Before and After Death - The Tower and The Cathedral

For my first day in London, I decided to do the two things I wanted to see the most - The Tower of London (never been) and St. Paul's Cathedral (have been but don't remember.)

Successfully commuting in from Cambridge to King's Cross and then taking the Tube (once an urbanite, always an urbanite), I arrived at the Tower of London on a brightly sunny and gorgeous day, contrasting to the morbid history of the site I was on. I arrived just in time to catch a tour by a Yeoman Warder, aka Beefeater. Of the many things told but what I found most fascinating is the change in tower architecture for defensive towers. Before the Crusades, towers were square. After the Crusades, they were round. 

The Tower also has the only surviving medieval palace in Britain, dating back to the 1200s, which stands in the wall above Traitor's Gate. Prisoners were brought o the Tower through the Gate, two of which were quite famous and queens - Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. 

Speaking of Anne Boleyn, I stood where she, and many others, lost their heads, which was quite powerful. Moving on to see where she spent her time before her death, I made my way through the White Tower. It currently houses the Royal Armory, and does not show many signs to the fact that the White Tower used to be the prison and execution site. Other "guests" of the White Tower were Sir Thomas More, Lady Jane Grey, and most famously, Princes Edward V of England and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, also known as the Princes in the Tower, who disappeared and were said to have been either killed by their Uncle Richard or were spirited away to Ireland...Digression...There were two small skeletons found behind a staircase in the White Tower during Charles II's reign. It is thought that these may be the remains of the Princes, which are now interred at Westminster Abbey.  Now that Richard III's remains were discovered and confirmed last year in Leicester, these skeletons will be tested for DNA and compared to Richard III's for confirmation if the tower skeletons are related to Richard, thus proving them to be his nephews. A 540ish mystery may come to an end.

What was quite striking was the vastness of the complex and various architectural styles represented, from Saxon to Norman all the way up to Georgian, as seen in the Hospital buildings and houses. (Evidently, according to my Beefeater tour guide, there are still people who live with their families at the Tower.)

Taking the opportunity to walk, I found my way from the Tower west to St. Paul's Cathedral. Not able to take pictures of the interior, I am not able to describe the awesomeness of the gilded and colorful altars or ceilings. The crypt holds the remains of many famous people. I accidentally walked on Joshua Reynolds and JMW Turner and saw the monuments to Robert Hooke, William Blake, Alexander Fleming, and Lord Nelson. The coffin that Nelson is buried in was originally made for Cardinal Wolsey, but when he fell of favor with Henry VIII, he did not receive such a stately burial. The coffin was put into storage for about two hundred years until it was used for Nelson when he died at the Battle of Trafalgar. 

Taking advantage of the perfect weather, I climbed to the Golden Gallery on the top of Wren's great Dome - 550+ steps. And it was worth it for the panoramic views of the London, and the melding of historic architecture and newly modern developments like the Shard.

Photos from the day can be found here. 

Tour of Deathly Repose: Part 2

As a follow up to my first blog post on death, regarding Highgate Cemetary in London, I'd like to take a step back and think about death through the Victorian frame of mind. The Victorians "reveled in the trappings of death," as A.N. Wilson eloquently describes in his book, The Victorians, which was best demonstrated by funerals and the habits of mourning.

Funerals were elaborate ceremonies whether they were for a head of state, a doctor, or a local businessman. Wilson paints a vivid description of a typical funeral: 

The hearse would be a glass coach groaning with flowers, but smothered in sable and crepe. Four or six horses nodding with black plumes would lead the cortege, preceded by paid mutes who, swathed in black shawls and with drapes over their tall silk hats...Behind the coffin in their carriages would follow the mourners, in new-bought black clothes, bombazine and crepe and tall silk hats and black gloves and bonnets.

An article published in Harper's Bazaar in April 1886 on "Mourning and Funeral Usages," described the rules, as it were, and answered many a pertinent question pertaining to the "correct" manner in which one was to go about their mourning habits. Funereal etiquette was to be strictly adhered to as funerals became a social status symbol and tribute to how far a family had climbed in the class-system. Rules were followed as to how to dress a house for mourning, the number of pall-bearers to have and who should be one, the fashion of mourning clothing, and the length of time in which to be in mourning. 

