From Mortuary to Cemetery

Abstract

On 11 August 1779 the magistrates of Lille published a minutely detailed ordinance designed to reform funeral and burial practices in that northern French city. Since the Middle Ages it had been the practice in Lille, as in other French cities, to bury the deceased within the parish grounds. Depending upon the status of the deceased, burial would take place under the choir of the church (solennels); under a lateral wing (demi-solennels); or in one of the two exterior cemeteries adjoining the church—the first of which was for ordinary parishioners (bourgeois), the second for unbaptized children. Briefly, the Ordinance of 1779 established a common cemetery outside of the city walls and forbade further burials in the five parish cemeteries of Lille. The four traditional distinctions by rank were maintained in the new cemetery and a system of funeral hearses drawn by horses was introduced by the magistrates to transport the deceased to the new cemetery. The ordinance was the product of several years of negotiation among the magistrates of Lille, the Bishop of Tournai, and royal authorities at Versailles. This reform was partially the result of a new campaign for urban hygiene or l’air pur and an attempt by the magistrates to appropriate valuable urban property since the ordinance stipulated that parishes would sell their cemetery land to the magistrates.