Ecclesiastical material interests may also have been at stake when promoting the cult of Saint Erik (Sands, 2008, p. 209). While Erik's vita functioned both as a political tool and as a guideline for other kings, his physical body provided religious institutions not only with political but also with economic power. The relics of a popular saint can be looked upon, in a more functional sense, as a *body economic* that had the capacity to draw large crowds of pilgrims and lead to economic wealth. Owning Saint Erik's relics, Uppsala Cathedral was able to compete with other important Scandinavian Christian centers such as the nearby dioceses of Strängnäs

7Ruler of the Kalmar Union under which the three kingdoms of Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were united under one monarch.

and Skara and, in Norway, the important archdiocese of Trondheim (Niðaróss)—all of which had their own martyrs and saints. Hence, the relics not only contributed to the interests of the church but also to the wealth of the lay community that beneftted from the infux of pilgrims.

Although Saint Erik's relics were distributed from Uppsala to other countries in northern Europe, the saint never received great international recognition. This is refected in the number of requests for relics, which was lower than for the canonized Saint Birgitta (Bridget) (Kjellström, 2017, p. 167, 2019). As a matter of fact, the body of Saint Erik was something more than that of a martyr; it was also that of a king with a frm connection to the local area. This was likely one of the most important factors for his becoming the patron saint of Uppsala Cathedral—at the latest in 1268 (Oertel, 2016, p. 106). The double role of Saint Erik—that is, the relationship with his region and his patron status—demonstrates the importance he had for the local community.

#### **7.3 Saint Erik's Physical Remains in the Middle Ages**

The corporeality of medieval saints was of a complex nature; like other human dead bodies they were subject to decay but as relics they often displayed durability and resistance to decomposition. Although saints' bodies rested in graves or reliquaries, at the same time they were believed to be in heaven. If translated or divided, each part of the body and anything that touched it encapsulated the person in its entirety (Bynum, 1995, p. 23–24; Walsham, 2010, p. 11).

The historic records demonstrate the strict control of any relics maintained by the church which cared for and administered their dissemination. Each request for relics needed to be considered and managed according to the prevailing protocol. Requests for relics usually came from other Christian institutions, but also from lay individuals, most of whom belonged to the aristocracy. Like pre- and perimortem events, translations and divisions left visible evidence on the skeletal remains.

#### *7.3.1 The Condition of the Bones*

In connection with an exhibition in 2014 for which the saint's crown was to be removed from the reliquary, an anthropological investigation of the osteological material was carried out under the direction of Sabine Sten of Uppsala University (Sten et al., 2016). This was the third of three anthropological investigations within 100 years. According to the 2014 and previous investigations (Ingelmark & Bygdén, 1954, pp. 233–236), the human remains at Uppsala Cathedral are far from complete. They comprise 24 bone elements that, with the exception of one element, appear to belong to one adult male individual: one cranium (without teeth) (Fig. 7.1); one incomplete cervical vertebra; two lumbar vertebrae; one sacrum; eight costae (fve

**Fig. 7.1** The cranium from the shrine of Saint Erik at Uppsala Cathedral. (Photo: A. Kjellström)

left, three right); one right humerus; one left ulna; two innominate bones; two femora; two tibiae; two calcanei; and one tibia from a second individual (Sten et al., 2016, p. 29). The bones display healed (antemortem) lesions and perimortem sharp force trauma. Among the later lesions is a horizontal blade wound that cut through the corpus of the only remaining cervical vertebra supporting the notion that this individual suffered a violent death (Sten et al., 2016, p. 37; see also Ingelmark & Bygdén, 1954; Kjellström, 2017, pp. 160–161).

Nothing is known about the treatment of Erik's dead body immediately after death but scratch marks on several of the bone elements indicate that they were not completely free from soft tissue and had to be cleaned, probably when exhumed for the frst time (Ingelmark & Bygdén, 1954, p. 239; Sten et al., 2016, pp. 37–38). Since the rate of decomposition depends on the temperature and factors associated with the contextual environment, the scratch marks do not allow any specifcation of how long the body was left untouched in its original grave. As the inception of local veneration and frst translation took place before the move to Östra Aros, it is likely that some smaller bones had already been removed and distributed before the skeleton was transferred to the new cathedral.

Notably, at some point in time Saint Erik's bones had been covered with albumen tempera, which created a flm and functioned as a varnish, presumably for the purpose of preservation (Ingelmark & Bygdén, 1954, p. 246) and from at least the fourteenth century, the bones were wrapped in linen cloth (Geijer, 1954). This treatment stands in stark contrast to most relics from beneath ordinary altar slabs, which are usually small and barely identifable fragments, often found in lead containers (Kjellström, 2017, p. 156). It is diffcult, however, to make comparisons with the relic collections of other prominent saints, because it is not clear whether today's condition is representative of earlier periods.

With the exception of one extra tibia, the remains of Saint Erik seem to have been kept apart from other relics. Usually, in larger shrines remains of several named and unnamed saints could be kept together, as for example in the shrine of Saint Birgitta at Vadstena (Bygdén et al., 1954, p. 30; Kjellström, 2017, p. 159). That no other named saints were placed in Saint Erik's sanctuary implies that the shrine was probably looked upon as more of a proper tomb. Erik's body seems therefore to have received special treatment, most likely due to his royal status and the fact that his cult was of a more national character.

Erik's skeleton lacks the type of postmortem damage, such as artifcial breakage or surfaces polished by the touch of devotees, that have been noted on relics from other saints such as on the ones in the Saint Birgitta shrine (Bygdén et al., 1954, pp. 14–30; Kjellström, 2017, p. 159). Overall, Saint Erik's bone elements today are surprisingly complete although it is also evident that the teeth, the mandible, several long bones, as well as the majority of the smaller bones (especially those belonging to the hands and feet) are missing, probably due to the *translatio* and several shrine openings.

#### *7.3.2 Inspections, Divisions, Processions, and Coronation Ceremonies*

Throughout the Middle Ages Saint Erik's bones were checked during regular visual inspections, each time offering an opportunity to remove bone fragments. One such opening took place in 1303, when the shrine was inspected by Archbishop Nils of Uppsala at the request of Duke Erik Magnusson of Sweden. A document (SDHK, no. 2021) notes that the archbishop, before removing some of the bone elements, confrmed the presence of the "head with the other members of the body" ("caput cum ceteris corporis membris") that "were tied together in six bundles or clumps" ("connexa fuerant in sex ligaturis siue massis") (see also Bygdén, 1954, p. 322; Lahti, 2019, p. 87).

When the reliquary was inspected on 17 July 1359 on the occasion of a planned procession from Uppsala to Gamla Uppsala on Saint Magdalene's feast day, it was found unft for procession and therefore instantly restored by a carpenter and a goldsmith. During the temporary removal of Erik's "head" ("capud") "with the other

members of his body" ("cum ceteris sui corporis membris") from the shrine, the lack of some "tiny particles" ("minutis particulus") was noted and interpreted as a result of the custom of relic distribution (SDHK, no. 7564; see also Bygdén, 1954, pp. 323–324; Lahti, 2019, p. 87).

In a letter dating to 1367, Archbishop Birger Gregersson asks for relics that had been cut off by the canons from Saint Erik's "arm" ("de brachio") on the occasion of its placement into a silver 'hand' reliquary which was probably shaped like an arm with a hand (SDHK, no. 9037; see also Lahti, 2019, pp. 203–204). Since no such marks could be identifed on the bones of the upper limb (or other elements) in the course of the 2014 investigation, it must be assumed that the bone fragments had been cut from a now missing element that was provided for the long-lost arm reliquary. This might have been a usual practice as evidenced by the postmortem cuts and breaks observed on a male humerus from the silver arm reliquary of Saint Birgitta which is part of the 'Linköping Treasure' at the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm (SHM 6) (Kjellström, 2017, pp. 161–163 and fg. 2; Lahti, 2019, p. 231).

Apart from being carried around during regular processions on Erik's feast days—18 May, the alleged day of his death, and 24 January, the day of his translation—his relics were taken out of the church for public processions in response to epidemics or to secure good harvests (Lundén, 1972, p. 66). The above-mentioned planned procession in July 1359 was a direct response to a plague that had ravaged the country (Bygdén, 1954, pp. 323–324; SDHK, no. 7564). As attested by miracle stories and historic documents, Erik's relics were carried back and forth in processions from Gamla Uppsala to Östra Aros before 1373 and from Uppsala to Gamla Uppsala after that date (Lovén, 2014, p. 96). Several miracle stories allude to the healing of the sick during these events. During the Rogation Days, when a procession moved from Old Uppsala to Östra Aros, a sick friar allegedly was healed after praying to Saint Erik.  These miracle stories and ceremonies demonstrate the bones' strong agency. Just to visually experience or to be close to the sacred body could lead to miracles—the work of a divine agency.

The records also show that the bones themselves were used in royal ceremonies. Around the mid-fourteenth century, King Magnus Eriksson (Magnus IV) gave the order to prepare a new law for the country (*landslag*). In the section in which the election of the king is regulated, it states that a newly crowned king should swear his coronation oath to God, Virgin Mary, and Saint Erik holding relics in his hands (*Konung Magnus Erikssons Landslag* 5.8: Schlyter & Collin, 1862). Here it is suggested that it was Saint Erik's relics that were used, which also is implied by other scholars (Lundén, 1972, p. 67; Oertel, 2016, p. 272). According to the earlier socalled *valstadgan* these bones could derive from unspecifed saints (Oertel, 2016, pp. 157–158 and 272).

To summarize, during the Middle Ages Erik's physical remains exerted strong agency and were of such importance that many ecclesiastical and political events revolved around them. As attested by various letters (e.g. SDHK, nos. 1303, 2021,

9037, and 22,327) and other documents, it was as relics that the bones served their imperative function during this era. The strong agency of Saint Erik's body is further underlined by the fact that the original tomb at Gamla Uppsala, rediscovered by Archbishop Nils in 1302 and henceforth a pilgrimage destination (Lovén, 2014, pp. 97–98), was considered sacred through its contact with Erik's body, long after the removal of the skeletal remains.

#### **7.4 From the Reformation to the Age of Enlightenment**

Between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries the attitude towards Saint Erik gradually changed. Due to the cultural paradigm shift that took place during the Protestant Reformation, society drastically changed within a few generations. The break with the Roman Catholic Church led to a successive expulsion of the objects associated with Catholicism from all churches. Relics, which belonged in this category, were thrown out or even burned as they, according to the Protestant belief, should be regarded as idolatrous. Surprisingly, throughout this period the remains of Saint Erik (last carried in a procession in 1521) remained untouched at Uppsala Cathedral. It was only in 1573, by order of King Johan III, that the medieval shrine was melted down. The king was indebted to Denmark and had to fnance the war with Russia (Lahti, 2019, p. 378). Shortly after, Johan III, probably inspired by his Catholic wife Catherine Jagiellon of Poland, commissioned a new house-shaped silver reliquary with engraved plates and relief fgures. It was made between 1574 and 1579 (Fig. 7.2) (Bygdén, 1954, p. 360). After King Johan III's death the clergy made the decision in 1593 to hide the shrine from view in order to prevent its continued veneration. However, the plan never materialized, and the shrine remained in the cathedral (Bygdén, 1954, p. 370; Zachrisson, 2017, p. 139).

Saint Erik's relics probably survived the Reformation because Erik was more than just a Catholic saint. As Erik's status as saint started to fade, his royal prominence was reaffrmed by contemporary historians. Even battleships were named after him (Glete, 2010, p. 357). Entirely dismissing Erik would have questioned the full legitimacy of the Swedish monarchy (Ågren, 2012, p. 244).

As several written sources dating between the mid-seventeenth and the end of the nineteenth centuries indicate, visitors to Saint Erik's shrine at Uppsala Cathedral were driven both by devotion and curiosity. Not only were they allowed to look at the relics but also to touch them without supervision from church offcials (Bygdén, 1954, pp. 381–382; Ingelmark & Bygdén, 1954, pp. 236–237).

The Age of Enlightenment seems to have had a greater effect on Saint Erik's reputation than the Reformation and post-Reformation forces (Ågren, 2012, p. 261). When people began to question long-held traditions and became critical of written sources, the identity of the individual in the reliquary was also doubted. The severed cervical vertebra, which had been one of the most valuable relics in the shrine, was now regarded as a prank by the sacristan. A brief inventory list from 1791 refects this change of stance because it states that the bone elements were "held under the

**Fig. 7.2** Saint Erik's late sixteenth-century silver reliquary at Uppsala Cathedral depicted in a 1697 engraving made by Truls Arwidsson. (Detail from Peringskiöld, 1719, pp. 48–49; Creative Commons CC0, Public domain)

name King Erik the IX or the holy" ("förvaras under namn af konung Eric den IX:s eller heliges") (Ingelmark & Bygdén, 1954, p. 262).

