built adjoining to the additions at the sides ; they were sometimes covered in entire- ly, and thus incorporated into the body of the church; the tombs in them became altars. (Thomassin. 1. 3. c. 66. 5.) N0TE3. 137 (30) This law is dated A. D. 381.—Omnia qua supra terram urnis clausa vel sarcofagis corpora detinentur, extra urbem de- lata ponantur, ut et humanitatis instar exhibeant, et relinquant incolarum domicilio sanctitatem. He speaks in particular of the church of the Holy Apostles at Constantinople ; and of the small edifices erected in towns to the honour of holy martyrs, lest they should serve as a pretext to vanity or ambition to elude the law. Some think that these last mentioned monuments were an exception to the law ; but the text will prove the contrary. Ac ne alicujus fallax et arguta solertia ab hujus se pracepti intentione subducat, atque apostolorum vel martyrum sedem humandis corporibus existimet esse concessam, ab his quoque ita ut a reliquo civitatis noverint se atque intelligant esse sub- motos. (Code Theod. 1. 9. tit. 17.) From this the law of Justi- nian was derived. Nemo apostolorum et martyrum sedem huma- nis corporibus existimet esse concessam. (Cod. Justinian. 1. 9. tit. 17. c. 6.) (31) The Venerable Bede, H. 1. 2. c. 3. gives us ample testi- mony that indiscriminate and general interment in churches was not permitted in his time. St. Austin, the apostle of England, was interred under the portico of his own cathedral. All those prelates who succeeded to him in the see of Canterbury were buried in the same place, until at last, for want of room, their sepulchres were constructed in the interior of the church. CHAPTER VII.—NOTES TO THE ACTS OF COUNCILS. (32) The councils and synods have not only forbidden burial in cities, but regulated the mode and manner of interment, and the order of funeral ceremonies.-Vid. Synod Colliour. Eo quod sub obtentu orationis scelera latenter commitment, (canon 35.) An Christi. 563. concil. Bracar. can. 13. Firmissimum usque nunc retinent hoc privilegium civitates Gallia, et nulla modo intra ambitum murorum civitatum cujuslibet defuncti corpus sit humatum......Placu4t....corpora defunc'orvm nulla modo intra be 18 138 NOTES. silicam S. sepeliantur ; sed si necesse est, deforis circa murum basilicx usque adeo non abhorret. (33) An. Christi. 585. c. 15. Non licet in baptisterio Corpora sepelire. At the same council it was forbidden to lay one corpse over another, that is to say, over one not entirely consumed. Fleur. ad. h. A. L. 7. ep. 4. conf. Thomassin, 1. c. These are the very words of the pontiff Gregory, ep. 56. St quando aliquem in ecclesia vestrd sepeliri conceditis, siquidem parentcs ipsius, proximi, vel harcdes pro luminaribus sponte quid offerre voluerint, accipere non vetamus ; peti vero, aut aliquid exigi omnino prohibemus, ne, quod valde irreligiosum est, aut venalis fortasse, quod absit, dicotur Ecclesia, aut vos de humanis videamini mortibus gratulari, si ex eorum cadaveribus studeatis qucerere quolibet modo compendium. (34) An. Chr. 794. The following are the words in Theo- dolph. cap. ad Par. c. 9. Loca divino cultui mancipata et ad offerendas hostias praparata, coemeteria, sive polyandria facta sunt; unde volumus ut ab hac re deinceps abstineatur, et nemo in ecclesia sepcliatur, nisi forte talis sit persona sacerdotis aut cujus- libet justi hominis, qua per vitve meritum talemvivcndo suo corpori defuncto locum adquisivit. If this law had been exactly follow- ed, there would not have been much danger to be apprehended ; but self-love soon endeavoured to usurp what in reality was only due to a few of the virtuous : an event to be expected, when opinion decides upon prerogatives. Corpora verb, conti- nues Theodolphus, qua antiquitus in ecclesiis sepulta sunt nequa- quam projiciantur, sed-tumuli qui adparent profundius in terram mittantur, et pavimento de super facto, nullo tumulorum vestigio adparente, ecclesia: reverentia conservetur. Ubi vero est tanta cadaverum multitudo, ut hoc facere difficile sit, locus ille pro ce- materio habeatur, ablato inde altari, et in eo loco constructo ubi religiose et pure Deo sacrificium offerre valeat. (35) According to St. Chrysostom, burying grounds were al ways located beyond the gates of cities. NOTES. 139 This is the statute of Charlemagne. An. 797, 1. I.e. 159. & 1. 5. c. 48. Nullus deinceps in ecclesia mortuus sepeliatur. (36) An. 813. can. 21. de sepeliendis in basilicis mortuis con- stitutio ilia servetur quce antiquis patribus constituta est. Ann. eod. cone. Mog. c. 20. An. 845. Concil. Meld. ann. eod. c. 72. Cone. Meld. ann. eod. c. 72. (37) Hincmar prohibited and abolished hereditary tombs, and gave curates power to make regulations accordingly. Nemo Christianorum presumat, quasi hereditaria jure, de sepulturd con- tendere, sed in sacerdotis providentia sit. (38) This took place at the end of the ninth century, though others place it two centuries further back. The words of this council deserve to be recorded here. Prohibendum est etiam secundum majorum instituta, ut in ecclesia nullatenus sepeliantur sed in atrio aut in porticis, aut in exedris ecclesice. Intra ecclesi- am vero etprope altare ubi corpus Domini et sanguis conficiuntur, nullatenus sepeliantur. (Labbe, (. 9. cone.) All councils agree in wishing tradition to be followed ; that is to say, that the pro- hibition should be strictly obeyed. The decrees of the Council of Aries are the same. (39) 866, a short while before the two councils just cited. (40) Basilic. 1. 5. t. 1, c. 2. 1. 