Profane Death in Burial Practices of a Pre-Industrial Society: A study from Silesia

Contents

Introduction; 1. Valorization of cemetery space; 2.1. Cemetery boundaries; 2.2. Functions of cemeteries; 2.3. Hierarchy of cemeteries; 2.4. Hierarchy within cemeteries; 2. Suicide; 2.1. Differences in religious denominations and legal bases for punishment of suicides; 2.2. Place of death - profane space; 2.3. Suicides in cities; 2.4. Significance of crossroads and boundaries for burials; 2.5. Executions of suicides — prevention or punishment?; 2.6. Beliefs and magical practices associated with suicide death; 3. Executed bodies and execution sites; 3.1. Superstitions and magic practices associated with execution sites; 3.1.1. Magical properties of criminal body parts; 3.1.2. Magical properties of the hanging rope and other items from the gallows; 3.1.3. Hanged men’s clothes; 3.1.4. Magical properties of plants growing on the execution site; 3.1.5. The role played by the hangman in perpetuating these superstitions; 3.1.6. Archaeological evidences of the popular beliefs and superstitions; 3.2. The location of execution sites; 3.3. Burials of the executed and false cemeteries’; 3.3.1. Uses of the gallows structure interior; 3.3.2. Different uses of the area outside the gallows; 3.4. Gallows remains variation; 3.5. Analysis of small finds; 4. Women who died in childbirth; 5. Unbaptized children; 5.1 Status of children who died before being baptized; 5.2. Changelings and other superstitious beliefs about new born children; 5.3. Magic properties of body parts of unbaptized infants; 5.3.1. Infant burials in vessels; 5.3.2. The pot burial of an infant from Wrocław; 6. Other groups in breach of the established order; 6.1. Drunkards; 6.2. Non-practicing Christians; 6.3. Other groups denied standard burial; 7. The ‘living dead’ and related apotropaics; 7.1. Categories of the harmful dead; 7.2. Preventive measures; 7.3. Executions of the harmful dead; 7.4. Rationalization and possible natural explanation of deviant burials; 7.5. Grave goods and the belief in ‘living dead’; 7.6. Archaeological finds; 8. Time of the plague — abnormal situation; 8.1. Finding and punishing those ‘guilty of the plague’; 8.2. Plague burial sites and commemoration of plague victims; 8.3. Archaeological record of epidemics; Conclusion; References; Figures; Index

About the Author

PAWEL DUMA is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Archaeology, University of Wroclaw, Poland. His main interests concern historical archaeology, profane death, late medieval and post-medieval material culture. Has excavated historical execution sites in Silesia both as team member and as a supervisor. He is author and co-author of several articles published in Polish and international scholarly journals.