{"id":144,"date":"2014-06-25T22:23:54","date_gmt":"2014-06-25T22:23:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joshuafkrieger.com\/kerilyn\/?p=144"},"modified":"2014-06-25T22:23:54","modified_gmt":"2014-06-25T22:23:54","slug":"the-living-and-the-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/joshuafkrieger.com\/kerilyn\/the-living-and-the-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"The Living and the Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Medieval culture also developed literary and artistic tendencies that we today call macabre. There were lots of images of corpses<\/a> in varying states of decay, which would say to the living things like “As I am now, so will you be. As you are now, so was I once.” Sometimes tomb effigies depicted the body in decay, including worms and other vermin eating at the flesh. (Gross, I know!) We consider this all to be in bad taste, but in the Middle Ages, such\u00a0memento mori\u00a0<\/em>(reminder of death) were part of preparing oneself for a good death. By reflecting on the fate of all human beings, you could help yourself focus on eternal realities. In spite of some of our assumptions about the Middle Ages, during these times, Christians had a robust belief in the resurrection of the body and the hope of the life to come. Corpses were almost always buried facing east, waiting and ready for Christ’s return.<\/p>\n

Medieval communities had several ways of remembering their dead. One was chantry chapels, which I mentioned briefly last week. Wealthy individuals could pay to have masses said for their souls, and to have candles lit for them, sometimes only once a year, sometimes daily. The extremely wealthy could found a chantry chapel, which was either a space in a parish church or cathedral that was separated off, or an entirely separate building, and then employ a priest who would say masses daily. On Wednesday we visited Wakefield to see one of the four remaining “bridge chapels” in England. Chantry chapels and tombs were often placed where many people might see them, in hopes that these passersby might say a prayer for the souls of those who erected them. It was even better if, as in the case of Wakefield, the family endowing the chapel also paid for a public service (like a bridge!). Hopefully a safe passage across the river would encourage travellers to say prayers for those of provided the service.<\/p>\n

Medieval cathedrals were primo real estate when it came to chantry chapels and burial sights. The walls of the nave in the York Minster would literally have been lined with chantries, which, in this case, would have been comprised mainly of an altar were each priest could say mass. If you added them all up, the cathedral would have had tens of masses said in each day, as each chantry priest went about his liturgy, in addition to the services provided by the clergy actually running the Minster. There was apparently some concern that priests saying mass on the margins of a church space would steal the show from the priest at the main altar. In Holy Trinity Goodramgate, a squint (basically just a hole) was installed in the wall so that the chantry chapel priest could see to the high altar and avoid this conflict. (This chantry is also a good example of a rather large chantry in a parish church.) Chantry chapels were sometimes, but not always, used as burial sites. In the second image below, from the minster, the archbishop was buried in the tomb, and then the altar would have been up above. The final image is of an ornate “stone cage” chapel in Ely. There are two of these chantries at the far east end of the cathedral, built by two archbishops in the later Middle Ages. The term “stone cage” just about says it all. They are completely covered in stonework, all four walls and the ceiling, and, beyond the altar, there is hardly any room inside.<\/p>\n

$\"NEH$ <\/a> $\"York$ <\/a> $\"NEH$ <\/a><\/p>\n

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