6. CodeTheodo. de Sep. Viol. If in the facts here brought forward, there are some appa- rently contradictory, this proves only that there were laws and occasionally exceptions to these laws ; but the Church has been always actuated by the same spirit. (41) An. Ch. 886. now 53. Ne igitur ullo modo inter similes h"es luec lex censeatur sancimus; quin potius ut a consuetudine ccrte contemnitur, sic etiam decreto nostro prorsus nprobatur. At the same time he gives two reasons for its falling into disre- pute. The first was the dktre?s of people to see the bodies of 140 NOTES. their relatives carried so far from them ; and the second was the expense of transportation, a great vexation to the poor. (42) It would be unnecessary to set down here the canons of all these councils entire. Some refer directly to the subject here treated, others indirectly. Several forbid selling the pri- vilege of interment. Many will admit church interment only for bishops, curates, patrons, &c. to the exclusion of all who have not a permit from their bishop, &c. (43) An. Chr. 1565. Morem restituendum curent (episcopi) in cameteriis sepeliendi. c. 61. (44) Thus the Romans called a tomb or monument, raised in honour of an individual who had by any chance been deprived of interment, cenotftphium. CHAPTER VIII.—NOTES TO THE- ORDINANCE. (45) Hate porro dico, non ut sepulturarn tollam, absit; sed ut luxum et intetnpestivam ambitionem succidam. (S. Chrys. Hom. 84 in Joann.) j (46) Loca divino cultui mancipata ad qfferendas kostias, canne- teria, sive Polyandria facta sunt. (Theodolph. Auvel. cap. 9.) (47) De Siaodo Cicestr. ann. 1292. tit. 5. Cone. Labb. torn. 1. part 2. Ex statut. eccles. tree. 1. ann. 374. thes. anecd. tit. 4. col, 1125. Concil. Labb. torn. 8. col. 586. Concil. Labb. tit. 11. part. col. 762. These are simple references to the motives by which the church had been induced at different times to admit some excep- tions against interment. (48) The statutes, called Capitularies, established by the con- NOTES. 141 currence of civil and ecclesiastical authorities, expressly de. clare : Nullus deinceps in ecclesia mortuus sepeliatur. (49) The following French bishops and archbishops have at the affixed dates, promulgated in their sees, ordinances against interment in towns or in churches :—De Pericard, Bishop of Avranches, A. D. 1600. Le Commandeur, Bishop of St. Malo, A. D. 1620; De Matignon, Bishop of Lizieux, A. D. 1650; De la Guibourgere, first Bishop of La Rochelle, A. D. 1655 ; Vialart,. Bishop of Chalons, A. D. 1661 ; Faur, Bishop of Amiens, A. D. 1662 ; D'Elbeur, Bishop of Orleans, A. D. 1664 , De Pavilion, Bishop of Aleth, A. D. 1670 ; Sevin, Bishop of Cahors, A. D. 1673; De Villeserin, Bishop of Senez, A. D. 1672—78 ; Cardinal Le Camus, Bishop of Grenoble, A. D. 1690 ; De Clermont, Bishop of Noyon, A.'D. 1691 ; De Sillery, Bishop of Soissons, A. D. 1700 ; De Beson, Archbishop of Rouen, A. D. 1721 ; and the same year, the Bishop of Evreux and the Archbishop of Auch. (50) The provisions of the ordinance against interment in the city of Toulouse, are contained in fifteen articles, confirm- ed in toto, and were sanctioned the ensuing }rear, by the parlia- ments in France and by the king ; the eloquent prelate was shortly afterwards raised by pope Pius VI. to the dignity of Cardinal. CHAPTER IX (51) On the subject of burying grounds, and the poisonous effluvia arising from dead bodies, no better authority can be cited than Fourcroy. His two memoirs on the disinterment of the burying ground of the Innocents in Paris, in 1786 and 1787, may be found in the Annals de Chemie, (Annals of Chemistry) vol. .5, page 154, and vol. 8, page 17. The following is translated from his first memoir, page 174. " We bad a strong desire to satisfy ourselves, by experiment., what uts the nature of the destructive air emitted from corrupt- 142 NOTES. ing bodies. But we had no opportunity, in consequence of there having been no burials there for three preceding years ; and the last deposit in 1782, had gone beyond the term when the sep- tic explosion is made from the abdomen. In vain we attempted to engage the diggers to procure us an examination of this elas- tic fluid in other burying grounds. But they uniformly refused, declaring that it was only by an unlucky accident they interfer- ed with corpses in that dangerous state. The horrible odour and the poisonous activity of this fluid announce to us that if it is mingled, as there is no reason to doubt, with hydrogenous and azotic gas holding sulphur and phosphorus in solution, ordinary and known products of putrefaction, it may contain also another deleterious vapour, whose nature has hitherto escaped philoso- phical research, while its terrible action upon life is too strik- ingly evinced. Perhaps it belongs to another order of bodies, to a substance more attenuated and fugacious than the bases of the known elastic fluids ; and that in this view the constituent matter of this dangerous gas operates. Be this as it may, the diggers know, that there is nothing in the burying grounds real- ly dangerous for them but the vapour disengaged from the ab- domen of carcasses when that cavity bursts. They have further remarked that this vapour does not always strike them with as- phyxia ; for if they are at some distance from the carcass which emits it, it affects them only with a slight vertigo ; a feeling of a disagreeable kind, and weakness, and nauseas, which are of se- veral hours duration. These symptoms are followed by loss of appetite, debility, ami trembling, all in consequence of a subtle poison, that fortunately is developed in only one stage of decom- position. May it not be credited, that to this septic miasma is owing the disease; to which persons are exposed who live in the neighbourhood of burying grounds, sewers, and in short, all places where animal substances in heaps undergo -spontaneous decomposition ? May we not be permitted to suppose that a poison so terrible as to cause the sudden extinction of animal life, when it escapes pure and concentrated from its focus, or place of production, may, when received and diluted in the at- mosphere, retain activity enough to produce on the nervous and sensible solids of animals, an operation capable of benumbing NOTES. 