Within just two centuries the human remains had transformed from sacred bones to objects of curiosity. The shrine was no longer believed to hold a saint but rather elements from an individual that was once called a saint. This shift from saint and eternal king with mythical qualities to ordinary man can also be related to the ongoing general marginalization of Saint Erik among contemporary historians who favored later kings as symbols for the Swedish nation (Ågren, 2012, p. 247).

#### **7.5 From the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries**

During the period of Romanticism Saint Erik was rediscovered as a national symbol (Oertel, 2019, p. 142) and the authenticity of his physical remains was assessed less critically than in the previous period. The nineteenth-century nationalist discourse, which eventually culminated in scientifc racism and eugenics, fueled the scientifc investigation of living beings and the skulls of the dead. Similar to Sven Nilsson's distinction between 'Gothic' and Sámi prehistoric skull types (Nilsson, 1838–1843, ch. 2, pp. 2–5), Anders Retzius divided prehistoric crania into longheads (dolichocephalics) and shortheads (brachycephalics). The division was based on the socalled cephalic index (the ratio between greatest length and the greatest breadth of the cranium) (Retzius, 1843, p. 5), a method which became an important tool in craniology for decades to come and remained in use until the mid-twentieth century.

Throughout the nineteenth century Swedish anthropologists grappled with the questions of who the original inhabitants of Sweden had been, whether there existed a 'pure' Swedish race, and, if so, what physical characteristics defned it. The foundation of the Swedish Anthropological Society (Antropologiska sällskapet) in 1873—refounded as Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (Svenska Sällskapet för Antropologi och Geograf) in 1877—aided this line of investigation. In 1896, the society's board entrusted Gustaf Retzius, Anders Retzius' son, and Vilhelm Hultkrantz with the task of bringing about a "comprehensive statisticalanthropological investigation" (Ramström, 1921, p. 42) of the current Swedish population. From 1897 to 1898 the researchers, assisted by a team of younger colleagues, measured cephalic index, shape of the face, body height (standing and sitting), and maximum stretch of the arms of about 45,000 Swedish conscripts who were 21 years of age, and collected information regarding hair and eye color and place of birth for each individual and his parents. The results were published in 1902 in *Anthropologia Suecica* by Gustaf Retzius and renown physician Carl Magnus Fürst, who also participated in the study. It was concluded that 87% of all Swedish conscripts were dolichocephalic (further divided into 30% 'true' dolichocephalic and 57% mesocephalic) and 13% brachycephalic (Retzius & Fürst, 1902, p. 290). However, the combination of 'true' dolichocephalics with body height ≥170 cm, light eyes, and fair hair (i.e. the Germanic race) only made up c. 11%. The fact that this combination was more frequent in central Sweden was seen as evidence for it being the location of the older and purer race (Retzius, 1909, pp. 303–305; Retzius & Fürst, 1902, pp. 190–191 and map XIII).

The results of the survey more or less confrmed what Gustaf Retzius had already stated in his previous work *Crania Suecica antiqua*. This study was based on the measurements of Neolithic, Bronze Age, and Iron Age skulls and concluded that the Swedish population had been overwhelmingly dolichocephalic in the Neolithic but over time experienced admixture with brachycephalic immigrants (Retzius, 1899). In concurrence with the views of Swedish archaeologist Oscar Montelius, Scandinavia was regarded the ancestral home of the Nordic, Teutonic (Germanic) race branch and as a point of departure for Germanic migrations into Europe (Montelius, 1921, p. 10; Retzius, 1909, p. 306). Both *Crania Suecica antiqua* and *Anthropologia Suecica* were praised by German anthropologist Julius Kollmann for fully setting out the anthropological characteristics of the modern Swedish population by: (1) providing a picture of the old Germanic people; (2) confrming the existence of multiple races, and; (3) showing their unchanging constancy to type (Kollmann, 1904, p. 379; Ramström, 1921, p. 43).

Since most anthropological investigations in the nineteenth century had been geared towards prehistoric and modern individuals, medieval human remains also began to arouse interest. A study of remains from Helgeandsholmen (thirteenth to ffteenth centuries AD) was published by Edvard Clason who observed the numeric dominance of mesocephalic crania over dolichocephalic types (Clason, 1896–1897). Clason published some of the bone material from the 1905 excavation of victims of the Battle of Visby which was fought on Gotland in 1361 (Clason, 1925), adding

yet another link in the chain of evidence that the same Germanic tribe, which now inhabits this country had during the Middle Ages as well as in earlier times, its dwelling place here. (Ramström, 1921, p. 44)

#### *7.5.1 Anthropological Analysis of 1915: The Eugenics Movement*

In 1915, Hultkrantz, who had measured some of the long bones from the Battle of Visby in 1909 in order to determine body height in comparison to series from other time periods (Retzius, 1909, pp. 308–309), and his colleague Martin Ramström, were given the opportunity to examine the contents of Saint Erik's reliquary. Since the two researchers did not fnd time to publish their data, they turned some over to Fürst who incorporated the results into his 1920 book *När de döda vittna* ("When the dead bear witness") (Fürst, 1920). The objective of the analysis of Saint Erik's remains is never clearly stated but the correspondence between Ramström, Hultkrantz, and Fürst, still preserved in the library archives of Lund University, reveals some of their underlying agenda such as the interest in medieval crania (e.g. letter from Ramström to Fürst from 2 April 1920).

Hultkrantz, Ramström, and Fürst belonged to the same social network of scientists whose goal was to institutionalize scientifc racism and eugenics in Sweden. Although Fürst, like Gustaf Retzius, had initially been skeptical of the eugenics movement and did not participate in the foundation of the Swedish Society for Racial Hygiene (Svenska sällskapet för rashygien) in 1909 of which Hultkrantz and Ramström were members, he had a change of mind in later years. Fürst was one of the most prominent scientists to support the 1920 parliamentary motion for a eugenic reform to counter the threat of 'degeneration' within the Swedish population. This led to the opening of the State Institute for Race Biology (Statens institut för rasbiologi) in 1922, the frst of its kind worldwide and well ahead of Nazi Germany (Björkman & Widmalm, 2010, p. 386; Kjellman, 2013, 2014). It is in this context that the investigation and interpretation of the remains from the reliquary at Uppsala Cathedral must be understood.

Naturally the focus was on the skull which was measured and classifed in line with the theory and practice of craniometrics, race biology, and eugenics. It seems that the remains from Saint Erik's shrine were initially treated as specimens stripped of identity because the 1915 protocol, which was included in a letter sent from Hultkrantz and Ramström to Fürst on 23 September 1920 (Fig. 7.3), displays a neutral attitude. In another letter to Fürst from 1 April 1918, Ramström implies that the remains did belong to King Erik. In Fürst's 1920 book, Erik's skull is described as conforming to the regular Swedish, i.e. dolichocephalic length-breadth index with a facial profle which "cannot be said to be beautiful, but powerful" ("kan ej sägas

**Fig. 7.3** The frst page of the handwritten summary of the protocol from the examination in 1915 sent to Carl Magnus Fürst by Vilhelm Hultkrantz and Martin Ramström in 1920. (Manuscripts and Archives, Lund University Library; photo: A. Kjellström)

vara vacker, men kraftig") (Fürst, 1920, p. 78). It might be added that in the same book Fürst also assigns the alleged cranium of Saint Birgitta to the 'Nordic type'(Fürst, 1920, p. 131).

During an era when race attributions were considered indicators of intellectual superiority and the Nordic (Germanic) race "the most important constituent in the Swedish nation" (Lundborg, 1921, p. 27), the idea of a strong, Nordic, longheaded, and possibly fair-skinned and blond Saint Erik conformed to the Swedish race ideal. Only after Swedish anthropologists started to dismiss race ideology, a process that began in the mid-1930s, did this image became obsolete and new research questions came to the fore.

#### *7.5.2 Anthropological Analysis of 1946: Forensic Approach*

In 1946 a second anthropological study of Saint Erik's remains took place. The results were published in 1954 in a comprehensive volume which, besides the legend and the history of the cult of Saint Erik, includes detailed descriptions of the textiles, the crown, and the reliquary (Thordeman, 1954). Bo Eric Ingelmark, who performed the anthropological investigation, also X-rayed all bone elements for the frst time. Although providing an exhaustive documentation of measurements and indices, he avoids any discussion of ethnicity. Ingelmark especially focused on the perimortem injuries. Being previously involved in the analyses of excavated skeletons from the Battle of Visby, he was familiar with the traces of sharp force trauma in osteological materials (Ingelmark, 1939). Although he shies away from speculating about the historic implications of the severed cervical vertebra, he does make assumptions about the mechanism and force behind the damage. Based on a consideration of the compiled data and following a lengthy discussion, he cautiously concludes that the remains probably belonged to the man known as Saint Erik (Ingelmark & Bygdén, 1954, p. 261).

Although the publication is scientifc in its structure, the tone in some of the text passages is somewhat solemn, with a touch of nationalism, e.g. when it says that several Danish churches house relics of "our sacred king" ("vår helgonkung") (Ingelmark & Bygdén, 1954, p. 234). The strong focus on the perimortem injuries also lends it a clinical character, evident in phrases such "[the bone surface] adheres slightly to the palpating fnger" ("[…] fäster något vid det palperande fngret") (Ingelmark & Bygdén, 1954, p. 239). In summary, the entire study is reminiscent of a forensic report of a crime victim.

#### *7.5.3 Anthropological Analysis of 2014: Multidisciplinary Approach*

The 2014 analysis of the bones from Saint Erik's reliquary (Sten et al., 2016) included state of the art techniques in medicine and archaeology such as computed tomography (CT) (Fig. 7.4), dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), peripheral

**Fig. 7.4** CT-scanning Saint Erik's skeleton in 2014. (Photo: A. Kjellström)

quantitative computed tomography (pQCT), radiocarbon dating, and stable isotope and DNA analyses. This time the question of the individual's identity was yet again of interest, but attempts were also made to situate the skeleton in its wider historical, political, and economic contexts in order to contribute to research questions on a population level. Osteological analyses of known historical fgures are rare in Sweden. Finding out whether the bones actually come from a medieval king was therefore also motivated by the fact that these data could allow comparisons with other high-status individuals and groups. In times of big data, it is from structured comparisons that information about larger population patterns can be extracted. Additionally, the remains also represent 'a medieval individual' whose physical measurements are of interest in comparison to modern clinical data. In this way, the bones (or body) are representative of both a specifc social stratum and a collective. Both approaches go beyond the individual who was 'depersonalized' for the greater good.

The measurements derived from the CT and DXA scans show that the skeletal elements were robust compared to men today and had a high bone density (Sten et al., 2016, p. 30–31). After it was established that the individual had lived in the 1100s with a probability of 95% (Sten et al., 2016, p. 29), the isotopic results were compared to archaeological reference populations from the same time period. It was concluded that the man had probably spent some time of his life in south-central Sweden and that his diet followed medieval religious rules of fasting (Sten et al., 2016, pp. 31–33). The genomic data have not yet been published but are expected to provide a rough estimate of the individual's ancestry and possibly his affliation with historically better-known Swedish kings.

#### *7.5.4 The Public Interest in the 2014 Investigation*

The 2014 research refects the fascination of people of the twenty-frst century with dead bodies in general and perhaps with relics in particular. Before the opening of the shrine a press release went out with an invitation to attend the opening of the shrine. The response was massive. In an interview, provost Annica Anderbrandt proposed:

Perhaps the great media interest is due to our need for more history in an increasingly globalized world […].8 (Sveriges Radio, 2014)

The church offcials were in general very positive about the event. Gunilla Leffer, communicator at Uppsala Cathedral, stated that the survey increased people's interest in both the church and science.9

Journalists from some of Sweden's largest newspapers, national radio, and TV were present at Uppsala Cathedral on 23 April 2014, when a brief description of Saint Erik's life was presented, but there was also a moment of prayer and hymn singing, followed by the opening of the shrine (Fig. 7.5). Afterwards, the cranium and the royal funerary crown were lifted and reverently displayed to the assembly. The fact that human remains in a church enjoy respect and are treated with dignity follows Christian doctrines, although the attention to Saint Erik's bones may be seen as exceptional.

It is interesting, however, to relate the analysis and the interest in the bones from Saint Erik's shrine to another investigation that took place in April of the same year only a few hundred meters away from the cathedral, in a churchyard next to Holy Trinity Church (Fagerlund, 2018). At least thirty-six late medieval skeletons were discovered. Because the skeletons were located outside the seventeenth-century wall of the churchyard, the discovery of the graves was somewhat surprising. The investigation deadline was extended, but there was no budget for an extensive

8 "Kanske beror det stora medieintresset på vårt behov av. mer historia i en allt mer globaliserad omvärld […]."

9Email from 5 May 2014 to the members of the project.

