ROUTLEDGE LIBRARY EDITIONS: RITUAL
Volume 2
DEATH, RITUAL, AND BEREAVEMENT
First published in 1989 by Routledge
This edition first published in 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
1989 Social History Society of the UK for the volume as a whole
1989 individual contributions, the respective contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-0-367-43594-3 (Set)
ISBN: 978-1-00-300665-7 (Set) (ebk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-43707-7 (Volume 2) (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-00-300520-9 (Volume 2) (ebk)
Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.
Disclaimer
The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and would welcome correspondence from those they have been unable to trace.
Death has become a taboo subject in our time. Previous generations, however, supported the dying and bereaved in ways that no longer exist but are now being uncovered by historians investigating the rituals and customs surrounding death and dying.
These new studies in the social history of death in England from 1500 to the 1930s focus on the death-bed, funerals, burials, mourning customs, and the expression of grief. They throw fresh light on developments which lie at the roots of present-day tendencies to minimize or conceal the most unpleasant aspects of death, among them the growing participation of doctors in the management of death-beds in the eighteenth century and the creation of extra-mural cemeteries, followed by the introduction of cremation, in the nineteenth. They also underline the importance of religious belief, which at the deepest level denied death, in helping the bereaved in past times. Half of the essays are concerned with the complex but fundamental changes of Victorias reign changes obscured by writers who have contrasted the Victorian outlook with that of later generations.
Death, Ritual, and Bereavement is the first volume in a new series published by Routledge in association with the Social History Society of the UK. It is aimed primarily at teachers and students of social and family history, the history of medicine and religion, but its straightforward, readable style and its many colourful accounts will appear to a wider audience.
This book was published in collaboration with The Social History Society. The Society was founded in 1976 and is one of the UKs leading learned societies. It has international membership and promotes historical research through its events, book series, grants and prizes, social media, and the journal Cultural and Social History.
The society can be contacted at the following places:
Twitter: @socialhistsoc
Website: https://socialhistory.org.uk/
Postal Address:
Social History Society
Department of History
Lancaster University
Bowland College, B08
Bailrigg, Lancaster
LA1 4YW
UK
First published 1989
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
1989 Social History Society of the UK for the volume as a whole individual contributions 1989 the respective contributors
Typeset by LaserScript Ltd, Mitcham, Surrey Printed in Great Britain by
TJ Press (Padstow) Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Death, ritual, and bereavement.
1. Great Britain. Death Customs, 15001940
I. Houlbrooke, Ralph A. (Ralph, Anthony)
393.0941
ISBN 0 415 01165 5
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Death, ritual, and bereavement / edited by Ralph Houlbrooke.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Death Social aspects Great Britain History. 2. Social history Modern, 1500- 3. Bereavement History. I. Houlbrooke, Ralph A.
(Ralph Anthony)
HQ1073.5.G7D43 1989
306.9dc19
Social history has been one of the great success stories of the academic world in the past generation. Historians have been recreating the past with a much greater emphasis on the way societies work and on how they are structured. This explosion of knowledge has brought great gains in understanding. We not only know far more about subjects previously considered inaccessible or unresearchable; the techniques and insights of social historians have increasingly informed the work of political historians, such that it is now rare to come across a serious researcher uninterested in relating his work to its appropriate social context. It can no longer be claimed, as G.M. Trevelyan once asserted in a phrase frequendy quoted out of context, that social history is history with the politics left out.
The founding of a new society the Social History Society of the United Kingdom in 1976 bore testimony to the increasing importance of the subject. The Society has always been anxious to make its work accessible to the widest possible audience. To aid this objective, it has placed particular emphasis upon its annual conferences. These always centre around a research theme, selected by its Committee, in which new and sometimes experimental work is known to be actively in progress. In this way, social historians are able to obtain insights into exciting research developments at a formative stage.
The Society has always published abstracts of papers read at the annual Conference in its Newsletter but it was increasingly felt that the best work deserved both a wider audience and a more substantial format. The most appropriate vehicle for this was felt to be a volume of essays which would be lively and informative but which would also indicate the importance of the chosen theme and suggest how the new approaches might be further developed. The Society was delighted to learn that Routledge, a publishing house long known for its pioneer work in social history, was to participate in this venture.
Both Society and publishers take pride in launching this inaugural volume deriving from the conference on Death, Ritual, and Bereavement, held in Oxford in January 1987. It is edited by Ralph Houlbrooke, whose interest in these themes developed out of his well-known work on the family in early modern England. It will be the first in a series which makes exciting new research in social history available in accessible and attractive form.
