Cimetières médiévaux et rites funéraires en Languedoc : l’apport de l'archéologie

Abstract

Medieval cemeteries and funeral habits in Languedoc : the contribution of Archeology. If during centuries, the world of the dead and the one of the living were rigorously kept apart, a continuous change occured throughout Middle Ages. Archaeological evidences confirmed and completed the texts once again. Cemeteries still far away from houses in the High Middle Ages, got integrated step by step to the housing. Firstly, the living used to meet the dead in suburban areas before the beginning of the second millenium when sepultures subdued towns, churches and their surroundings. Still kept within tombs, furniture disappeared around the middle of the VIIIth century whereas at the same time, the number of diverse types of tombs got reduced. After many experiments, the anthropomorphic tomb was generalized after the tenth century. Very common by its cave form, the tomb was replaced by the grave, without or with a coffin, which later became characteristic of the XIV-XVIth centuries. The Come necropolis in Montpellier, with its two superposed cemeteries (cave and grave) witnessed this evolution and allowed an archeological approach of the funeral rituals in the Languedoc between the Xth and the XVIth century.