**Fig. 7.5** The opening of the shrine to the media before the 2014 investigation. (Photo: A. Kjellström)

osteological analysis (Fagerlund, 2018; Fagerlund, personal communication). The skeletons were carefully documented in the feld, collected, and then placed in paper bags. The procedure is by no means unusual and was done according to standard Swedish archaeological practice. Still, in comparison with the attention given to Saint Erik's remains, the importance of narratives becomes evident. The persons, now skeletons but once bodies, found at the churchyard of the Holy Trinity Church, may have been almost contemporaneous with Saint Erik and were probably also once Catholic, but lacking a royal background or having been saints, their life stories remain unknown. In this context it was not necessarily due to their low social status that these individuals were treated differently, but their anonymity. Few or no tales can be connected to their bodies, which led to the remains being stored in comparatively simple boxes, while the medieval king's bones are wrapped in linen placed on velvet. This is a further example of how the differences in the handling of dead bodies are determined by the symbolic value those dead bodies represent for the living (Arnold, 2014).

#### **7.6 Summary: Faith and Science**

This chapter has strived to demonstrate how different groups have assigned different meanings and values to the bones in Uppsala Cathedral during the individual's posthumous life. The interaction with relics during medieval times was, in general, intense as they were expected to provide a direct connection to God, perform miracles, heal diseases, and provide comfort. Like living people, the bones of saints may be considered primary agents (Gell, 1998, p. 20) since they were believed to have the capacity to act. The translation of the bones from the old to the new cathedral in 1273 were a part of a political strategy through which a royal dynasty capitalized on its kinship with Saint Erik but there was also another incentive. The bones were treated as a treasure that provided the Uppsala Cathedral with prestige and, not the least, an economic advantage. So even within the medieval ecclesiastical ambiance the remains served different purposes.

By the time of the Reformation, the bones had lost their (Catholic) religious appeal, and with the Enlightenment, the remains also lost a bit of their royal mythical aura. However, even though the response from society changed and the agency of the remains was fading, they clearly kept their strong symbolic powers. The formal shift to Protestantism did not have a great impact on the practical handling and storage of Saint Erik's bones; instead the physical interaction with the reliquary seems to have gradually ebbed away. The remains had embodied a saint and a king for a long time, but only when the authenticity and identity of the individual were questioned in the eighteenth century were the bones once again considered a human person.

In the early twentieth century the reutilization of the bone elements for racial and nationalistic purposes assigned the individual a place in a specifc race branch once again superior and backed by so-called 'scientifc' discourse. The ethnic interpretations of ancient crania (among these the cranium of Saint Erik) became a tool to strengthen political ideas about the risk of racial degeneration. The 1915 survey can in this respect be seen as a part of the European eugenics movement. Similar ethnocentric attitudes and the use of archaeological data for propaganda purposes were also a characteristic of later Nazi Germany (e.g. Arnold, 1990, 1992).

The forensic approach applied during analysis in the mid-twentieth century represents a shift from taking measurements and calculating indices for societal agenda to a more neutral scientifc stance. Now the dead body was primarily treated as an object, and in combination with the more standardized terminology, instrumental analysis reduced the agency of the individual. This change is interesting because there exist some parallels with the bioarchaeology-oriented analysis of 2014 though from a different angle. In the latest investigation the bones were examined down to a molecular level, which runs the risk of depersonalizing an individual into a collection of measurements that can only be understood in relation to large archaeological data sets. On the other hand, the contextualization of the results also made it possible for the individual to regain its complexity and once again become something more than just bones in a reliquary. Whereas today the 'authenticity' of relics is a matter of belief, the fact that the bone elements in the shrine belong to a documented historical person of importance has made them an object of interest for a wide spectrum of people, including Catholics, Protestants, and atheists. Having been kept separate, worshiped, and handled by thousands of people for a period of 800 years lends them an extra mythic quality.

Throughout the centuries, the agency and physical treatment of Saint Erik's relics changed with each new cultural paradigm and at each opening of the reliquary regardless of the purpose—the actors involved were equally convinced that this time they had revealed the actual truth behind the bones.

#### **References**

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

## **Chapter 8 Dissolving Subjects in Medieval Reliquaries and Twentieth-Century Mass Graves**

**Miriam Edlich-Muth**

*We sense the dead have a vital force still.* Mantel (2017)

#### **8.1 Introduction**

Those now living can be confronted with the physical remnants of those now dead in many different ways, ranging from seeing, touching or smelling human remains to encounters in which it is not the remains themselves but the idea of those remains that exert the most power. One of the premises of this essay is that such encounters have the potential to shape the inner lives and identities of those engaging with these artifacts in different ways.

This essay will examine accounts of medieval reliquaries and twenty-frst century excavations of mass graves in order to consider the very different ways in which human remains can be encountered and contextualized and the extent to which such encounters are mediated through the senses or the imagination. I will frst draw on approaches from thing theory and medieval conceptions of sight in order to explore the sensory and affective experience of encountering the 'things' that are the human remains contained in medieval reliquaries. I will then consider how these dynamics compare with modern encounters with the 'things' that are human remains found in mass graves. Finally, I will explore the interplay of faith and sensory experience shaping these medieval and modern encounters and discuss how this dynamic is infuenced by the possibility of doubt and misunderstanding that attaches to engaging with objects from the past whose story is not available at frst hand.

M. Edlich-Muth (\*)

Medieval English and Historical Linguistics, University of Düsseldorf, Dusseldorf, Germany e-mail<EMAIL_ADDRESS>
© The Author(s) 2022 189

E. Weiss-Krejci et al. (eds.), *Interdisciplinary Explorations of Postmortem Interaction*, Bioarchaeology and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-03956-0\_8

The objects at the heart of this discussion are 'human remains'—in particular the bones and related human remains that were circulated in reliquaries in the later medieval period and the human remains contained in various examples of mass graves that continue to be excavated today. The manner in which these two forms of human remains have been framed varies widely—representing potential extremes of how differently the living might deal with the remains of the dead.

Medieval reliquaries, such as the thirteenth-century French reliquary shown in Fig. 8.1, which may have originated in Meaux, offer a well-worn example of how carefully human remains can be 'set in scene'. In this arm reliquary, the relic itself is hard to see, but its value is intimated by the precious metals the reliquary is made of, which recreate an idealized arm shape. The reliquary is made of silver, which has been gilded in parts and studded with glass gems, while the core is made of wood. The decoration and the material invested in the reliquary imply that the relic it contains is of a value so great that it must be protected from prying eyes and fngers, contributing to what Cynthia Hahn has termed "the visual rhetoric of sanctity" (Hahn, 1997, p. 1079). Indeed, the fact that the precious metals are deployed for the outside of the reliquary while the core is made of wood, emphasizes the performative aspects of the reliquary. The primary aim of the reliquary is therefore not to physically embed the relic itself with precious materials nobody can see, but to illustrate the value of the relic to the outside, even as the relic itself remains hidden.

Like many other reliquaries, this arm reliquary does not conceal the relic entirely, but offers a selective view of the human remains it contains. Here, the central aperture at the front provides a visual extract of the skeletal arm that was once inside seen dimly through rock crystal, a medieval alternative to glass. This experience of the relic recalls the promise in Paul's frst letter to the Corinthians:

For now we **see through a glass**, **darkly**; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1. Corinthians 13:12, *King James Version*)1

Paul's promise, which was widely cited in late medieval theological homilies and treatises, encapsulates one of the fundamental principles of eschatology, which is that what can be seen on earth is only an inferior refection of the greater glories of heaven.2 In light of this teaching the presentation of the relic 'at one remove' in this reliquary has a particular signifcance for medieval encounters with relics such as this one, as it can be read as an echo of the promise inherent in relics: Although the body of the saint contained in the reliquary is only 'one part' of the whole body, it stands, metonymically, for the presence of the saint's body as a whole. At the same time, the beauty of the reliquary and the relic 'seen through glass' can only offer a dim shadow of the glory and power of heaven, to which the saint has access.

Reading the word 'glass' from a medieval perspective also adds a further nuance to the process of observing relics behind glass and glass-like materials such as rock

1 "videmus nunc per speculum in enigmate tunc autem facie ad faciem nunc cognosco ex parte tunc autem cognoscam sicut et cognitus sum" (1. Corinthians 13:12, *Vulgate Bible*).

2See, for example, Matthew Levering's analysis of how this passage from the 1. Corinthians was deployed in Thomas Aquinas' *Summa Theologiae* (Levering, 2014, pp. 236–266).

**Fig. 8.1** Arm reliquary of Saint Fiacre, from France, thirteenth century with ffteenth-century additions. (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Creative Commons license CC0 1.0 Universal, Public Domain Dedication)

crystal and mica. Thus, throughout the late medieval period the word 'glass' was also regularly used for 'mirror'.3 This semantic ambiguity neatly captures the dual effect of the glass apertures on reliquaries in both allowing a view of the relic and refecting the image of the viewer back onto themselves. The effect of refraction and

3See Sara J. Schechner's discussion of the terminology and use of refective glass and mirrors in the late medieval and Renaissance periods (Schechner, 2005).

visual distortion caused by the glass draws the viewer's attention to the glass as a 'thing'. This process recalls in very literal terms the 'dirty window' that is one of the central metaphors in Bill Brown's article on 'Thing Theory'. Brown draws on A. S. Byatt's description of a 'dirty window' as an example of how those things that we objectify by instrumentalizing them—which is to say using them for our own purposes—can assert their otherness and the ways in which they exceed their 'function' by simply 'not working'. A window that can only partially be seen through is only in part 'an instrument'. Brown suggests that this is a moment in which the subjugation inherent in 'subject-object' relationships is disrupted (Brown, 2001, pp. 4 and 8).

The basis of Brown's analysis goes further back than the advent of the term 'Thing Theory' in that it is based on Heidegger's extensive interrogation of the relationships between subject and object and the various possible places and roles of 'things' in the world. Thus, Heidegger identifes certain things as *Zeug*—which he describes as "das im Besorgen begegnende Seiende" (Heidegger, 1967, p. 68)—this can be understood as describing those things with which some task is to be undertaken.4

The logic of this defnition rests on foregrounding the intended function of the 'things', lending them an identity based on the function attributed to them by an outside subject. This logic introduces an added shade of complexity to any potential binary distinction between subject and object as the relationship between the two is now partially defned by the intended use the subject associates with this *Zeug*. Thus, Bill Brown's discussion of instrumentality draws on Heidegger to emphasize the potential shift in power from subject to object. This potential lies in the association between the object and its intended function—the fact that such an object may **not** function makes it possible for the object to disrupt the subject/object binary and the power relationships it implies.

However, in the case of the reliquary, this analysis may be misleading. The most obvious 'purpose' of the reliquary might be to preserve and 'contain' the relic and the window is ostensibly intended to allow the relic to be seen. However, the distortions caused by the light refecting on the window into the relic in fact draw attention to the reliquary itself and may thereby fulfl a function that is of equal importance. After all, the reliquary shown in Fig. 8.1 is a precious object, in which valuable resources have been invested in order to achieve a particular effect. The partial obfuscation of the relic should therefore be regarded not as exceeding the purpose of the reliquary, but as fulflling a second, key purpose: that of drawing attention back to the reliquary and thereby reinforcing the 'rhetoric of sanctity' attached to the relic.

In the more particular case of monstrances, however, the distortion of the glass is only one of the ways in which the glass adds further layers to viewers' encounter with the thing inside the 'box'. Drawing their attention to the glass and the extent to

4*Zeug* can be translated as 'equipment' and "das im Besorgen begegnende Seiende" can be translated as "the existent (beings) that are encountered in the course of taking care of a task."

which they can or cannot see the relic contained behind it also has the potential to heighten their awareness of how the encounter with the relic is being mediated by sensory experience. To encounter this relic in the context of this reliquary is thus an experience that is primarily mediated through sight. In keeping with Aristotle, many medieval thinkers cast 'sight' as the primary sense among the fve senses (see Woolgar, 2006, p. 23). Indeed, popular medieval models of the brain assumed that processing information involved both outer and inner senses—allowing information from the outside world to 'penetrate' into the brain in a fairly literal sense. Avicenna's *De Anima*, which became available in Latin translation in the 1100's, elaborates on the different functions of the fve ventricles of the brain (Woolgar, 2006, p. 19). This model differentiates between *imaginatio*, a short-term memory and *memorialis*, located at the back of the head, where these *imagines* are stored. Corinne Saunders describes these *imagines* as 'memory-pictures' that become "imprinted, literally marked on the body through the physiological process triggered by the senses" (Saunders, 2016, p. 413).

