Verse Epitaphs and Funerary Narratives. A Complex Inscription from the Cathedral in Girona (14th century)

Résumé En

Epigraphic documentation from the Middle Ages shows a singular use of verse inscriptions in the funerary domain. The use of metrics for epitaphs is difficult to associate, in an historical perspective, with phenomena of “fashion” or “habits”, or with some workshop practices, unlike the forms of tombs, heraldic elements, and images on funerary monuments that can be traced within a place or a period. In all cases, the choice to use poetic forms of praise in funerary inscription written in verse testifies to a specific, epigraphic decision related to the status or function of the deceased, and his insertion in a particular documentary network. Through verse writing, refined discourses on death, burial sites and commemoration are set up, which give to funerary monuments the status of poetic compositions. The set of epitaphs inscribed for the tombs in the cathedral of Girona (Spain) during the 13th-14th centuries constitute a rich and original epigraphic cluster, with a remarkable presence of verses. The textual structures and material layouts stage “stone poems” in the church and in the cloister and allow the construction of a poetic pantheon. Through the analysis of this corpus and taking the tomb for Berenguer de Palau and Ramon de Vilarig as a common thread, this paper intends to explore verse choices in the funerary domain and to uncover narrative structures in medieval inscriptions beyond the phenomena of quotations, reuses, and formulae.