143 their functions and deranging their motions ? Since we have witnessed the terror which this dangerous poison excites among the labourers in cemeteries ; since we have seen in a great num- ber of them a paleness of face, and all the symptoms of a slovf poison ; it would be more unsafe to deny the effects of these ex- halations upon the neighbouring inhabitants, than to multiply and exaggerate complaints as has been done, by an abusive applica- tion of the discoveries by physics upon air and other elasti'. fluids.1' CHAPTER XI. (52) Haud aliud vitium exitialius est, inquit Gaubius, Instit. pa- thol, quarn quod diuturnd stagnatione in locis undique occlusia contrahit aer, cum nulla ventilatione renovatur. Torpore enim veluti putrescens, qui vita; cibusfuerat, velox ft venenum, vitas non minus quamflammas inimicissirnum. (5") The Abbe Rozier, in his Observations de Physique, re- lates, that at Marseilles, an individual wished to have a piece of ground dug up to plant it with trees ; but during the plague of 1720, many had been buried there, and the labourers had but just begun their work, when three were suffocated, and the others were saved with difficulty. (54) The Romans obliged a certain class of workmen to build their shops beyond the walls, or at the extremities of the city. Zacch. Qjuasst. med. Leg. I. 5. t. 4. § 7. (55) Subitd necat idem (vapor quern cadaverumputredo generat) (dicit Haller op. cit.) quando aperto sepulcro, hominem percellit. Nisi necat, morbos excitat periculosos et corpora putrefacit. Labat. Voyage d'ltalie, Suavages, Effets de VAir, 4'C (5G) What has been said of churches, applies of course to ce- meteries in cities. The danger is the same in both cases. Foi the elwation of the houses and churches, and the narrow limit* 144 NOTES. of streets, must prevent the dispersion of the* fetid particles in- fallibly arising. Cemeteries in towns are always very damp ; the vapours from them are often perceptible to the smell, and penetrate the neighbouring houses, and the springs of water that pass through them cannot, certainly, be either pure or agreea- ble. (Sctp. Piattoli.) (57) Those who have purchased a right to interment in a church, will say that their right of properly is invaded. But let them look to the evil effects of their rights upon their fellow- citizens, and they will sacrifice with pleasure a slight advantage and an imaginary possession. At Vienna, there are no cemeteries around the churches The Empress Maria Theresa had a public cemetery establish- ed beyond the capital. Habberm. dc opt. sepel usu. CHAPTER XII. (58) John Mayou, a provincial physician of England ; his works were published in Oxford in the year 1674. CHAPTER XIII. (59) Old Slip, as it is called, does not appear to be as bad a- tnany others in the upper range on the East River ; but its situa- tion is more southerly, and it is closed against N. and N. W. winds by the higher adjacent streets. It is situated at the lower end of a space, anciently called Rotten-Row, where long and contested claims between the Corporation and the estates of some private individuals, prevented the ordinary improvements, which might have purified or renewed the ground. This place has always been the common receptacle of the whole filth of the city. The two narrow lanes, Governcur's and Jones's, afford an exemplification of the unhealthy disposition of the streets. It may be safely presumed, that the soil in this vicinity is very im- pure; or composed of perishing and fermenting materials. The NOTES. 145 slip is shallow, and its sides, like many others, are composed of piles of wood, thick, uncovered, and now rotten, worm-eaten, and coated with black mud ; and it is throughout the receptacle of animal exuviae and decayed matter, emitting in warm weather an offensive smell, and, no doubt, also, deleterious miasmata. \ sewer empties into this slip, which originates from a private house or houses. How much filth this may contain and dis- charge, and in what state it maybe in its course from Sloat Lane, I have not been able to ascertain, but be it more or less, it is a nuisance near to the surface of the ground. (Vid. statement of the yellow-fever in New-York, during 1319, by Felix Pascalis. M. D.) CHAPTER XV (60) Murders\nd suicides, have, in many instances, been committed, and apparently encouraged by opportunities of con- cealing the victim in a burying ground. Of the first, there are instances related in the Causes Celebres ; and of the last, a re- markable instance occurred in a patient of mine, who was un- der my care for an accidental indisposition. He was the father of a family, embarrassed in his domestic circumstances, and of an apparently gay, but really melancholy disposition. At his last attendance in my office, he declared himself very well, and thanked me for my services. On the ensuing day, early in the morning, he was seen by some one at a distance, seated on the brink of a grave, in Pottersfield, untying his neckhandkerchief, and cutting his throat with a razor. The beholder had not time to prevent the fatal deed ! (61) In the establishment of a General Cemetery, or Polyan- drium, under the strict prohibition of interment in the city. every citizen becomes entitled to a right of burial in the same. This would, therefore, be no favour nor grant to those who are now proprietors of graves or vaults. It has been surmised, as a matter of compensation, that room might be allowed for such. along the great wall of the cemetery under the proposed clois- ter or gallery. 19 146 NOTES. Whether this work must be made at the expense of these individuals or of the corporation, remains to be decided by higher authority. This is a matter by which every member of the community, and heads of families especially, are to be high- ly benefited. If the corporation will but make a beginning by building one side of the gallery with a number of vaults to be immediately granted to whpever engages to have the re- mains of his deceased friends disinterred during the proper sea- son, and removed to the new vault, the example would soon be followed ; and pecuniary settlement between the public and the churches, between these and their members, might be postponed until the time at which the present places of inter- ment are turned to public use. One more provision is desirable, and which would be in con- formity to a good, at least to a most justifiable principle. A space in the middle of the Polyandrium, or an area of 100 feet in diameter, should be reserved for the purpose of the Pyre. This expeditious method of restoring the clay tenement to its kindred earth, may eventually be the choice of some members of the community. The necessary fuel should be provided by private and not public means. As yet, only one notable instance of such a disposal has occurred in this country ; that was the case of Laurens, the president of the first American congress. It is probable that many might choose the same, if a place for a fu- neral pyre, marked by an iron column, was prepared there as a permit for such a mode of destruction of the dead ; a mode which requires but little space, time, and care. (62) A Luctuary is a house of mourning, where the dead are deposited in the way to the place of interment ; and where the friends and relations are supposed or expected to attend, to leave their last, silent farewell. This place of deposit is much to be recommended for another purpose ; it may be the means of pre- venting a premature burial ; shocking instances of which have but too often occurred among populous nations. We are told thai it is an approved practice among the society of friends, call- ed Quakers, to have a place of deposit for the dead, in which *hey are for several days placed, under observation. APPENDIX, (A) The Board of Health, in 1806, appointed Dr. Edward Miller, John Pintard, Esq. and Mr. Winant Van Zandt, a com- mittee to report on nieasures necessary to secure the health of the city of New-York. The following is an extract from the report drawn up by Dr. Miller : " The Committee of the Board of Health, &c. #c. report : " That interments of dead bodies within the city ought to be prohibited. A vast mass of decaying animal matter, produced by the superstition of interring dead bodies near the churches, and which has been accumulating for a long lapse of time, is now deposited in many of the most populous parts of the city. It is impossible that such a quantity of these animal remains, even if placed at the greatest depth of interment commonly practised, should continue to be inoffensive and safe. It is difficult, if not impracticable, to determine to what distance around, the matter extricated during the progress of putrefaction, may spread ; and by pervading the ground, tainting the waters, and perhaps emit- ting noxious exhalations into the atmosphere, do great mischief. But if it should be decided still to persist in the practice of in- terments within the city, it ought to be judged necessary to or- der the envelopement of the bodies in some species of calcareous earth, either quick-lime or chalk. The present burial-grounds might serve extremely well for plantations of grove and forest trees, and thereby, instead of remaining receptacles of putrefy- ing matter and hot-beds of miasmata, might be rendered useful ,ind ornamental to the city. This growing evil must be correct- 148 APPENDIX. ed at some period, for it is increasing and extending by daily aggregation to a mass already very large ; and the sooner it is arrested, the less violence will be done to the feeling and habits of our fellow-citizens." From the Commercial Advertiser, August 11th, 1822. PUBLIC CEMETERIES. The dangers to be apprehended to the health of the l;ving, from these receptacles of the dead, have undergone different estimates. Some have considered them as harmless although in the centre of populous communities, because ninny genera- tions had passed away from the time they were first employed, without their having apparently caused any evil effects. But others again, and with reason, have supposed that such reposi- tories might be not prejudicial at first; and yet must eventual!) become so, when the accumulation of putrescent exuviae, at- taining a considerable extent, should be act ed upon by such con- curring circumstances as must excite deleterious exhalations. Awful visitations of mortality, within the last half century, have awakened the minds of at least one nation on this poiut, and have given rise throughout France to a rigorous law, at the same time prohibiting the inhumation of bodies within the limits of cities, and fixing cemeteries in open and uninhabited situations. Neither is the pride or devotion of families allowed to crowd the churches, no vaults being permitted in these unless eight feet square ; and the structure of their coffins in England, where, among the wealthy ranks, they generally use their churches for burial, seems well adapted to prevent the evils otherwise aris- ing from their imprudent fashion of entombing corpses in the interior of churches : coffins of lead, soldered, lined, and cased in mahogany or walnut, and again in oak, and over all covered with cloth or velvet, may be more secure against pestiferous vapours. Among us, let it be remembered, that the dangers of ceme- teries filled with strata of putrefaction, are increased to an alar ming degree, by our manner of interring the dead. We APPENDIX. Mb place them in coffins of slender materials, under a few feet of loose earth, on every square foot of which, the atmosphere con- tinually exerts a pressure of 2°.00 pounds. This enormous weight, aided by the decaying influence of the ambient moistire of the ground, soon breaks down the frail cases which contain the remnants of mortality. Transmitting to lUeui °. heat ave- raging 72 deg. the point at which putrid fermentation com- mences, and assisted by the porous nature of the soil, it disen- gages