The idea of sight as having tangible effects was further supported by the idea that seeing was not a one-sided, purely receptive process. Rather, as Chris Woolgar notes:

In the medieval world, perception was a more open process, where much might pass not only between perceived and perceiver, but also the other way round, from the perceiver to the object or individual who was the focus of perception. This was a two-way process, at the very least. […] Simply to look upon an object could bring advantage. (Woolgar, 2016)

This extended, reciprocal concept of sight expresses a more fundamental reciprocity between objects and subjects. Such reciprocity lends power to 'things' and makes it possible to detect the forms of 'agency' that can emanate from things or objects as they enter into relationships with the people and things around them.

This sense of agency is particularly pronounced in our engagement with the remains of the dead. Indeed, recent scholarship on distributed forms and networks of agency has prompted scholars such as Zoë Crossland to investigate the 'agency of the dead' in the feld of forensic anthropology and conclude that it is necessary

to move away from a view of agency as inhering only in the living and instead to view it as a collaborative semiotic project that is also shaped and constrained by the dead. (Crossland, 2017, p. 183)

As Crossland's conclusions imply, the 'things' that are left behind when life departs from a body must be regarded as liminal objects in that they inevitably dissolve the subject/object boundary. Thus, as time goes by the 'person' who was buried might become de-subjectivized in the eyes of society. If, years later, the skeleton that person has become is removed from the ground, it would be regarded as an object— 'the remains'—rather than as a subject or person. However, the temporality involved in that process already indicates how subjective and debatable that shift from subject to object is. Opinions and feelings may differ as to when such a shift takes place—one grieving relative may feel very differently about this than another grieving relative, and both will have a response to the decomposing body whose emotional complexity far exceeds that of the graveyard attendant with no

connection to the deceased. At the same time, the gradual process suggests that all of these fgures will recognize on some level the different stages a dead body must pass through on the journey from being perceived as a full subject to becoming the 'remains' of a subject.

Nor can we feel fully confdent that that process is ever complete. Rather, as the renowned historical novelist Hilary Mantel put it in her frst BBC Reith lecture on mortality: "We sense the dead have a vital force still" (Mantel, 2017). Her point is not solely that the dead have a vital force, but that we, the living, sense that this is so. As with the relics, it is our senses that prompt us to review the binary distinction between death and vitality. Of the many questions this proposition raises, the two that are most relevant to the following discussion are: Firstly, in what ways is the perceived 'vitality' of the dead predicated on relationships with the living? And, secondly, how does reassessing the vitality or even agency that the dead might develop through such relationships affect the broader boundaries between object and subject, and the networks of social identity, that arise out of those relationships?

One way of approaching these questions is to consider not just reliquaries, but the relics themselves as objects that have been credited with powers that transcend the barriers between the living and the dead. As Julia H. Smith has noted, these "stones and bones cannot be ftted into a world view which sunders materiality and belief, or enforces a rigid distinction between subject and object" (Smith, 2012, p. 144). In order to explore how these hybrid objects interrogate distinctions between subject and object, I will now consider concrete examples of past and present interactions with the remains of the dead and refect on the dynamic identities that arise out of these encounters.

#### **8.2 Unearthing the Dead at the Free University Berlin**

In the summer of 2014, building works in the grounds of the Free University of Berlin unearthed a cache of human bones, buried in what used to be a garden of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.

The fndings attracted particular attention because the location of the bones and their proximity to specimen tags of the type used in biological analysis and experimentation suggested that these were the remains of victims of the Holocaust (*B.Z. Berlin* 2014; *neues deutschland*, 2014). Interest in the fnds was compounded by the fact that the scientist known to have been involved in experiments on human bodies at Auschwitz and at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute was the notorious Josef Mengele. Thus the majority of reports on the story mention Mengele and the nearby location of his research institute, while the newspaper *Die Welt* even ran the report under the headline "Did Josef Mengele Dispatch these Grisly Finds?"

(Barthélémy, 2015).5 While the bones had not been formally identifed, they had the potential to stand as tangible evidence of the horrors of Auschwitz remaining buried in the grounds of the Free University, creating a compelling media narrative.

This narrative gained further traction when it emerged that after the university had sent the human remains to a forensic laboratory, they had then been cremated without further examination. It has not been fully clarifed how the cremation came about, whether there had been an intention to eventually cremate the bones or whether there was some more fundamental miscommunication between the laboratory and the university (Krause, 2015; Kühne, 2015a). What is clear, however, is that the cremation of the bones shifted the direction of the media narrative within Germany.

Most notably, voices such as those of the historian Götz Aly, were quick to present themselves as being engaged in the exposure of an institutional cover-up. Writing in the *Berliner Zeitung*, Aly claimed that:

The president of the Free University, Peter-André Alt had important traces of the victims of Josef Mengele surreptitiously destroyed. Now the FU-President Alt, who claims to be aiming for excellence, has ensured that the human remains of these people have ended up in the crematorium after all.6 (Aly, 2015)

Aly went on to point out that:

Nonetheless, the FU-President prevented the remains of these people from being analyzed more closely. He let them be cremated on the quiet and when asked about it he explained that 'unfortunately' it had not been possible to obtain 'further details' 'due to the bones having lain there for so long'. That was a blatant lie.7 (Aly, 2015)

Following the appearance in the *Tagesspiegel* of an article including a vigorous rebuttal from Peter-André Alt—Alt described Aly's accusations as "grossly misleading and untrue" (Kühne, 2015b)—the *Berliner Zeitung* went on to print a retraction of the claims made by Aly (*Berliner Zeitung*, 2015).

This chain of reactions to the bones found at the Free University is a case in point for how remains like these skeletons can generate narratives that shape the institutional and individual identities of those who engage with them. And yet even as cases like this one lend weight to the idea that the dead can exert a form of agency, that power and potential for agency remains dependent upon the unstable association between the bones as objects and the narratives to which they have become attached, in this case partly through the medical tags that were found lying close by

5 "War Josef Mengele Absender des grausigen Fundes?" (If not stated otherwise, all originally German texts in this chapter were translated by the author.)

6 "Der Präsident der Freien Universität, Peter-André Alt hat wichtige Spuren der Opfer von Josef Mengele klammheimlich vernichten lassen. Jetzt hat der vorgeblich auf Exzellenz bedachte FU-Präsident Alt veranlasst, dass die körperlichen Reste dieser Menschen am Ende doch noch ins Krematorium geschoben wurden."

7 "Dennoch verhinderte der FU-Präsident, dass die Reste dieser Menschen näher untersucht wurden. Er ließ sie stillschweigend einäschern und auf Anfrage erklären, 'weitere Details' seien 'aufgrund der langen Liegezeiten der Knochen' 'leider' nicht zu erfahren gewesen. Das ist plump gelogen."

the bones. In order to explore this interdependency from a cross-period perspective, I will discuss a well-known medieval account of some dubious relics and draw on the work of Sara Ahmed and Gilles Deleuze to anatomize the questions of identity at stake in encounters with objects that have been attached to affective narratives.

#### **8.3 Emotion, Identity, and Encounters with Liminal Objects**

Within medieval studies, the so-called 'affective turn' of the past two decades has drawn great attention to the dynamics of affect and the consequences of emotion. Scholars such as Barbara Rosenwein have shed light on the role of emotions in regulating relationships and shaping social structures focused on various aspects of the relationship between piety and affect (Rosenwein, 2007). This relationship is particularly interesting in the context of recent considerations of the social agency and function of objects. For example, one of the central assumptions of Ahmed's theory of 'sticky affect' is that the moment in which a subject encounters an object does not represent a moment of 'infectious affect' in which the subject absorbs atmospheres, moods or impressions from the 'outside-in'. Instead, she regards the boundary between object and subject as permeable in both directions, creating a moment of temporary fusion, in which affect is conjoined. She writes:

We are moved by things. And in being moved we make things. An object can be affective by virtue of its own location and the timing of its appearance. To experience an object as being affective or sensational is to be directed not only toward an object, but to 'whatever' is around that object, which includes what is behind the object, the conditions of its arrival. (Ahmed, 2010, p. 33)

This concept dovetails with some of the core elements of actor-network theory and, indeed, Deleuze's theory of relational identity, according to which identity continually arises out of the relationship between one object or subject and another (see Deleuze, 1998, p. xxix). This implies that subject-object relationships form a network that generates transient shared identities. In other words, X does not constitute a pre-formed identity with which to encounter Y, rather the encounter between X and Y results in a fused identity, which is superseded by an encounter between X and Z or Y and Z.

This approach has signifcant repercussions on how we can conceive of the emotional power of objects and the ways in which the narratives to which they are attached can generate identity. Medieval relics offer an interesting example of this dynamic in that they are objects that are associated with emotive narratives. And it is worth noting that these narratives, concerning the suffering or miracles of saints, were often 'attached' to the relics in a surprisingly literal sense, in the form of tags or labels identifying the putative saint from whom the relic derives. Such tags are reminiscent of the specimen tags found on the buried bones at the Free University, in that they create a tangible link between the human remains as objects and a particular narrative of past suffering, be it historical, as in the case in Berlin, or of more imaginative origin. In doing so, the tags create a doubled reaction to the object of the relic—or 'bone-plus-tag'—which may be *temporally* layered. In those cases where relics were not contained within a reliquary, our very frst encounter takes place simply with human or animal remains—this is a moment of generic '*memento mori*' which is not associated with any particular story beyond the universal experience of journeying toward death. However, the link between the bones and the tags creates a second more refective encounter with the bones as objects representing a tangible link to highly emotive past events.

The link established by the tags is fragile and negotiable in that it depends on how well the tag is attached to the object and on the authenticity of the labelling. If we read the relics as objects that constitute a part of the temporary relational identity of the person observing or interacting with them, then the narratives to which they are attached become vital components of a transient identity. However, there is a constant risk of being forced back upon the initial—the frst—encounter with the object as the pre-narrativized or de-narrativized object—just a bone!—and this risk is contingent upon the question of authenticity. If the link between the objects and their narrative is undermined, if, for example, the information on the tags is lost, or doubted to be true, then the frst encounter with the anonymous human remains reasserts itself, creating an oscillating identity for the observer engaging with the objects.

In the relic catalogues of the twelfth-century cathedral of Sens, this problem becomes most apparent when the monks come across human remains whose tags have been lost and which now appear to be at risk of losing their power as relics. As Julia H. Smith recounts:

Faced with two unidentifed relic bundles, a Carolingian cleric at Sens compromised by noting that one contained hairs, and the other a bone 'of a certain saint'. Another Sens label simply states: 'here are relics, we do not know what they are.' (Smith, 2012, p. 152)

The implication of retaining and cataloguing these unnamed relics is that if relics are intrinsically sacred objects that have powers, they must continue to have them even when the narrative to which they are attached is not known. And yet knowing the story of the saint whose relics they are represents a key step in the process of identifying with the saint's life and experiencing a transfer of affect from their suffering and fortitude. In this context, a relic that cannot be attributed becomes a paradox that reveals the fault lines underlying the desirable cohesion between the human remains as object and the powerfully affective narratives to which they have been attached. Such fault lines erupt out of anxieties surrounding the possibility of a disconnection between object and narrative and the repercussions that would have for the identity of the person engaging with the purported relic. They also grow out of the oscillating temporality that threatens to develop as soon as the authentic connection between object and narrative is thrown into question.

Just such an oscillation can be seen to unfold in an infamous medieval description of relics: the prologue to Geoffrey Chaucer's *The Pardoner's Tale*. 8 In introducing himself to his audience, the Pardoner (Fig. 8.2) frst recounts how he arrives in new parishes and establishes his authority by producing bills signed not only by popes in the plural, but by bishops, cardinals, and patriarchs. He tells how, building on this wealth of authorization, he swiftly moves on to other sacred objects: relics.

Thus he produces:

cristal stones, Ycrammed ful of cloutes and of bones — Relikes been they, as wenen they echoon. (*The Canterbury Tales* ll. 347–349)9

Emphasizing the large number of objects that are then termed relics immediately raises doubts concerning their authenticity. These doubts are confrmed in the following half-line: "Relikes been they, as wenen they echoon" (l. 348), "They are all relics, or so they think." The Pardoner's description of these objects as relics has already been undermined before it has been voiced and the claim is then immediately framed as a supposition on behalf of his audience. He continues:

Thanne have I in latoun a sholder-boon Which that was of an hooly Jewes sheep. (*The Canterbury Tales* ll. 350–351)

In this case, the shoulder bone is literally framed as a relic or holy object by being presented as encased in brass ("in latoun"). Once the object is identifed as a relic in the form of a large bone, the following sentence seems set to bear this out by reporting who it belonged to—somebody holy? Somebody Jewish? But no—it's the holy Jew's sheep! This delayed revelation functions as the kind of punchline that contributes to the humorous overtones of Chaucer's style. However, the effect is not simply one of comic defation. If we conceive of an encounter with objects, even fctional objects, as constituting a transient identity in the observer or reader, then there is much more at stake in Chaucer's evolving presentation of this particular object. In just these fve lines, readers have been presented with an openly dissembling speaker, who presents the objects he carries with him in a persistently misleading light. Accordingly, the reader or listener is forced to switch between engaging with the object as a potential relic and being thrown back upon the fact that this is just a bone that has been attached to a deceptive narrative.

