II.1 - Edward Hall and Richard Grafton, Chronicles (1548)

Summary

In Part II, the death arts cover the post-mortem period from funerals to commemoration, completing the death-cycle initiated by Part I with its emphasis on the pre-mortem period and preparation for death. England’s protracted Reformation complicated this latter set of death arts. The relationship of worshippers to the dead underwent substantial reorientation on account of Protestantism’s elimination of the doctrine of Purgatory. Modernized and annotated excerpts, taken from a diversity of genres – including chronicles, the Book of Common Prayer, and consolation – reflect the changes not only to the Church’s burial rites but also less ritualized remembrance, which increasingly manifested itself through epitaphs, funeral elegies, and funeral sermons. Similar confessional and political tensions may be seen in the excerpts on Protestant and Catholic martyrs. Excerpts also represent a range of more secular commemorative acts from remembering traitors, regicide, and the ideal courtier, to a mother’s elegies for her infant son and a pamphleteer’s mourning of the unnamed masses killed by the plague.