Gatherings from grave yards : particularly those of London : with a concise history of the modes of interment among different nations, from the earliest periods. And a detail of dangerous and fatal results produced by the unwise and revolting custom of inhuming the dead in the midst of the living / by G.A. Walker.

Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gatherings from grave yards : particularly those of London : with a concise history of the modes of interment among different nations, from the earliest periods. And a detail of dangerous and fatal results produced by the unwise and revolting custom of inhuming the dead in the midst of the living / by G.A. Walker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    An age passed away.—The barriers which had been opposed to this custom became too weak ;—it had taken deep root in the West, and was there almost general, while it was scarcely known in the East. A new epoch, happily for the Church, through another circumstance, fixed the attention of Bishops upon this subject. Charlemagne, at the end of the eighth century, and the commencement of the ninth, occupied himself in restoring the arts and sciences, and the discipline of the Church. He assembled frequent councils in different parts of his kingdom, and the results of these councils gave rise to those public statutes which are so often spoken of in history. Theodolphus, an Italian by birth, Bishop of Or- leans, eminently distinguished in that period, and highly esteemed by Charlemagne, complained that the churches of France had almost become ceme- teries. (^) of the holy Pontiff Gregory, ep. 56:~Siguando aliquem in ecdesia vestra sepeliri concedilis, siquidem parentes ipshis, proximi, vel hoeredes pro luminaribus sponte quid offerre voluerint, accipere non vetamus; peti vero, aul aliquid exigi omnino prohibemus, ne, quod valde irreligiosum est, aut venalis fortasse, quod absit du- catur Ecdesia, aut vos de hu?nafiis videami?ii mortibus gratulari, si ex eorum cadaveribiis studeatis qucerere quolibet mode com- pendium. (') An. Ch. 794. In his reign care was taken that all the canons should be scrupulously observed, particularly those which related to sepulchres.—(Theodolph. cap. ad par. c. 9.) These are his own words :—Loca divino cullui mancipata et ad offerendas hos- tias prcBparata, ccemeteria, site polyandria facta sunt; unde