This scene reveals Chaucer's interest in the instability with which the relic object and its authenticating narrative are linked. Furthermore, the nuances of pacing and syntactical arrangement in this brief extract suggest that Chaucer is aware of the layering of temporality created by the gradual unfolding of the Pardoner's fraud. Chaucer never makes explicit the full implications of the seeds of doubt planted by

8Chaucer's *The Pardoner's Tale* is one of the tales in his famous fourteenth-century story collection *The Canterbury Tales* in which a group of pilgrims tell each other stories on their way to Canterbury. In the prologue to his tale, the Pardoner recounts how he swindles people out of their money by selling false relics.

9All Chaucer references are to *The Riverside Chaucer*, edited by Larry D. Benson (1987, pp. 194–195).

**Fig. 8.2** The Pardoner. (*The Canterbury Tales*, Egerton family papers, Ellesmere, f. 138r, mssEL 26 C 9; The Huntington Library, San Marino, California)

the introduction of the Pardoner into his collection of tales. Nonetheless, he leaves room for fundamental religious doubt by not only destabilizing the link between the objects presented as relics and the religious narrative associated with them, but by allowing the Pardoner to openly demonstrate how and why such a link can be fraudulently established for the sake of personal gain. Nor does he stop there. At this point in *The Pardoner's Tale* the fake relics have been extensively contextualized in terms of the man purveying them. However, the Pardoner goes on to present the relics' power as directly dependent on the moral worth of those seeking access to them:

If any wight be in this chirche now That hath doon synne horrible, that he Dar nat, for shame, of it yshryven be, Or any womman, be she yong or old, That hath ymaked hir housbonde cokewold, Swich folk shal have no power ne no grace To offren to my relikes in this place. (*The Canterbury Tales* ll. 378–384)

On one level this part of the Pardoner's speech further showcases his duplicitous mastery by illustrating how he pressurizes his audience into buying access to his relics and pre-empts complaints from disappointed buyers. However, it is also predicated on the notion that the power of the relics arises out of the relationship between the object, the holy fgure to whom the object is linked, and the contemporary subject engaging with the object.

The Pardoner implies that if that relationship is disturbed, for example by the buyer being in a state of sin, the power of the relic will be out of reach. Where readers might expect to be reassured of the power and grace being channeled through the relics and offered to the person encountering the relic, the role is suddenly reversed and the question raised is not what powers the ostensible relic has, but whether the potential customers are morally able to access the relic's power.

However little we might trust the narrator, this model of reading the relationship between relic and subject suggests that the concept of objects such as relics unfolding their agency in relation to the actions of the living was familiar to medieval readers. That, indeed, to return to Sara Ahmed, the relationship between the relic and the faithful can be read as permeable in both directions in terms of the grace that might pass between them (Ahmed, 2010). Based on this premise, the relic might be said to develop a relational agency not just through offering access to saintly power and divine grace, but also through a denial of that power and grace to those who are not ft to access them.

It seems, then, that the fake relics of Chaucer's Pardoner encapsulate some of the ways in which the dead can retain the kind of 'vital force' that we might read as 'agency'. However, the agency involved here is predicated on the networks of relationships that unfold between the remains of the dead and the people or institutions engaging with them. So it is that hybrid objects, like relics or the bones excavated at the Free University invite us to develop a world-view in which the boundaries between subject and object are dissolved in order to encompass the transient, conjoined social identities such objects engender.

In the case of the reliquaries discussed above and the relics in *The Pardoner's Tale*, those relationships and identities are strongly mediated by the senses and by vision in particular.  Yet at the same time, the extent to which the supposed relics are fully available to be accessed by all the senses—they are jumbled up in bags and could conceivably be felt, smelt and heard as well as seen—offends the presumed sanctity of valuable relics, sensory access to which would more usually be controlled by a reliquary.

Where the Pardoner's bag suggests disorder and entanglement, the reliquary speaks of a deliberate *mise-en-scene*, which hides and reveals the relic to a calculated degree and guides the observer's responses by embedding the relic within a visual or verbal narrative. By creating the fgure of the Pardoner and placing the fake relics in his bag, Geoffrey Chaucer in turn performs a more literary *mise-enscene*, which guides the reader to be skeptical of the Pardoner's offerings.

By contrast, frst encounters with mass graves are rarely presented as having been set in scene. Rather, even when a mass grave is being described in carefully calibrated audio-visual media reports, the language used is that of surprise and revelation. Such graves are presented as having been 'discovered' or—less frequently— 'uncovered'—either following forensic investigations or historical evidence. And, indeed, one of the frst moments of dislocation concerning the mass grave must be the moment in which such a grave is uncovered, and its contents are exposed to view. The act of opening a grave has the potential to invoke the shame of grave robbery. Depending on who is encountering the grave and how the grave came about, observers may risk breaking a taboo by uncovering the bodies of the dead and invading what many cultures call 'their peace'. For that reason alone, 'laying bare' a mass grave implies an act of desecration.

The potential shock effect of the mass grave is also infuenced by questions of scale—where the single bone that might be contained in a reliquary is shown to be precious, delicate and above all sacred in part because of its rarity, the mass grave presents us with an excess: a pile of bones whose haphazard burial presents a risk of reducing the bones, and by implication the deceased lying in the grave, to an undifferentiated mass. The meaning of a relic, on the other hand, is constructed upon the idea of the extraordinary. The exceptional qualities associated with a relic are emphasized by the reliquary in which it might be encased, and it is given unique meaning by its association with a specifc hagiographical narrative. The implication is that engaging with a relic requires some form of acknowledgement of the sanctifed biography it results from and places the onus on the person encountering the relic to have the necessary knowledge to respond correctly. In this encounter, the bone itself fgures as meaningful through its contextualization and the story associated with it. To come across the same bone without that contextualization would be to 'misunderstand' it and to disturb the link between the object and its sanctity. The human remains in a mass grave evoke very different responses. One of the defning features of bodies in mass graves is that the link between the skeletons and the biographies of the deceased is at risk of being lost or eroded. If a relic is honored as a very specifc human remnant, then a mass grave illustrates how human remains can become stripped of their biographical ties.

#### **8.4 Encounters with Mass Graves in Jamlitz, Brandenburg**

In order to explore the individual and social responses evoked by such a threatened stripping down of identity, I will turn now to the excavations in the Brandenburg village of Jamlitz. Jamlitz is situated practically on top of the former site of the Nazi

satellite concentration camp Lieberose. Until the end of the German Democratic Republic, the events that had taken place there were known to the State Security Service (Stasi) but had been largely kept quiet. In 1971, the Stasi's frst response to discovering a mass grave containing 54410 of the 1342 previously missing victims of Nazi genocide was to extract and melt down the gold fllings from their teeth, producing just over a kilogram of gold that was dutifully documented and handed over to the department of fnance (Kulick, 2008). The rest of the human remains they had uncovered were cremated. However, while these events took place out of the public eye, between 1998 and 2008 the village became the focus of increasing media attention, as local historians and archaeologists planned to have a site near the center of the village excavated (Jähnel, 2009). Their aim was to recover and properly commemorate the missing bodies of the remaining 700 Holocaust victims who had been imprisoned in the concentration camp and were known to have been shot and buried somewhere in the vicinity in February 1945.

Public opinion was overwhelmingly in favor of the excavation. Historians, archaeologists, politicians, administrators, survivor groups, and members of the German Central Counsel of Jews, among others, were unanimous in calling for the bodies thought to be buried there to be identifed and properly commemorated (Jähnel, 2009; Schlichtermann, 2009). The central fgure who was against an excavation was the absentee owner of the plot of land on which the mass grave was believed to be located, Hans-Jürgen H., who refused to sell his property and successfully denied the archaeological team access to his land for ten years, insisting above all that no memorial should be erected on the land (Berg, 2007). His point of view was supported by locals including his neighbor, Mr. N., who demanded that a line should fnally be drawn under the matter in order to achieve closure (Möller, 2008).

A lengthy legal battle followed, in which the interior ministry of Brandenburg took the view that

it is justifed that the survivors and descendants should seek certainty concerning the fate of their relatives, to facilitate an appropriate and dignifed rest for the dead and an appropriate honoring of their memory.11 (Kulick, 2008)

This point of view was rejected by the regional court, however, which concluded that the mere supposition of a burial ground did not offer a suffcient justifcation for disowning a private property owner (Kulick, 2008). This ruling was met with widespread criticism, Anetta Kahane, from the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, described the case as illustrating

10Other reports mention 577 skeletons (e.g. Möller, 2008).

11 "[e]s sei das berechtigte Anliegen Hinterbliebener, Gewissheit über das Schicksal ihrer Angehörigen zu erlangen, diesen eine würdige Totenruhe und sich selbst ein würdiges Gedenken zu ermöglichen."

how thin the layer of ice covering the German history of unique crimes is. There are corpses buried just a few centimeters below the surface of our everyday life.12 (Kulick, 2008)

Moreover, Kahane was eager to point out the historical continuities between the GDR government's hushing up of the existence of the mass graves and the current court ruling hindering the excavation. She pointed out:

The cold-hearted indifference of this course of action, the distortion of history and the silence surrounding the Jewish victims may have been characteristic of the GDR, but has anything really changed?13 (Kulick, 2008)

Kahane's response exemplifes the broader implications of this discussion where the court's decision suggests that the property rights of the living, in this case of Hans-Jürgen H., have precedence over the rights of the dead to have their resting place known and honored.

Finally, Hans-Jürgen H. was persuaded to sell the land to the local authority for an undisclosed sum of money, making the excavation possible. Throughout the negotiations, the case was extensively reported on, and a second narrative theme began to emerge alongside the question of where the grave might be found. Increasingly, journalists and others speculated as to why Hans-Jürgen H. and many of his neighbors were so opposed to the excavation, giving rise to the suspicion that not all residents of Jamlitz were sympathetic to the suffering of the Holocaust victims whose grave was being sought (Berg, 2007; Wendler, 2008).

#### **8.5 Encounters with Mass Graves in Bosnia**

Over the past two decades, similarly emotional issues concerning national and local history have been raised by the mass graves that have been excavated, in some cases repeatedly in Bosnia. In this context, a 2016 Mosaic Report (Vulliamy, 2016a) which was also featured in the *Guardian* (Vulliamy, 2016b) is illuminating. The article describes the mass graves that are now being exhumed in Bosnia and the genocide and grave-robbing the reassembled bodies bear witness to. "Who were these people?" asks the author, Ed Vulliamy, describing how the clothes and possessions the bodies have been matched with have been laid at the foot of each set of bones (Vulliamy, 2016b). The photograph that accompanies the report is initially jarring: the rows of human skeletons shown seem familiar, but the cheap trestle tables on which they are arranged present an incongruous setting for human remains.

In the picture at the top of the *Guardian* article, the setting has been blacked out so that we see only one disjointed skeleton, lying as if in darkness or inside the earth itself. The result is a widely recognizable image of death—broadly reminiscent of

12 "wie dünn das Eis über der deutschen Geschichte einzigartiger Verbrechen ist. Nur wenige Zentimeter unter der Oberfäche unseres Alltagslebens liegen die Leichen."

 Doch hat sich daran etwas geändert?"

the fgures that dance across the foreground in medieval images of the *danse macabre*. The difference is that these are not complete, animated skeletons imagined in some riotous dance. They are not abstract images of death, but the remains of real bodies, whose violent deaths become visible in the incompleteness of the skeletons. And yet, the details of the report show that these assemblages of bones are themselves as much implicated in processes of storytelling as the animated skeletons of the *danse macabre*.

As the article describes, the skeletons that have been recovered in Bosnia were not all found intact, rather, many of them have been reassembled on the basis of DNA evidence (Vulliamy, 2016a). They bear the traces of having been buried in mass graves and then reburied in new mass graves, whose location closer to areas of military confict was apparently intended to cover up the implication of genocide (Vulliamy, 2016a). It seems that the very location of the bones has been instrumentalized by one group involved in the Bosnian confict to tell a misleading story about how the people buried in these mass graves met their death. Yet, the implied narrative was not believed, and the bones have been exhumed to allow them to tell another story on the basis of DNA samples and the evidence offered by the possessions found nearby. Clearly the hope for survivors and relatives is that this story will be a more 'authentic' one and will identify the bodies of the dead suffciently to bury them and bring about a sense of closure.

As survivor Zijad Bačić explains:

I never thought I'd come back here, but I couldn't sleep without knowing […] what happened? Where were they? I had to fnd my missing father, all my uncles, and to fnd where they had buried my mother, younger brother and sister. (Vulliamy, 2016a)

As this case suggests, the 'voices' of the dead are particularly loud and contradictory where the offcial version of the history in which they play a part has not yet been settled to the satisfaction of all the stakeholders still living.