from them afi immense volume of malignant effluvia. These gases are often visible on warm dark nights, playing with a phosphoric and lambent flame over the graves, and have mo re than once been taken for the spirit of the deceased, hover- ing over its neglected remains. Should we unfortunately content ourselves with the idea that animal dissolution is not attended by the pernicious effects attri- buted to the decomposition of vegetable matter, we need but consult the pages of history to be satisfied to the contrary. We shall there find that desolating wars have been universally fol lowed by pestilence ; that the successful sieges of cities, carried sword in hand by the extermination of the inhabitants, have been fatal to the conquerors who have tarried in them, and that the best devised military operations have been defeated, even by the very slaughter they were intended to promote. And in Egypt, termed sometimes the cradle of the plague, that scourge has been frequently traced by learned observers to swarms of locusts, swept by winds into the Nile, and left in myriads upon the shores. From analogy we may conclude that burying-grounds in po pulous cities cannot always remain innocuous. Peculiarly ag- gravating circumstances call our attention to the state of the cemetery of Trinity Church, now suspected to be the cause of the mortality in its vicinity. The first is. that its area, of more than two acres, although on a level with Broadway, yet at its west- ern extremity is elevated ten feet and upwards above the ground plan of Lumber-street, while Greenwich-street is again ten feet below Lumber-street, and Washington perhaps five feet below Greenwich. It results, therefore, that this body of earth, the surface of which has no declivity to carry off the rains, and 150 APPENDIX. which is held in and encompassed by a massy wall is like a great reservoir of contaminating fluids, suspended above the adjacent streets. As a proof of this, we may state, that in a house in Thames-street, springs of water pouring in from that ground, occasioned the removal of the tenants, by their exceeding fetid- ness and impurity. The second circumstance is the number of bodies interred ; tjnore than a century ago, this ground, by corporation charter, having been assigned as a public burial-place for the inhabitants of New-York. If we only advert to the deaths in our city du- ring the two last years, in 1820—3515, and in 1821—3510, we may easily calculate what a considerable proportion of these, must have been deposited there, since the Episcopalian deno- mination is the most numerous of all, and that cemetery is also the privileged receptacle of strangers, or those who do not be- long to any particular sect. We know also, that to satisfy the demand for room, a charnel-house has been found necessary, to clear off the remains disinterred, for new occupants. A third circumstance is the continual digging of graves, thus opening to their very sources, vents for the gases that must be produced in an enclosure, where no space for a new grave can be fixed upon, until an iron sound is forced through the earth to discover an old coffin decayed enough to allow of the removal of its contents to the charnel-house. This opening of the graves creates an intolerable stench, often complained of, and at pre- sent testified to before the Board of Health by persons residing in the neighbourhood. Let us hope, that the situation of this cemetery, which at pre- sent excites our fears, will be speedily corrected by the exam- ple of a sister city, who, some years ago, converted a like place of interment into a healthy and ornamental square. I . r. " It is not long, indeed, since we have seen in this populous city, the mangled remains of the dead, transported from one bury- ing ground into the other. We have also seen two church-yards opeued, and deeply broken over an extensive surface, leaving exposed to our reluctant and pensive curiosity, shattered limbs APPENDIX. 151 of corpses and their decayed coffins, until they were closed again by a range of brick vaults! These extend now, a great way in- to the streets, far from what may be called the consecrated ground of the-church, and literally under the pressure ofa thou- sand horses, carts, and carriages. An earthquake might in an iwtant throw up, from under our feet, the stings of death, the poison of human putrefaction, and create unexpectedly, horrid scenes and cruel contrasts—to punish the present generation for not having removed afar off these fetid cells of human decompo- sition, in which they themselves will not be better protected against the overturning hand of time, and other natural causes. " It is well known that our large cities having within a few years, extended much beyond their former suburbs, it has been necessary, in many instances, to build on what was formerly a burying-ground, to expel as it were the dead, for the accommo- dation of the living. And by what other alterations or improve- ments, future generations may, in the progress of time, violate or destroy the existing vaults, is very obvious to any reflecting mind, who must be convinced of the vanity of choosing a resting place, the habitation of their dust, in the middle of a crowded city, rather than in a distant and appropriate spot of ground. " To the authorities andarguments offered against the evils and dangers of our mode of sepulture, many more might be added from other learned writers, who have professedly and impres sively inquired into this subject. One only we will mention, and the most recent work of the celebrated Vicq D'Azyr, of Paris, physician to the late Queen of France, and the translator of the Italian Essay by Scipion Piattoli, already quoted. We find in this production, the eloquent pastoral address of the Archbishop of Toulouse, against the same practice, which that Prelate deprecates with the authority of many ancient fathers of the church, of