The thirteenth century, historian Philippe Ariès explains, brought about the concealment of the body during the funeral process. Prior to this point, medieval death customs dictated the corpse was rested on a bier lined with cloth (for the common family, this was a stretch of white linen, but, for wealthier families, the shroud was often woven with gold and dyed rich colors of blue, green, and red) and displayed in front of the home’s door before it was moved to the place of burial, where it was rested atop the sarcophagus during the priest’s chanting of the Libera and finally hidden from sight as it was moved inside the container.[1] However, by the 1300s, this long visibility of the deceased, maintained until entombment, was eradicated as, directly after death, the corpse was sewn into a shroud and enclosed in either a lead or cheap wooden coffin, known as a bière or cercueil, to be transported to the graveyard.[2] Although this practice became common throughout Christian Europe, it failed to find footing in the Mediterranean countries, chiefly Italy and Spain, which continued to uphold the body’s visibility throughout all of the funerary rituals.[3]
Ariès, Philippe. The Hour of Our Death: The Classic History of Western Attitudes Toward Death Over the Last One Thousand Years. 1977. Trans. Helen Weaver. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2000.
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[1] Ariès, 168.
[2] Ariès, 205-206.
[3] Ariès, 168-173.
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