There were variations to these mourning practices depending on who had died: Widows should mourn for about eighteen months; a parent should be mourned for a year; a sibling also for a year; and a child for 9 months. And as to what one should wear when in mourning: 

For the first six months the dress should be of crape cloth, or Henrietta cloth covered entirely with crape, collar and cuffs of white crape, a crape bonnet with a long crape veil, and a widow's cap of white crape if preferred.... After six months' mourning the crape can be removed, and grenadine, copeau fringe, and dead trimmings used, if the smell of crape is offensive, as it is to some people. After twelve months the widow's cap is left off, and the heavy veil is exchanged for a lighter one, and the dress can be of silk grenadine, plain black gros grain, or crape-trimmed cashmere with jet trimmings, and crepe lisse about the neck and sleeves.

As can be gathered from the length of this article and popularity of the magazine, it was important for Victorians to have a guide to follow in all manner of funereal topics to ensure that what was done was done so properly.

What is interesting is the purpose behind establishing uniformity and a mantle of etiquette around funerals and mourning, as if to manage the emotional experience of death into a systematic process of "dos" and "don'ts." Perhaps the need for conformity was to help cope with the death of a loved one? Perhaps it truly was to set a norm for what is to be done in the midst of chaos when a tragedy occurs? If we closely examine how these customs reflect Victorian society and culture, what does it say about the people who practiced them? And what about ourselves as the descendants of this culture and these funereal practices? ...Weighty questions to ponder and return to at another time...

Sources:

A.N. Wilson, The Victorians

"The House in Mourning" from Victoriana Magazine - http://www.victoriana.com/VictorianPeriod/mourning.htm

"Mourning and Funeral Usages," Harper's Bazaar: April 17, 1886; via Victoriana Magazine - http://www.victoriana.com/library/harpers/funeral.html

Tour of Deathly Repose: Part 1

Some may think it morbid, but I find cemeteries peaceful, picturesque, and inspiring. Rolling hills of soft grassy knolls dotted with historical reminders of those who came before. Some of these markers display recognizable names of people who have achieved greatness and who are remembered. And some with names of the every day wives, husbands, and children who have lived and gone. Their existence left for us by the etched cement above their graves.

A statue of a sleeping angel in Highgate Cemetery

Photographer: John Gay (Source: English Heritage: National Monuments Records)

A particularly famous memorial site is Highgate Cemetery in London, which is a registered park and garden of specific historic interest by English Heritage. Parliament passed an act creating new private cemeteries, Highgate Cemetery being one which opened in 1839. Previously, people were buried in churchyards or on church-owned burial grounds. It was the custom to pay the parish clergy a funeral fee, which would have been paid had the burial occurred on consecrated ground. However, there just was not any additional room available in the old burial grounds and therefore these new cemeteries were able to provide interment for those who owed no loyalty to the established Church.

A large gravestone for the family grave of William Tait with the gravestone of Henry Nathaniel Belchier (d. 1850) in the foreground.

Photographer: John Gay (Source: English Heritage: National Monuments Records)

Seventeen acres of land that had been the grounds of Ashurst Estate, down the hillside from Highgate Village, was purchased for the founding of Highgate Cemetery. When the cemetery was dedicated in 1839, 15 acres were consecrated for use by the Church of England and 2 acres for "Dissenters". By 1854, the cemetery was extended by an additional 20 acres on the other side of its Swains Lane site. This new ground, named the East Cemetery, opened in 1856 and was accessible from the now West Cemetery by a tunnel beneath Swains Lane.

An anchor carved into the rustic pedestal of the Johnson family grave in the East Cemetery

Photographer: John Gay (Source: English Heritage: National Monuments Records)

Highgate Cemetery became a popular cemetery and one of London's most fashionable as it attracted a variety of residents. Among the actors, writers, scientists, and a swarth of everyday Victorians, some of the famous people interred in Highgate Cemetery include Karl Marx, Michael Faraday, George Eliot, Christina Rossetti, and the model for many pre-Raphelite artists Elizabeth Siddal.



The double paneled and arcade shaped gravestone of the Cassels family in the West Cemetery, seen through a gap between two gravestones in the foreground

Photographer: John Gay (Source: English Heritage: National Monuments Records)

Though a memento mori to the passing of time and our mortality, large cemeteries such as Highgate Cemetery, are architectural tributes, as any cathedral or temple, to our history and our ancestors. Perhaps in addition to being a reminder of death, they can also be a reminder to live and "gather ye rosebuds while ye may."

The moss covered sculpture of an open book on a tomb carved with trefoil arches in the West Cemetery

Photographer: John Gay (Source: English Heritage: National Monuments Records)

Sources:

Highgate Cemetery Website - http://www.highgate-cemetery.org/

The Victorians by A.N. Wilson

English Heritage Website - http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/

English Heritage: National Monuments Records Website - http://viewfinder.english-heritage.org.uk/default.aspx