Christian Roman Emperors, of Councils, of Popes, and many other ecclesiastical regulations. We feel it our duty to recommend a reading of that instructive piece to those who might not be averse to the abolition of sepulture in populous ci- ties, were they not withheld by piety, or by a cherished sense of union hereafter, with their fore-fathers, their friends, with 152 APPENDIX. the blessings and prayers o»" their church ! Thr b">ok c 1 Vioq- d'Azyr is in our Hospital library." (Med. Repos. N. S. Vol. i. p. 144.) (B) From a late work by the learned orientalist, Joseph Morenas, styled Les Castes des Indes, accompanied by a critique on the Hindoo customs mentioned in the Paria, a tragedy by De la Vigne, we extract the following note. u Au lache, au meurtrier, qui n'ont point de tombeauK.'" " This description cannot apply to a nation that has not the cus- tom of burying the dead. Public utility is the aim of all the in- stitutions of India ; and no doubt the legislators of that country. judging that the remains of the past generation are of no import to the present, have considered it unjust to devote to them ground, eare, and expense. To these moral considerations have been joined a conviction of the danger of keeping, in the midst of the living, a perpetual centre of putrefying materials, tending to infect the air, and to produce epidemic diseases. "With the exception of a very small number of individuals, be- longing tosome particular professions, the bodies of the Hindoos are burned after death, and their ashes scattered to the winds." (C) Vicq D'Azyr and Piattoli inform us, that the prohibition of city interment had taken place in Denmark and in Ireland. We were much at a loss to make out the truth of this remark, at least for the latter country ; and while we were in despair of realizing it, we at last found that a pestilential fever raged in Dublin du- ring the summer of 1740, which was traced to the exhalations from church-yards, which by authority were removed out of the city. " In large towns in England, and more especially in the metro- polis, it has become more difficult to find room for the dead than for the living. The Commissioners for the Improvements in Westminster reported to Parliament in 1814, that St. Marga- ret's churchyard could not, consistently with the health of the neighbourhood, be used much longer as a burying-ground, ' for that it was with the greatest difficulty a vacant place could at any lime be found for strangers ; the family graves generally would APPENDIX. loo not admit oi more than one interment ; and marty of them were then too full, for the reception of any member of the family to which they belonged.' There are many churchyards in which the soil has been raised several feet above the level of the ad- joining street, by the continual accumulation of mortal matter ; and there are others, in which the ground is actually probed with a borer before a grave is opened ! In these things the most barbarous savages might reasonably be shocked at our bar- barity."—Quarterly Review, Sept. 1819 j p. 380. (D) The Carthaginians seem to »have been destined to Suffer many defeats from pestilential diseases in their most promising enterprises in Sicily. These have been investigated by Dr. Elihu H. Smith. Vid. Medical Repository, vol. ii. ppg. 337. When Hannibal, the predecessor of-Himilco, laid siege to the city of Agrigentum, (Girgenti) in the south-western part of Sicily, for the purpose of raising a wall without, which should overlook and command the city walls, he collected all the mate- rials within his reach ; and among the rest, destroyed, and con- verted to this use, the tombs standing around a city very ancient and populous, and then containing 200,000 inhabitants. From the uncovering and disturbing of so many dead bodies arose a terrible pestilence, which carried off immense numbers of the Carthaginians, and the general himself. Afflicted at this dreadful mortality, the besiegers attributed it, with the superstition of the age, to the vengeance of the gods, incensed against them for violating the repose of the dead. The healthiness of the situa- tion, the season, and the thorough appointment and supplies of the Carthaginian army, leave no room to doubt as to the real cause of the sickness, which gradually disappeared ; but two re- marks of some, importance are suggested by it— ]. The folly of modern nations, especially in warm climates, in suffering the interment of the dead within their cities. 2. The wisdonr of some ancient nations in having a dead a? well as a living town. Extract from a " Tour through Germany, by the Rev. Dr. Render.' No. 2. How pernicious the burying in churches is to a covvrf- 20 154 APPENDIX. gation, will appear from the following serious instance of ttie consequences resulting from it. My readers will I hope permit me to suppress the real names of the clergyman and the place where this event took place. In the month of July, 17—, a very corpulent lady died at----. Before her death, she begged, as a particular favour, to be bu- ried in the parochial church. She had died on the Wednesday, and on the following Saturday was buried, according to her de- sire The weather at the time was very hot, and a great drought had prevailed. The succeeding Sunday, a week after the lady had been buried, the Protestant clergyman had a very full con- gregation, upwards of nine hundred persons attending, that being the day for administering the holy sacrament. It is the custom in Germany, that when people wish to receive the sacrament, they neither eat nor drink until the ceremony is over. The clergyman consecrated the bread and wine, which is uncovered during the ceremony. There were about one hundred and eighty communicants. A quarter of an hour after the ceremony, before they had quitted the church, more than sixty of the com- municants were taken ill : several died in the most violent ago- nies ; others of a more