Procedures and Frequencies of Embalming and Heart Extractions in Modern Period in Brittany. Contribution to the Evolution of Ritual Funerary in Europe
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2016
- handle: 10670/1.0ij297
- hal: hal-01488026
- doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0167988
- PUBMED: 28030554
- PUBMEDCENTRAL: PMC5193353
Ce document est lié à :
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0167988
Ce document est lié à :
info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/pmid/28030554
Mots-clés
funeral practicesSujets proches
Funeral and memorial services Biography--Last years and death Last illness Burial Interment Funeral Biography--Death and burial Appropriation and impropriation Secularization--Law and legislation Impropriation Council of Europe countriesCiter ce document
Rozenn Colleter et al., « Procedures and Frequencies of Embalming and Heart Extractions in Modern Period in Brittany. Contribution to the Evolution of Ritual Funerary in Europe », HAL-SHS : archéologie, ID : 10.1371/journal.pone.0167988
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Résumé
The evolution of funeral practices from the Middle Ages through the Modern era in Europe is generally seen as a process of secularization. The study, through imaging and autopsy, of two mummies, five lead urns containing hearts, and more than six hundred skeletons of nobles and clergymen from a Renaissance convent in Brittany has led us to reject this view. In addition to exceptional embalming, we observed instances in which hearts alone had been extracted, a phenomenon that had never before been described, and brains alone as well, and instances in which each spouse's heart had been placed on the other's coffin. In some identified cases we were able to establish links between the religious attitudes of given individuals and either ancient Medieval practices or more modern ones generated by the Council of Trent. All of these practices, which were a function of social status, were rooted in religion. They offer no evidence of secularization whatsoever.