Death - Burial
For
Christians, death was the passage from an earthly life to another, eternal one.
Many customs associated with death and burial in the Byzantine period
originated from the Greco-Roman antiquity, and some have been preserved even to
this day in the Orthodox East.
The
best possible death for someone was considered the one finding the man at home,
with his family surrounding him, expressing him their love and forgiveness and
ready to listen and accept his final wishes (like the dying of Digenis
Akritas). In many cases, just before dying, the dying man made his will to a notary
and called a priest for his last confession and communion. Generally, people
were dying much younger in comparison with our time. In fact judging by the
many obituaries that have been preserved, it seems that many people died at
infantry or at a young age.
A series of ritual acts followed
the advent of death, which comprised the closing of the deceased’s mouth and
eyes and the washing of his corpse with water and flavored wine.
Then they wrapped his corpse with white linen
bands
or
with
white cloths following the
tradition of the first years of the Roman Empire,
or they dressed him in his finest cloths, depending on both his social and
economical status. In some cases, they placed a coin on the mouth of the
deceased in order for him to pay for the journey to the other world. In
continuation, they put the dead person in a coffin or somewhere else (like a
table or a bed) with his head facing to the west. The hands of the deceased
were crossed at the chest or the abdomen and he was holding an icon. They
embellished
the
deathbed
with tree branches and herbs, like in antiquity. When the
deceased was an archpriest he was wearing all his vestments, while priests and
monks wore their black robes and were put in the coffin holding the Bible or a
psalter.
They used to awake the dead, staying
with him all night long before the funeral. During the wake the close relatives
manifested very strongly their grief, often reaching an exaggerating point.
They were tearing up their clothes, pulling their hair, screaming, hitting their
fists to their face and head. All these provoked the intervention of the Church
Fathers that tried to tone down these acts. Lamentations, which are mournful
songs that excluded the virtues of the dead, were among the most common way of
expressing grief.
In rare cases these songs were chanting by professional
lamentation chanters. The exaggeration that was observed in them though,
brought their banning by order of the Doge of Venice, issued in the 14th
century, according to which the treat of imprisonment and the payment of a fine
awaited those who would not obey.
After the vigil of the deceased and after twenty-four
hours passed since his death, the deceased was led to the church where the
funeral was held. The coffin was transferred by relatives, friends and even
professional bearers to the final resting place. The funeral procession was
also accompanied by priests, chanters and a crowd of people holding lighted candles
in their hands. Among them were members of the guild where the dead person
belonged to. At evening after the funeral, the family of the deceased used to
prepare a meal for the relatives, friends and clergy.
The burial of the dead was mandatory, even in war time,
as it was defined in the military texts containing instructions for the military
men.
The form of the tomb depended on both the social and
economical status of the deceased. The most simple and economic one was a
simple pit in the ground, covered by stone slabs or tiles. Some graves had
built walls like a box (cist) and were covered by a stone or an arch. On the
ground of the grave, a cross and a plate (tombstone) with the name and the age of
the deceased were placed. The richest graves, reserved for the emperors, were the
sarcophagi, large boxes (coffins) made of marble, stone or clay, with sculpted
or painted decoration on them.
The memorial prayers for the repose of the soul of the
dead took place on the third, ninth and fortieth day, and at the completion of one
year of their death. Initially, at the memorial services food was offered to
the poor and also to the friends and relatives of the deceased. Later these meals
were replaced, especially in the Greek East, by boiled wheat, consisting of
wheat mixed with pomegranate seeds, almonds, walnuts, raisins and pine nuts,
which are also offered today.
The declaration of mourning for the Byzantines was an inviolable
custom that was expressed in various ways. Besides cutting their hair, which
often occurred during the wakefulness of the deceased, the close relatives of
the dead used to wear black clothes -kings wore white- and avoided wearing jewellery.
Also, they refrained from washing, they wore dirty clothes and they fasted for
some time. The heavy mourning period in Byzantium,
following the roman custom, lasted nine days, while the normal one lasted at
least one year.
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