vigorous constitution survived by the help of medical assistance ; a most violent consternation prevail- ed among the whole congregation, and throughout the town. It was concluded that the wine had been poisoned. The sacris- tan, and several others belonging to the vestry, were put in irons. The persons accused underwent very great hardships : during the space of a week they were confined in a dungeon, and some of them were put to the torture : but they persisted in their innocence. On the Sunday following the magistrate ordered that a chalice of wine uncovered should be placed, for the space of an hour, upon the altar; the hour had scarcely elapsed, when they be- held the wine filled with myriads of insects—by tracing whence they came, it was perceived, by the rays of the sun, that they issued from the grave of t ie lady who had been buried the pre- ceding fortnight. The people not belonging to the vestry were dismissed, and four men were employed to open the vault and the coffin ; in doing this, two of them dropped down and expired APPENDIX/ 155 on the spot, tbe other two were only saved by the utmost exer- tions of medical talents. It is beyond the power of words to describe the horrid appearance of the corpse when the coffin was opened. The whole was an entire mass of putrefaction : and it was now clearly perceived that the numerous insects, to- gether with the effluvia which had issued from the body, had caused the pestilential infection which was a week before attri- buted to poison. It is but justice to add, that on this discovery, the accused persons were liberated and every atonement made by the magistrates and clergyman for their misguided conduct.— Gazette of Health, No. 1, p. 2. No. 3. The sepulchral vaults of the principal church of Dijon, having been entirely filled, in consequence of the winter of 1773, which froze the ground of the common cemetery to such a depth that it could not be opened ; orders were given to remove the bodies from these subterraneous repositories. It was conceiv- ed, that sufficient precaution had been taken by throwing in some quick lime, without even furnishing a vent for the putrid effluvia, or suspecting, what ought to have been anticipated from the experiments of Macbride, that lime, though it prevents the process of putrefaction, tends only, when employed at a certain stage of that process, to accelerate the evolution of its products. The infection of the air soon became so insupportable, that it was found necessary to shut up the church. Several attempts were made to purify the air, by the detona- tion of nitre ; by fumigations of vinegar ; by burning a variety of perfumes, storax, benzoin, &c. &c, and by sprinkling the pave- ment with a large quantity of anti-pestilential vinegar, know by the name of « vinegar of the four thieves." The odour of the putrid effluvia was merely masked for a moment by these opera- tions, and soon re-appeared with its former activity, spreading to the neighbourhood, where the symptoms of a contagious fever began to appear. At this period I was consulted on the means of destroying the source of the distemper. (Treatise on the weans of purifying infected air, ifC By L. B. Guyton de Morveau. pag. 25.) 15G APPENDIX. Newburgh, July 7, 1823. (No. 4.) Dear Sin, " I have received your favour of the 28th ult. You ask me for a statement of the facts I mentioned to you relating to the Dutch Churchyard, corner of Liberty and Nassau-streets. During the summers of 1816 and 1817, I resided at No. 39 Li- berty-street, directly opposite the churchyard. In the hot months, whenever a vault was opened on the side of the yard next to n,y residence, a very offensive stench was emitted from the vault, to such a degree, that we were compelled to shut the door and windows looking into the yard. Being frequently an- noyed with this nuisance, 1 remonstrated with the sexton against his opening the vaults in the morning, and permitting them to remain open during the day, to the annoyance of the neighbour- hood. His reply was, ' that it would be as much as his life was worth to go into the vault until it had stood open sometime to air.' I applied to the mayor to correct the proceeding. He said it was a subject of so much feeling with the citizens, that the corporation would not interfere to regulate interments. In the summer of one of the years I have mentioned, but which I do not recollect, the trustees of this church made some repairs to it, and built a porch to each of the eastern doors next to Liberty-street. In digging for the foundation of the south- east porch next to the sugar-house, they came upon the great grave, in which had been buried those who died in this su- gar-house, while it was occupied as a prison during a pe- riod of the revolution. The grave was deep and spacious, and it became necessary, in order to get at the solid earth for the foundation of the porch, to disinter a great quan- tity of the remains of those who had been buried there. Seve- ral cart loads were taken up and carried away. During this operation, the air in the churchyard and its vicinity swarmed with myriads of little black flies, very troublesome. They fill- ed our house, covering the side-board, furniture, and every ar- ticle on which they could alight ; even closing the doors and windows did not entirely relieve us from their annoyance. These, sir, are the facts I stated to you in conversation last fall. I am very respectfully, Your obedient serv't, JONATHAN TISK. Doctor Samuel Akerly. APPENDIX 147 >» o. 5. " Coincident with these reflections, and corroborative of ibis opinion, is the narrative of Mr. Henry Griffin, who on the 19th of August, 1810, when the thermometer stood at 88°, returned from attending the funeral of a Mr. Patten, whose body was de- posited in the public vault of the Middle or New Dutch church. He declared he was never so sensible of a cadaverous fcetor. So offensive was the effluvium extricated