Death in the lake counties : changes and continuities in rituals related to death and burial in Cumbria, 1830-1990
Date
1992
Authors
Schorb, Brenda Doreen
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Abstract
By examining the changes and continuities in rituals related to death and burial in the county of Cumbria, England, for the period 1830 to 1990, this study challenges the theory of a sharp disjuncture between nineteenth and twentieth-century attitudes towards death postulated by Philippe Aries and David Stannard. Although it acknowledges the enormous impact of the complex transformations to which such changes in attitudes have been attributed, particularly the commercialisation of mortuary rituals in the Victorian era, this thesis shows that these were urban trends which did not influence Cumbrian death ways to any large degree, and that the twentieth-century "denial of death" postulated by Aries can be attributed largely to interdependent social, demographic and economic changes which did not impinge on Cumbrian death customs until the mid-twentieth century or later.
The study, which combines oral testimony with documentary sources, begins by describing the social, geographical, and cultural background of the area under scrutiny, emphasising that cultural context has been a decisive factor in the evolution and maintenance of death customs. Chapter one argues that the physical isolation of Cumbria, and the idiosyncrasies of its social development, combined to produce a cultural backwater somewhat out of step with the norms of nineteenth-century urban society. Chapter two shows that a strong sense of tradition and community solidarity was instrumental in preserving to the present day many family-centred rituals which, it has been claimed, passed into the hands of paid professionals in the Victorian era.
Chapter three highlights most vividly the differences between town and country death customs by demonstrating that the Cumbrian funeral has maintained many of its traditional characteristics for far longer than might be expected in light of developments in urban parts of Britain. In attempting to discern the extent to which the funeral as status symbol became the prevalent ethos in Cumbria in the nineteenth century, this chapter assesses the way in which commercialism, in its stress on the more "fashionable" Victorian funeral, impinged upon local customs. It concludes that although the flamboyant funeral certainly existed, it was not as prominent a feature of provincial death-culture as it seems to have been in the larger towns. Chapter four illustrates the crucial function of the undertaker in reinforcing the traditionalism of Cumbrian death ways, and argues that the rural environment was much less amenable to the development of the undertaking style of the large town or city.
The thesis concludes by emphasising that changes in customs and attitudes pertaining to death cannot be conceptualised in terms of a theory of uniform development throughout the Western world. By providing valuable insights into the social relationships and community values in a particular region, it shows that local, environmental factors have played a major role in shaping death culture. In Cumbria physical isolation, poor communications, an unusual social structure, and a preponderance of small, face-to-face agricultural communities with a strong sense of tradition, proved to be very effective in challenging the commercialisation which characterised urban funerals of the Victorian era. This thesis thus highlights the value of the small-scale study as an arbiter of general theory, for it raises the possibility that other rural areas may also have retained traditional mortuary rituals for longer than has been supposed. Equally significant, this study stresses that changes and continuities in death customs must always be seen as an indicator of changes and continuities in other aspects of life.
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UN SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities