The burial ceremony as presented in funeral prints from the 17th and 18th c. (selected aspects)

Abstract

In baroque times the funeral was a paratheatrical event combining verbal expression, gesture, art, architecture and music. A solemn funeral celebration manifested the affluence and status of nobility and patriciate families. Hours-long ceremonies were turned into performances dramatized by the use of light and props (e.g. shields with coats of arms, standards, pictures with genealogical trees, candles and coffin portraits), actors in which were the departed lying on the catafalque as well as the archimimus standing next to the coffin and the preacher who praised the deceased person with oratorical art necessary for the occasion. The funeral was a great chance of showing the achievements of the deceased; this was usually done in texts printed for the occasion: condolences (often in verse), descriptions and reports of funerals. Condolences were aimed at supporting the relatives mourning their loss. Funeral reports were to commemorate the dead, acknowledge the greatness of their families and record the magnificence of baroque ceremonies. Funerary orations had persuasive functions and conveyed propagated models of behaviour. Crucial elements of funeral celebrations were the setting and the use of words. Data on funeral “scenery” used in baroque churches can be found in funeral diaries, accounts and letters. Diaries, which related the ceremonies, also described the participants and the funeral scenery, i.e. the special altar, catafalque and Castrum doloris, whose exposition in the church made the celebration particularly exalted. The setting — as in every theatrical performance — was supplemented with live words, which survived in recorded orations. They presented the deceased person’s achievements, described the moment of death and pleaded to remember them. A significant role in the baroque theatre of death was assigned to the orator (a priest or a lay preacher). He greatly contributed to creating the image and prestige of the family that had commissioned the funerary oration. The orator, standing at the pulpit, treated as a stage, and delivering his speech to the audience in the church, carefully controlled every detail of his presentation, even the positioning of his legs, hips, shoulders and fingers, as well as the facial expression and the volume of his voice. A baroque funeral was a carefully directed performance, with every element (the setting, the orator, the deceased and the audience) contributing to its grandiosity. The verbal element, captured in print by diaries, condolences and orations, gives us insight into the models of behaviour accepted and venerated in Old-Polish society.