The bodies being exhumed in Bosnia, like the increasing number of relics circulating in thirteenth-century France, have been contextualized in ways that offer cause for doubt or even anxiety to those invested in truly identifying the remains they are confronted with. Thus, a diverse group of medieval stories, ranging from fabliaux to Helgaud's biography of King Robert II of France (996–1031) include descriptions of the purposeful use of empty reliquaries to swear dishonest oaths, suggesting that contemporary Christians were well aware of the uncertainty attached to honoring unseen relics (Bartlett, 2013, pp. 313–314). In the case of the Yugoslav Wars, the people who reburied the bodies in new mass graves were attempting to rewrite recent history and the part they may have played in it. Meanwhile, later medieval accounts of the affective piety associated with medieval relics suggest that medieval Christians who believed in salvation history also felt that the moral battles in which their saints took part were still unfolding, making them stakeholders with similarly acute anxieties and desires concerning the authenticity of the relics they had access to and the stories with which they were associated (McNamer, 2010, pp. 1–21).

However, as the excavations in Bosnia show, what stands at the center of the social effects unfolding out of the excavation of mass graves is not the graves themselves, but their potential to change the self-perception or self-presentation of those engaging with them. This potential can take unexpected forms, as responses to mass graves are surprisingly varied, ranging from shock and outrage to curiosity and amusement. This, for example, is how the urbanism magazine *CityMetric* reported on the discovery of a mass burial of early modern plague victims in London in 2015:

The 1665–6 plague outbreak in London, called the Great Plague, killed an estimated 100,000 people, around a quarter of the city's population. If the Crossrail skeletons do turn out to be from that time, the dig could end up being a groundbreaking one, both for historians, and for virologists working on the virus today. (Boland, 2015)

The caption on the picture accompanying the report brings in an element of black humor, writing "Well, doctor, I've felt better." Another picture from the same report is captioned "I see dead people" (Boland, 2015). In this instance, the emphasis is not on shame, but on scientifc and archaeological curiosity, leavened by a more distanced, historicizing perspective on the plague. Clearly, the immense difference between a mass grave containing the long-dead victims of disease and a mass grave containing somewhat more recent victims of murder or genocide is signifcant in shaping any public response. Indeed, the shock of discovering mass burial of murder victims, such as those discussed in Jamlitz already represents a response not to human remains in themselves, but to the historical events that they bear witness to. What appears to be an immediate and unmediated response to the 'thing' that is a remnant of humanity, is in fact already a response to an implied narrative, within which the thing has become an object.

At this point it is illuminating to consider Ahmed's discussion of 'happy objects'—objects that become attached to a happy affect or emotion. She describes the association between object and affect, in this case happiness, as arising out of and being shaped by the intent of the subject encountering that object. She writes:

Orientations register the proximity of objects, as well as shape what is proximate to the body. Happiness can thus be described as intentional in the phenomenological sense (directed toward objects), as well as being affective (contact with objects). (Ahmed, 2010, p. 32)

This implies that a thing that is not associated with affect on our frst encounter with it can become a 'happy object' through proximity to happiness. It follows that some form of temporality plays a role in how objects that become associated with affect are experienced, as our frst encounter with them will involve attributing affect to an object that is at frst sight neutral. This raises the question of how one might engage with such dualism. Is it perhaps like a brainteaser picture, where you can see either the two heads in profle or the vase but never both at the same time?

Such an oscillating, temporally layered effect has vital consequences for encounters with objects that evoke strong emotional responses. In the case of a relic, experiencing the 'thing' as a 'thing'—for example a piece of bone—rather than an 'object' attached to a narrative calls into question not only the presence of the saint, but the entire apparatus of religious symbolism that bridges the chasm between the faithful and heaven itself. More worryingly, perhaps, it disrupts the chain of signifcation that justifes the value of the reliquary and the acts of faith associated with it. Similarly, every encounter with a fully enclosed relic raises on some level the possibilities that the relic itself is not real, that a real relic might not have the powers ascribed to it, or, perhaps even, that the reliquary is empty and contains no relic at all. As we have seen above, these possibilities are a key factor in shaping encounters with things that have become attached to affective narratives.

The same is true of mass graves, which evoke very different responses depending on the form and context in which they are encountered and the events that led up to the mass-burial. The moment of laying open these graves can be followed by very different reactions. These depend on the pre- and postmortem biographies implied by the context that the location and contents of each grave offer. Thus, how the living engage with the 'things' that are human remains is already shaped by a biographical lens that turns those things into affective objects. That lens might be, for example, either the scientifc curiosity associated with the plague pit, or the sense of tragedy associated with the mass graves of Holocaust victims.

If we adopt Gilles Deleuze's model of identity as consisting of a series of transient states generated by shifting and overlapping networks of relationships to people and things, then these objects and the affect associated with them can be regarded as generating a transient identity in conjunction with the observer (Deleuze, 1998; Prodgers, 2013). As with medieval relics, modern observers of mass graves enter into a triangulated relationship with powerfully affective objects and the narratives that they are attached to, which provide ample room for positive and negative identifcation.

The suffering embodied by mass graves that testify to mass murder echoes in part the narratives of suffering in saints' lives, many of which depict innocent victims of extreme injustice and inhuman cruelty. Engaging with objects that have been at the 'living center' of these events allows people from later eras to position themselves within these narratives of intense human suffering, while remaining on the right side of history. It follows therefore, that for those engaging with the remains of the dead in reliquaries and mass graves such as the one discussed at Jamlitz, the stakes in terms of identity are very high. The difference between experiencing yourself as the owner of a precious relic that can offer you saintly protection and experiencing yourself as someone who has been duped into a buying a fake or empty reliquary is immense. In Jamlitz, where the events of 1945 have been closely documented, the question is not what happened, but where the remains of those murdered can be found. Nonetheless, this question too has the potential to shape the relationships and identities of the people engaging with the land and landowners in question.

Famously, the dead tell no stories—so the transient identities and powerful emotions engendered by engaging with the human remains are at constant risk of becoming dislocated through a disruption of supposed links between the remains, their location, and the biographies with which they are associated. The historical stories in which onlookers and participants believe themselves to be involved are therefore at risk of becoming intangible or unexpectedly changing course. This is what occurred in April 2009, when the excavations in the disputed area of Jamlitz commenced, accompanied by a furore of media attention and in the presence of political and religious representatives, only to fnd that there was no second mass grave at that site. In this respect, the discussion surrounding that particular piece of land resembles the many medieval reliquaries that we now know to have remained empty. In both cases the belief that they contained human remains associated with powerfully affective past events was suffcient to generate intense effects on contemporary observers, testifying to the great power exerted not only by human remains but by the very idea of their physical presence or proximity (Bartlett, 2013, pp. 313–314).

#### **References**

**Open Access** This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

The images or other third party material in this chapter are included in the chapter's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the chapter's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.

## **Chapter 9** *The Graves When They Open, Will Be Witnesses Against Thee***: Mass Burial and the Agency of the Dead in Thomas Dekker's Plague Pamphlets**

**Sarah Briest**

#### **9.1 Introduction**

In 2015 archaeologists accompanying the construction of the Crossrail railway line—cutting through London on an east-west axis—were tasked with the excavation of the New Churchyard (also known as Bethlem or Bedlam burial ground), a municipal cemetery in use from 1563 to 1739. In the southeast corner of the former graveyard (now the site of Liverpool Street Station), they discovered a seventeenthcentury mass grave containing plague victims (confrmed by molecular paleopathologists at the Max Planck Institute, Jena, Germany). It was notable that those buried in the grave (originally circa one hundred individuals) had been placed in orderly stacks and rows and that care had been taken to ensure that uncoffned individuals and child burials would not be disturbed by subsequent coffn placements (cf. Hartle, 2017). Recent work by Cessford et al. (2021) also suggests that, contrary to previous perception, victims of the second plague pandemic not infrequently received funerary treatments indistinguishable from non-plague burials. Their analysis of Cambridge gravesites from the later medieval period, moreover, revealed that

[i]ndividuals in mass burials, at least those dating to the fourteenth–ffteenth centuries, were generally laid out in a careful and respectful manner in an extended supine position with their heads to the west replicating the practice of individual burials as far as possible. (Cessford et al., 2021, p. 513)

Contrary to the respectful and orderly treatment of the plague dead suggested by these fnds, Thomas Dekker's descriptions of plague-time burial emphasize practices so dehumanizing that even the dead themselves perceive them as shameful

S. Briest (\*)

Institute of English Language and Literature, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

© The Author(s) 2022 211

E. Weiss-Krejci et al. (eds.), *Interdisciplinary Explorations of Postmortem Interaction*, Bioarchaeology and Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-03956-0\_9

and humiliating. Inconsistencies and contradictions almost inevitably arise where archaeology meets literary studies yet these do not attest to the incompatibility of the disciplines. Rather, the complexities of thought and practice they hint at clearly show the desirability of synergetic engagement. In the following pages, an examination of Dekker's plague pamphlets demonstrates how the written word—neither to be discounted nor to be taken at face value—engages with mortuary practices and artifacts in a way that may not, after all, be so foreign to the archaeological enterprise.

Dekker's pamphlets recount devastating, large-scale outbreaks of bubonic plague in early modern London, chronicling a metropolitan state of crisis in which normality is suspended and a majority of Londoners live in mortal fear of the dead and the dying—while country folk live in mortal fear of Londoners. *The Wonderfull Yeare* (Dekker, 1603/1924) is Dekker's account of the terrible 'visitation' that reached London in 1603 and which, by the time it had run its course, had killed at least 20% of the city's population.1 Dekker collaborated with Thomas Middleton on *Newes from Graves-end: Sent to Nobody*, a further literary processing of the 1603 plague (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925a). The pair combined their efforts once more on *The Meeting of Gallants at an Ordinarie* (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925b). Dekker's satirical solo-effort *The Seven Deadly Sinnes of London* (Dekker, 1606) contains illuminating references to the plague and to burial practices though the text is not frst and foremost a plague text and was not published in a major plague year (still, the plague continued to claim victims in London from 1606 to 1610). While his *A Rod for Run-awayes* (Dekker, 1625/1925) commemorates the urban catastrophe occasioned by the epidemic of 1625 when the plague killed upward of 15% of the ever-increasing metropolitan population, *London Looke Backe* (Dekker, 1630/1925) is a retrospective handling of that year's great mortality. There were both practical and ideological impulses compelling Dekker to pen and publish these pamphlets. First of all, plague in the city inevitably led to the cessation of much public life, including theatre-going. To secure their livelihoods, playwrights had to adjust their output to the circumstances and many turned to writing poetry, prose or verse narratives directly for the print market. In addition to these practical fnancial imperatives, Dekker used the medium of the pamphlet to communicate his unease (in a variety of styles and voices) about goings-on in the disease-ridden city.  In his pamphlets Dekker laments that plague victims may be treated in death like convicted criminals or suicides but his especial horror is reserved for

1The plague often entered via seaports and was subsequently carried along trade routes. The 1603 London epidemic was anticipated by outbreaks in Hull and Great Yarmouth in 1602 (Slack, 1985, p. 13); the 1625 epidemic was preceded by an outbreak in Scarborough in 1624, while an epidemic in 1635 in North Shields preceded the 1636 outbreak in London. The plague was once more in Great Yarmouth in 1664 before the fnal major London epidemic of 1665 (Slack, 1985, p. 66). Still, Slack also notes that "even if we ignore years in which less than hundred casualties were notifed, plague was present in 28 of the 64 years between 1603 and 1666. It was therefore endemic in London for much, perhaps most, of the early seventeenth century" (Slack, 1985, p. 147).

the mass grave which he understands as the worst possible affront to the dignity of the deceased.

#### **9.2 Narrating the Plague**

As a 'plague narrator' Dekker adopts a stylized personality matching his melancholy role. The dead—with whom he claims to have an intimate connection—haunt and inspire him and they reveal their late and ongoing suffering to him. Not only is Dekker their mouthpiece and advocate, he is equipped with all the paraphernalia beftting that position. Fittingly, his ink is kept in a human skull and consists of "teares of widowes, (black as Stix)," while for parchment he makes use of "a folded winding sheete" (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925a, p. 82). As 'advocatus mortuorum' Dekker's self-professed aim is to solicit compassion for the dead and induce even the most hard-hearted to "shead */* One drop (at least) for him that's dead" (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925a, p. 82). Dekker-the-plague-writer is well aware that the dead have unfnished mortal business and he is eager to help communicate this to the survivors.

