Les vivants et les morts dans les métropoles de l'époque moderne

Abstract

The way in which a society treats the dead bodies of its members can be richly illuminating. Death rituals and burial practices exemplify and reinforce social structures, and are an important mechanism for ensuring social continuity and recovery in the face of mortality. Early modern cities, and especially great metropolises like London and Paris, faced the hygienic and practical challenge of burying thousands of dead every year while striving to respect the sensibilities of popular belief. This paper offers evidence for the solutions and practices they developed, but argues that there is an important connection between the way in which problems relating to death and the disposal of the dead were handled in early modern London and Paris, and the way they coped with larger crises and issues of order and disorder. The continuities in burial practice through the period of Reformation seem to have made it both a factor for stability in London and a source of conflict in Paris.