from the dead bodies, that he with many others, were obliged to retreat from its mouth. In depositing a corpse in one of the vaults of the Presbyterian church in Beekman-street, the sexton gave to the attendants this friendly caution : " Stand on one side, you are not accustomed to such smells." We have the testimony of Mr. De Groadt, sexton of the Dutch church, who has frequently remarked, that in descending into vaults, candles lose their lustre, and that the air was so sour and pungent, that it stung his nose like pepper dust. This being the case with all vaults where dead bodies are deposited, and subject to be opened at all seasons, this method of disposing of the remains of our friends, is, at the best, an un- pleasant and certainly a dangerous one. A few bodies, nay a single one, is sufficient to produce those deleterious and destruc- tive vapour*, which may bring instant death, and sickness to hundreds. The consignment of a single body to a deep pit co- vered with earth, is more rational and less dangerous. Even the accumulation of dead bodies in this way, in large cities, has been a frequent source of pestilence. This fact is of the great- est notoriety.—Med. Repos. Vol. I. New Series, pag. 139. Dr. Pascalis to Dr. Akerly. New-York, 20th July, 1823. (No. 6.) Dear Sir, My exposition from Vicq D'Azyr and Piattoli, which you have seen, is ready for the press, and will shortly be pub= lished. You have written something on the danger of interments in cities ; and it occurs to me that I have heard of some well written observations said to have been published in the Evening Post of last autumn, addressed to you. If there is any thing in these observations which requires a reply or comment, and you 158 APPENDIX. can throw any light upon the subject of interments, will you be pleased to communicate it ? I am, &c. FELIX PASCALS Dr. Akerly to Dr. Pascalis, in reply. New-York, 21st July, 1823. Dear Sift, The communication to which you refer was publish- ed in the Evening Post of the 25th November, 1822, over the signature N. It was said to have been written by a distinguish- ed m******* of the Episcopal Church in this city ; and although I was pleased with the moderation of the writer, I did not reply to the observations, because, though informed that the------ was the author, it was not acknowledged as his, and I did not choose to enter into a controversy with an anonymous writer, who called upon me to answer certain queries. Herewith I send you a copy of my letter and the------'s epistle, by which you will see that the latter requires no reply, because the que- ries therein contained addressed to me, are answered by the facts related in the work which you are about to publish. Can you give it a place in the appendix, that it may be compared with the pastoral address of the archbishop of Toulouse ? I am, respectfully, yours, &c» SAMUEL AKERLY. I offered my pages to Dr.Samuel Akerly in the present case, from a sense of duty, as he had been my colleague in the Medi- cal Repository, from which the preceding remarks, (page 150) are quoted. He had also written last autumn a forcible let- ter on the subject of interment, which I regret was not more ge- nerally noticed. It provoked some animadversions from a writer signing himself N. As Dr. Akerly, from proper motives, de- clines a personal controversy, I should not bring forward ex- tracts from his letter unless permitted to offer some general re- marks on the communication of N. in the Evening Post of Nov. 25th, 1U22 APPENDIX. 159 The writer adopts a mode of reasoning totally rejected in logic, because it draws a general conclusion from a minor pro- position : a minori ad majus non valet consequentia. He reasons from several facts, which cannot invalidate the general principle of pernicious effects from accumulations of dead matter. He mistakes or misstates facts, from French authors, on the time required for the complete destruction of dead bodies ; and re- specting the great pits in the cemetery of the Innocents at Paris, from which certainly no comparison ever was made with our own mode of interment. He erroneously concludes, be- cause Fourcroy states three years as a term during which the generation of the septic poison must take place, which is in- stant death to those exposed to it, that beyond this period, dead matter is harmless ; and yet Fourcroy does not define whether there be but this poison as a cause of the diseases and symptoms which he relates as attacking the workmen and persons residing in the vicinity of the burying ground. He indulges in the supposition that there is no evidence or proof that the churchyards of this city have produced sickness ; as if we were obliged to believe with him that the epidemic of 1822, in the vicinity of Trinity churchyard, was imported to that district from the Lazaretto. He agrees, however, that the last mentioned cemetery should be closed, if it is too full, or if " bodies cannot be deposited there at sufficient depth," yet he makes no calculation to ascertain the fact : will he permit us to offer him a slight one 1 The whole ground of Trinity Church is not much more than two acres, one half of which is taken up with the church and the vaults, leav- ing one acre perhaps, or 43,560 square feet, which, if divided by 31, the proper measure of square feet for a single interment, gives 1405|, the number of spaces left for graves. Now, the mortality for four years (the lowest term for the destruction of the human frame in graves) will amount to 13,464 ; and it will be no exaggeration to say, that one third of this is deposited in the general and public cemetery of Trinity Church. Therefore, in four years, 4488 have been placed where only 1405 should be; ihey must then be, contrary to law, inhumed one above another, or mii'f be < ■O&vN J ^v "^•fc ... '■ w.- 'v. s Sfc /^ • ^)^v •' ^^fc*- irX; : X \ *%^ ~ .^ "V ^w >U. i ;'#llN .*!.:#*■ v ^ ^m^w ;^£^ ikiM %* m :*•■ S*