History of funeral literature
Funeral literature through the ages
“. . . earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust” Book of Common Prayer.
You may roll your eyes at these clichd, lines but have you spared a thought to the history of what we hear, say and sing in today’s funeral services?
We all know the story of the oversized, wife beheading Henry VIII who separated the English church from Rome becoming Head of the church himself, to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon and marry Ann Boleyn. What you may find surprising is that the church changed much more radically under his son, Edward VI (1547-53).
Edward VI, supporting the Protestant reformation allowed clergy to marry, and introduced and upheld the use of Thomas Cranmer’s Book of Common Prayer in all church services, abolishing the Catholic Sarum use’. (Such Sarum Rite texts were therefore mostly lost, only to be revived but to a lesser degree in the publishing of Common Worship in 2005).
The Book of Common Prayer has single handedly dominated funeral service literature from its publication (1549) until the present day.
With all the caper of the Prostestant reformation, coupled with increasing literacy brought the beginning of the communication of death as a conscious topic into the spoken and written word. At this point in history, poetry utilising the topic of death explodes with the likes of Shakespeare, Andrew Marvell and the metaphysical poets. However, note that poetry is not at this time included within funeral services.
The 17th century sees a rise in the popularity of the funeral sermon’ once again contributing to the moulding of the service we still have today.
By the time we reach the Victorians (1819 1901) with their overstated public out pourings of grief, funerals become more flamboyant but services remain religiously centred.
As we head into the late 1800’s the hymns we sing so frequently and see as traditional favourites are created; not as old as one might think! Often their words are centuries old but we are in the 18/1900’s before they are put to music. Abide with me, Be Still my Soul and Be thou my Vision are all examples of this time period. The likes of Mourning has Broken comes a little later in 1931 and has a revival in the 1970’s thanks to Cat Stevens!
Despite the fact that our religious funeral services are barely unchanged from the time of the Tudors, the recent shift in popularity from religious to secular services has provided probably the biggest change in funeral literature in the whole of our history to date. More than 30,000 funerals in 2006 were secular services.
It is not surprising then that this shift comes along with a trend in reducing church attendance in all branches of christianity over the past 20 years.
Poems by the classics, modern writers and even family and friends are included in today’s services, secular moral readings, multicultural proverbs, quotations and secular music is now common place.
The church are responding to its decline in funeral service statistics by allowing families to read secular poetry with suitable themes and secular music however all this is at the discretion of the minister.
Before we go overboard listening to all the stats on the rise in secular services, anecdotally I have been to approx 20 funerals in the past 14 years and only one of those were secular. Many old favourites were used in the religious based services, and as I sing along to hymns whist writing this, aged 23 years, I can barely hold back the tears and hope that when I die there will still be someone who will know and sing Be thou my Vision at my funeral.
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