Furthermore, Dekker levels harsh criticism at well-off city-dwellers who desert London, their "disconsolate Mother (the City) in the midst of her sorrowes" (Dekker, 1625/1925, p. 145), to seek personal safety in the country.2 The reasons for this condemnation are twofold: frst, the plague-time exodus from London is characterized by social injustice (the poor must remain behind and the toll it takes on them is disproportionately high) and, secondly, it demonstrates insuffcient faith in divine omnipotence. The plague is God's scourge, after all, and the wrath of the deity neither can nor should be outrun. Dekker does not give credence to the idea of plaguespreading miasma (toxic fumes in the air), nor does he subscribe to the idea of contagion, i.e. the interpersonal transmission of the disease. If the plague really were in the air (miasma), he argues, it would "[i]n fakes of poyson drop on all" (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925a, p. 83) and there would be no survivors at all. If it were passed directly from person to person—by infectious breath, for instance contact with the infected would always result in illness and, quite possibly, death. Since some people do survive close contact with plague victims, however, and since it is impossible to trace the disease back to a specifc human originator, Dekker concludes that the contagionist position must also be inaccurate (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925a, p. 84).3 Instead, sin at the core of each individual

2Luther's *Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague* (1527) discussed the same conundrum, as did Calvin in 1560 (Slack, 1985, p. 41).

3While theoretically incompatible, in practice there was no confict between concepts of miasma and contagion in English discussions of plague until the later seventeenth century (Slack, 1985, p. 28).

(conceivable like a 'plaguey worm') provokes the disease.4 What is more, a disease which is not transmitted by natural means is not curable by natural means. Instead of seeking medical help, so Dekker, one should rather look toward Christian humility and repentance as the true "Physitian" (Dekker, 1630/1925, p. 188).5 Although his refutation of contagion was at odds with the establishment credo—which generally sought a compromise position between religious and natural explanations and sought to contain the plague by containing the infected—Dekker's perspective was not uncommon. As a matter of course, his contemporaries pondered the relative importance of frst causes: direct divine intervention, and second causes: natural channels through which God works indirectly; they applied themselves to questions of theodicy and the earthly responsibilities of men and women.6 On the one hand, despite the risk of infection, one was duty-bound to administer Christian charity to those in need. On the other hand, self-preservation and the protection of one's family were powerful, legitimate motives and biblical evidence for both positions was cited. Bishop Lancelot Andrewes, the voice of the clerical elite, argued for avoiding infected people and places (Gilman, 2009, p. 146), while low-church writer Henoch Clapham fervently opposed this stance (Gilman, 2009, p. 150, 174).

Plague orders, frst printed in 1579, introduced measures intended to check the spread of the disease in London by identifying the infected and isolating entire households for a minimum of 4 weeks.7 Self-interest—the wish to avoid economic disaster and, at its most basic, the will to survive—meant that many cases of plague were not made known to the authorities so as to avoid the misery of quarantine.8

4Thomas Moulton's c. 1475 adaptation of John of Burgundy's fourteenth-century plague treatise popularized a view of the plague as divine retribution that was to be dominant throughout the following centuries across Europe (Keiser, 2003, p. 300).

5There are rare exceptions to this strictly pious attitude, however, such as the dedication of *A Rod for Run-awayes* to surgeon Thomas Gilham, whose surviving patients are likened to works of art: "Many of your excellent Pieces haue beene (and are to bee) seene in this City" (Dekker, 1625/1925, p. 137).

6Gilman surmises: "At the point of its inadmissible failure, theodicy can only fall back on Luther's argument that as long as there is no higher standard of justice against which the divine conduct can be measured, '[w]hat God wills … must be right because He so wills it'" (Gilman, 2009, p. 145).

7As early as 1518 infected houses in London were to be marked by straw bundles hung from windows for 40 days and anyone who left a marked house was to carry a white stick when out (Slack, 1985, p. 201). The frst book of plague orders was reprinted with only minor alterations in 1592, 1593, 1603, and 1625 (Slack, 1985, p. 209). It was included in statutes on social policy in 1609, 1630, 1636, 1646, and "radically revised" only in May 1666, when the plague had run its course in the British Isles (Slack, 1985, p. 209). The Plague Act of 1604 introduced sanctions against the infected. Any inhabitant from an isolated house found in the street could be treated as a vagrant rogue and whipped, while a person found with plague marks on their body was principally a felon and could face death by hanging (Slack, 1985, p. 211). However, there is no evidence that any plague victims were in fact ever punished as felons (Slack, 1985, p. 212).

8 In William Muggins' *London's Mourning Garment* (1603), a father laments, "I cannot sell today, / One jot of work that all of us have wrought. / In every shop, I have for money sought, / And can take none, your hunger to sustain" (Muggins, 1603/2012, ll. 556–559); waterman John Taylor confrms that in plague time, "[a]ll trades are dead or almost out of breath, / But such as live by

Even if one was so lucky as to escape death (as roughly one third of those infected with bubonic plague did), the experience of the disease itself was an ordeal to say nothing of the trauma of enforced quarantine. While fear of the plague could be the reason for wary estrangements between all manner of people, servants, both male and female, and apprentices were especially vulnerable. While, in general, masters were deemed responsible for their ailing underlings, plague jeopardized all social ties and dependents often found themselves turned out when they were suspected of carrying the infection. This, laments Decker, led to people dying "in the open Streets," in "Entries, and Stables," "in the common High-wayes, and in the open Fields, on Pads of Straw […], vnpittyed, vnrelieued, vnknowne" (Dekker, 1625/1925, p. 166). Having been turned out from their own abodes, these unfortunate outcasts would have been hard pressed to fnd charity elsewhere, with all of London and the surrounding counties wary of potential sources of infection.

In his pamphlets, Dekker illustrates sin and suffering in plague-ridden London both by reference to the exploits and hardships of individual city-dwellers (husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, merchants, servants, or physicians) and with the help of a common personifcation metaphor: the infected urban body of the anthropomorphic city can become a proxy for the populace.9 This she-city delivers ailing or stillborn children and suffers widowhood—again and again—while her own diseased corpus struggles to reabsorb her dying offspring. Whereas anthropomorphic London is celebrated in paeans and pageantry—Dekker himself had penned the Lord Mayor's Shows of 1627, 1628 and 1629—it is this morbid version of the metropolis that Dekker is concerned with in his guise as a plague narrator. London's metaphorical widowhood and general state of bereavement are recurrent images in his pamphlets (and early modern writing on the plague in general). Ernest Gilman has argued that, in the absence of plague saints like Palermo's Rosalia and Venice's Thecla, London itself becomes "a pale replica of these powerful female saints" (Gilman, 2009, p. 248). Yet London is never wholly saint. 'She' is always a dual entity—saint *and* whore: chaste wife, caring mother but also depraved, licentious hag. Nor does plague-time London have the power to intercede with an angry god. The city is as much at the mercy of the disease as her constituents are.

sickness, or by death: / The Mercers, Grocers, Silk-men, Goldsmiths, Drapers, / Are out of season, like noon-burning Tapers" (Taylor, 1625/2012, ll. 257–260).

9The personifed city, as the feminine face of the infection, frequently serves as an illustration of urban corruption by reference to pregnancy and childbirth: The year 1625—witnessing both the death of James I and a major plague epidemic—is described as "a yeare, great with Childe of wonder," moving toward a "Prodigious Birth" (Dekker, 1630/1925, p. 176). In the epidemic of that year, "[t]he Citty so much of her Body lost, / That she appear'd, a ghastly, headlesse Ghost" (Dekker, 1630/1925, p. 178). In *The Seven Deadly Sinnes*, Dekker accuses: "There is a Cruelty within thee (faire Troynouant) worse and more barbarous then all the rest, because it is halfe against thy owne selfe, and halfe against thy Dead Sonnes and Daughters. Against thy dead children wert thou cruell in that dreadfull, horrid, and Tragicall yeere, when 30,000 of them (struck with plagues from heauen) dropt downe in winding-sheets at thy feet" (Dekker, 1606, p. 87). The city is rendered "[d]isrobd'e, disgracte" and "scornd of all the world" in the outbreak of 1603, a prisoner inside her "owne walles" (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925a, p. 90).

As a citizen waiting out the epidemic in his London quarters, Dekker occasionally highlights his precarious position, arguing that "albeit, no man at any time is assured of life, yet no man (within the memory of man) was euer so neere death as now" (Dekker, 1625/1925, p. 166). He stresses a nearness in space and time to the recounted events and remarks on his vulnerability vis-a-vis the destructive force of the disease. Whereas, in principle, this vulnerability should be unaffected by proximity to infected people and places (after all, Dekker sees in the plague the direct hand of God), in practice he cannot entirely discount the empirical evidence. Flight did offer protection from the plague, as did affuence. The poor were hit hardest by the plague and not—as authorities warned—because of their lewd morals.10 Crowded housing and the greater presence of rats in poorer neighborhoods contributed to the high incidence of plague there. Especially in seventeenth-century epidemics poor parishes were hit harder than prosperous ones. There were also notable differences in mortality within parishes depending on such local features as the construction of buildings and population density (Slack, 1985, p. 168). By the 1660s the correlation of poverty and plague was common knowledge, to the point that the town clerk of Norwich noted: "We are in greater fear of the poor than the plague" (cit. in Slack, 1985, p. 143).11

The disproportionate presence of the disease among the poor—combined with the knowledge that it could not be relied on to respect social distinctions—certainly had an infuence on the countermeasures devised and implemented by the Crown and civic authorities. Like the plague itself, they hit the poor the hardest.

The combined effects of epidemic disease and social inequality all too often left the poor "in sorrow, in sicknesse, in penury, in vnpitied disconsolations" (Dekker, 1625/1925, p. 147), prompting Dekker and Middleton to dub the plague of 1603 "the Beggers plague" (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925a, p. 97). It is before this background that the recent warnings of historian Paul Slack and bioarchaeologist Sharon DeWitte are pertinent: Slack points out—recalling the argument laid out forcefully by Susan Sontag (1978/2009) in *Illness as Metaphor* with regard to cancer—that in discourses of disease we should beware of inadvertently (and erroneously) scapegoating its victims (Slack, 2012, p. 117). DeWitte, meanwhile, takes a stance against the misinterpretation of the work of bioarchaeologists as demonstrating the 'benefts' of epidemic disease for the surviving population—supposedly illustrated by general improvements in health post-Black Death (DeWitte, 2019, p. 114). In truth, living standards improved after 1350 but the plague never functioned remotely like a Malthusian check on insupportable demographic growth.

10At the same time, the mass fight from the metropolis of the well-off contributed to the relatively higher plague mortality among the poor in seventeenth-century outbreaks. In previous centuries mass fight had not been as common a phenomenon (Slack, 1985, p. 167).

11Rat feas transmitted plague bacteria (*Yersinia pestis*) from rodent to human. It is unclear whether human feas might have played a role in interhuman transmission (Slack, 1985, p. 11). In any case, contemporary medical discourse is free of references to rats and feas in discussions of epidemic transmission (Slack, 1985, p. 11). Domestic animals (cats, dogs, pigs), on the other hand, were suspected of spreading the disease and culled regularly during epidemics.

For DeWitte speculation on the alleged boon of the plague loses sight of the most important observation, namely

that decreased social inequities in access to food or other resources might have resulted in lower mortality rates during the epidemic. (DeWitte, 2019, p. 119)12

Dekker—though generally sympathetic toward individual plague victims—also rehearses contemporary views eerily akin to the Malthusian fallacy criticized above. Together, Dekker and Middleton state:

```
We would conclude (still vrging13 pittie)
A Plague's the Purge to clense a Cittie:
Who amongst millions can deny
(In rough prose, or smooth Poesie)
Of Euils,14 tis the lighter broode,
A dearth of people, then of foode! (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925a, p. 102)
```
In lines of iambic tetrameter, the duo argue that the plague wipes out a 'surplus' of people whose very presence supposedly constitutes the threat of famine—a fearmongering scenario not borne out by contemporary records relating to agricultural production and epidemic disease at all. Furthermore, it is a certain kind of people who comprise an 'expendable' overpopulation: the poor and idle who would rather give

Themselves to wast, deface and spoyle, Than to increase (by vertuous toyle) […] (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925a, p. 103)

Writing on his own two decades later, Dekker invokes the common argument that the plague strikes when countries or cities "grow ranke and too full" (Dekker, 1625/1925, p. 143), but insists that it strikes frst and foremost in punishment of collective sin, not as a means of population control. Yet, despite this acknowledgement of general human culpability, when he recounts the fates of ordinary Londoners affected by the disease (like a poor servant mistreated by his master or an ailing mother and child abandoned in the street), his attitude becomes immeasurably more humane. The stories Dekker recounts, however, are for the most part based on report and rumor (many hailing from a familiar stock of plague anecdotes), notwithstanding Dekker's frst-hand knowledge of plague-time London and the eye witness persona he cultivates as a narrator. While this was a common writerly tactic, not all of Dekker's observations—especially those relating to funerary practices—are commonplace.

12Furthermore, misperceptions of their work may paint bioarchaeologists "as callous scientists, impervious to the loss of life and psychosocial trauma associated with disease and other crises in the past and present" (DeWitte, 2019, p. 120), and more generally serve to discredit and vilify scientists in an increasingly anti-intellectual climate (DeWitte, 2019, pp. 121–122).

13 "urging"

14 "Evils"

#### **9.3 Shaming Dead Bodies: Criminals, Suicides, and the Plague Dead**

The plague fundamentally affected the relationship of the living to the dead. Burials were conducted under the cover of night, the number of mourners allowed at the gravesite was limited, and rituals of mourning and separation, such as wakes and funeral sermons, were curtailed. Dekker laments that

the poore man is hurried to his Graue15 by nasty slouenly Bearers, in the night, without followers, without friends, without rites of buriall commonly vsed in our Church (Dekker, 1625/1925, pp. 144–145).

According to John Davies' *The Triumph of Death*, the dead were collected on plague carts, conveyed to already crowded cemeteries "by cartloads" (Davies, 1603/2012, l. 346), and deposited in mass graves. Under normal circumstances, the dead were buried in single graves oriented toward the East (i.e. Jerusalem) (Tarlow, 2010, p. 105–106, 107).16 At the height of plague epidemics, however, coffns and single graves could become luxuries. Even shrouds, laments Dekker, might be denied to plague victims. With supplies depleted, trade suspended, and demand sadly increasing, it is impossible for some to come by

linnen fold To make (so farre is pittie fed) The last apparell for the dead: (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925a, p. 93)

This is not a minor snag but a serious breach of protocol.  Dekker notes with unease how "there were neuer so many burials, yet neuer such little weeping" (Dekker, 1625/1925, p. 145), so many casualties of the plague but "not one eye […] so tender to wet the ground with a teare" (Dekker, 1625/1925, p. 159). As deaths increase, survivors are increasingly numb to the pain of bereavement. Emotions that persevere are of an overwrought, crazed variety. There is fear. There is despair. There is hysteria. There is much "wayling" but little weeping (Dekker, 1625/1925, p. 145).

It is of particular concern to Dekker that the plague dead are routinely subjected—so he claims—to stigmatized forms of burial. They may, for instance, be treated like murderers and traitors. Having committed no crime except for sharing in the nation's general sinfulness, the infected, i.e. "the innocent Malefactors of *Troynouant*," are nonetheless turned into criminals and this is refected in their interment (Dekker, 1625/1925, p. 170). Hauled to the grave on carts and denied the honour of a proper Christian funeral, plague victims—though innocent—share the

15 "Grave"

16By the mid-sixteenth century coffn use had become the norm even for the poor (Tarlow, 2010, p. 107).

fate of "many a Fellon, after hee is cut downe from the Gallowes" (Dekker, 1625/1925, p. 145). Often found unworthy of churchyard burial, the bodies of executed felons were transported on carts—as lesser loads, even animal carcasses, would be—rather than carried respectfully to their fnal resting places (Dekker, 1625/1925, p. 145). This made sense in view of the fact that the treatment of the criminal body after death was understood as an extension of the punishment exacted on the living body (Tarlow, 2010, p. 54). The plague dead, however, have not been convicted of any crime (by human agents) and still their treatment, i.e. their conveyance on plague carts, notably echoes the punitive handling of the criminal body.17 The infection renders its victims untouchables, their remains "noysome carion" (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925a, p. 93). The indignity of this weighs so heavy precisely because—against Anglican dogma—a belief in the continuation of individual, material existence—tied to one's mortal remains—suffuses Dekker's plague pamphlets. When plague victims are treated like "felons that are cut downe from the tree of shame and dishonor," when they "receiue vnhansome buriall" (Dekker, 1606, p. 87–88), this constitutes such an injury to them because their individual identity is not removed by death.18

The same applies when the bodies of the plague dead are handled like suicides an unfortunate category of the dead who were understood to have forfeited any hope of salvation by committing the grievous sin of self-murder. In *Newes from Gravesend*, the narrator argues that many plague victims and suspected plague victims, (especially in the country) are buried

as the fashion is for those Whose desperate handes the knot vnlose Of their owne liues, […] (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925a, p. 93)

While other writers condemn the quick and improper burial of bodies, *Newes from Graves-end* is an unusual text in making the connection between suicide and plague burial explicit.19

Before the year 1823, individuals who had committed suicide could be denied space in the churchyard and consigned to roadside burial (Tarlow, 2010, p. 183). This posthumous punishment was augmented by the confscation of their property (Tarlow, 2010, p. 147). Plague victims, like suicides, might be buried not in

17On the topic of maltreating the dead, Rebecca Totaro has proposed an interesting comparison: "The plague's denial of funeral rites for the dead recalls the many famous classical episodes in which heroes and the sons of kings are refused burial by the enemy" (Totaro, 2012, p. 19). In the early modern period, too, the refusal of a decent (Christian) burial signaled extreme contempt. Philip Schwyzer has noted: "To deny the dead the decency of burial was perhaps the deepest as well as the fnal rejection of which early modern society was capable" (Schwyzer, 2007, p. 121).

18A counter-position to Dekker's is embodied in the Gravedigger in *Hamlet* who denies the individuality of the dead—a dead body is no longer woman or man but only dehumanized matter (cf. Schwyzer, 2007, p. 135).

19 John Davies writes of dead bodies in the road which are raked in "a rude hole" (Davies, 1603/2012, l. 574), and of "Ditches and Highways" which "must receive the dead" (Davies, 1603/2012, l. 654).

consecrated ground but "[i]n some hye-way */* Or barren feld" (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925a, p. 93) condemned and expelled from Christian society. Dekker bemoans that many travelers who sicken on the roads around London are

buried neare vnto hye-waies […] in their cloaths as they were, booted and spurde euen as they lighted off, rowld into Ditches, Pits and Hedges […] (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925b, p. 133)

Fear of contagion prevents these unfortunates from being transported to more appropriate resting places, and it prevents them from receiving any of the customary preparations for burial: they are not undressed, not washed, not shrouded, not placed in coffns. Instead they are discarded as quickly and with as little contact as possible. This treatment is so

vnchristianlike, that it would haue made a pittifull, and remorcefull eye blood-shot, to see such a ruthfull and disordered Obiect: […] (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925b, p. 133)

A 1641 woodcut (Fig. 9.1) laments that the "Countries Crueltie" is such that Londoners who succumb to the plague by the side of the road are pulled into ditches by locals who will not come near them, using ropes, poles, crude carts or sleds.

**Fig. 9.1** This woodcut from the title page of a short anonymous tract called *Londons Lamentation, or, a ft admonishment for city and countrey* […] (1641) contrasts the proper treatment received by plague victims in London ("Londons Charitie") with the shameful handling of the dying and the dead outside the city ("the Countries Crueltie"). While this pro-urban propaganda neither accurately refects the situation in the country nor the city, it offers illuminating representations of forms of burial deemed decent (upper part) and indecent (lower part) (Wellcome Collection; Creative Commons license CC BY 4.0)

This sad routine is contrasted with the proper handling of the dead: They should be dressed appropriately and placed in coffns—which, in turn, are covered in fabric and respectfully carried to a place of interment, mourners following behind. Hasty roadside burial is deplorable to Dekker even for those cowardly escapees who would abandon the infected city, leaving the poor behind, but his especial horror is reserved for the mass grave. In the pamphlets mass graves fgure as places where all privacy and all boundaries are lost.

#### **9.4 Horrors of the Mass Grave**

While parish authorities and all those who collude in rushed mass interments are to blame for the indignities which individuals are exposed to in the plague pit, the places of burial, too, are rhetorically implicated in the action. Dekker compares burial pits to hellmouths and has the animate earth itself actively gobble down dead bodies. In *The Wonderfull Yeare* he declares that

a hundred hungry graues stand gaping, and euery one of them (as at a break-fast) hath swallowed downe ten or eleuen liuelesse carcases: before dinner, in the same gulfe are twice so many more deuoured: and before the sun takes his rest, those numbers are doubled: (Dekker, 1603/1924, p. 40)

Graves voraciously feast on bodies and those bodies are reduced to mere fodder. This description is widespread among plague writers: John Davies characterizes graves as "ravenous" and "insatiate" (Davies, 1603/2012, ll. 51 and 395), George Wither writes of the "greedy Grave," eager for more bodies to come its way (Wither, 1628/2012, l. 1563), and William Austin envisions "Graves' mouths gap[ing] wide" (Austin, 1666/2012, l. 979). Even greedy graves can reach a point of saturation, however. In Davies' *The Triumph of Death* (1603) the ground not only swallows the dead, it also emits them again: "The Graves do often vomit out their dead" (Davies, 1603/2012, l. 568); urban streets "vomit out their undigested dead" (Davies, 1603/2012, l. 345). This notion is echoed by John Donne—installed in 1621 as Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral—in a sermon preached in 1626. With reference to the previous year's epidemic, Donne notes that "the dead were buried, and thrown up again before they were resolved into dust" (cit. in Gilman, 2009, p. 202). Gravediggers must reopen ground that is already full of bodies and disturb human remains as they undergo the deeply troubling process of decomposition.

In *London Looke Backe*, Dekker writes of plague pits, still eager for more human fodder, which remain open of their own accord "[f]rom morne, till next morne, gaping still for more" (Dekker, 1630/1925, p. 177).20 Pits could be seen 'gaping for

20Thomas Vincent, a nonconformist clergyman who preached to deserted London congregations during the 1665 epidemic, describes cemeteries "stufft so full with dead corpses, that they are in many places swell'd two or three foot higher than they were before" in *God's Terrible Voice in the City* (1667) (cit. in Miller, 2016, p. 100). To Miller, Vincent's description turns the graveyard into a "Bakhtinian grotesque body" (Miller, 2016, p. 101).

more' when the expectation of more bodies for burial made their quick closure impractical. Mass graves might then be left open until flled to capacity—with multiple corpses already inside them and only a thin layer of earth or sand covering them, their bodily decomposition exposed to the living in sight, smell, and sound. This practice could be a source of frustration for neighbors exposed to the stench of decay and—for writers—a source of inspiration. Humorous anecdotes featuring drunken passers-by stumbling into pits were the stock in trade of metropolitan pamphleteers. For the dead in the grave, however, to be deposited thus without ceremony and left exposed was a serious slight. In a culture that valued the dignity of the dead body, the collection of bodies in open pits fouted all conventions and equaled utter humiliation. Kathleen Miller has argued insightfully that stories about accidental premature interment in the plague-ridden metropolis "strip[…] away the black and white division between life and death" (Miller, 2016, p. 47), hinging as they do on "a moment when the living and dead exist in a single body" (Miller, 2016, p. 46).21 Yet, in Dekker's plague pamphlets there is no such "black and white division" in the frst place. Individuals are in death precisely who they were in life and to mistreat dead fesh—for instance, by denying it proper burial—is therefore essentially the same as mistreating living individuals.

Irrespective of the orderly, respectful placement of bodies in the New Churchyard mass grave, referenced above, Dekker's vision of the plague pit is one in which bodies, without coffns or even without shrouds, are hastily and "rudely throwne" into pits and left to rot where they land, entangled with other bodies in grotesque positions (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925a, p. 93). Individuals buried in this fashion must face the utter disgrace of being "thrust altogether into one close roome: a litle noisome roome […]" (Dekker, 1603/1924, pp. 40–41). Dekker's description of the grave as a room emphasizes the individuality of the 'inhabitants'—even after death—and posits the grave as a continuation of mortal existence. One room is merely exchanged for another. These grave-rooms, however, are often far from adequate. When "twentie shall but haue one roome" (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925a, p. 94), and a tiny sequestered one at that, even a modicum of privacy is impossible. When "nine and tenne" (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925b, p. 78) or even threescore must "be pestred together, in one litle hole, where they lie and rot" (Dekker & Middleton, 1604/1925a, p. 72), then the grave-room becomes a stifing torture chamber. Dekker's notion of the grave as a room is congruent with a new, post-Reformation "determination to lay claim to one's last resting place as permanent private property" (Schwyzer, 2007, p. 112).22 However, the rooms allotted to the plague dead are an affront and the dead perceive them as such. The maltreatment of

21Before this background, Miller applies Julia Kristeva's concept of abjection to plague writing (Miller, 2016, p. 7).

22The desire to preserve the privacy of the body after death is evident in the plays of Shakespeare as well as in the inscription on the playwright's own grave (cf. Schwyzer, 2007, pp. 114, 122). Yet, contrary to Dekker's belief in the potential agency of the dead, "the notion of the dead still being capable of interaction with the living and with one another […] seems to have aroused the scorn and horror of Shakespeare" (Schwyzer, 2007, p. 125).