Hart Island

Hart Island is a subject I came across a few years ago. The idea of a Potter’s Field was new to me. In Europe we don’t tend to segregate the dead by means of financial resources in such a clear and organised manner. Yes, Europe has 'experienced potter's fields' in history and there is an awareness of the ‘best end’ of a cemetery and the ‘cheap seats’. That has always been the way of things. Have a look at Kensal green or Highgate Cemetery and you can see the idea of wealth and privilege in burials. There is always the aristocracy of the dead. The rich and the poor are always segregated in life and also in death. However, in Europe there has always been more integration within one cemetery rather than having two separate cemeteries. There is a wonderful photo essay on the island that I recommend you to read to understand about the island and the atmosphere created.

In the English parish Church, we find that the rich and the poor may be more intimately combined and the layers of burials inter-weave and overlap so that we are all reintegrated over time, no-matter our wealth or status. The South-side and East-end of the Church would always be colonised by the rich although the poor would creep round the corner and the rich are sometimes interred on the North side as the cemetery filled up. In England, there is something of an egalitarian juxtapositioning of the bodies so that we become more of a unity. In the newer Metropolitan (largely secular)  cemeteries from 1855 there is more scope for segregation based on the sheer size of the cemeteries and the tendency not to re-use grave space as was the case in the older and crowded parish cemeteries. The large Municipal cemeteries in the North of England are replete with stone monuments that speak of money, industry and pride although even here the poor could be buried close by and the public grave was usually in the same cemetery rather than being placed elsewhere.

North America has another tradition and that is in the segregation of the rich and the poor into completely separate entities. The Potter’s field is a sort of ‘apartheid’ where the poor are apparently separate but equal. Oh dear and alas for the Republic that preaches equality  only for people to be segregated in death. Hart Island is the largest cemetery in North America and as such it demands our attention and curiosity. Whilst Europe is, to its eternal shame,  the location of huge cemeteries at Auschwitz and other extermination centers; Hart Island is different. Hart island is an example of a gargantuan peace-time cemetery that is based on economic apartheid rather than genocide and mass murder. Hart Island is a cemetery that is based on the uncaring bureaucracy of the City. People live and they die in the City without care and support and they end up discarded with the thinnest veneer of decency. The dead are stacked and warehoused on Hart Island by the hands of the prisoners who represent something of the poor who have always been the inmates of prisons and places of detention.

Am I making a bid for European intellectual superiority? Well no, I’m not making that assertion. Europe, after all, carries the historic burden of so much blood and misery perpetrated against political, sexual, religious and ethnic minorities. Instead, Hart Island represents something of the casual way in which human life comes to an end and the City simply disposes of the dead. The ‘little person’ without family or friends can come to a sticky end and find themselves in an unmarked grave out in the channel. The problem for me is that Hart Island has become something like a cultural and metaphorical  ‘oubliette’ where we forget poor people in "plain sight" of wealth. People are disposed of and ‘deleted from history. Even the records of the dead are uncared for and left to rot and burn as if they had never existed.  

When I first heard of Hart Island I was both appalled and excited in equal measure to find a place that I had never heard of and which seemed both illicit and intriguing. However, the more I read about Hart Island the more it became for me symptomatic of the anonymity of the Western world. We live and we die before being swept away in the morning like so much trash. The beautiful baby that is momentarily caressed in the arms of its mother is cast aside in later  years and is laid to rest like garbage. Hart island is a loathsome and horrid place and somewhere that I expected to find in the genocidal annals of European history rather than in the land of the free.

Melinda Hunt is leading the valiant campaign to re-integrate Hart Island into American consciousness and she leads the Hart island Project. Something you may like to read about

A visit to Hart Island 1978

Dealing with the dead - 1856

Project Gutenburg

"The board of sextons have met, and we have concluded not to recommend a revival of the ancient custom of burning the dead. It would be very troublesome to do it, out of town, and inconvenient in the city. I have always thought it wrong to bury in the city; and it would be much worse to burn there. The first law of the tenth table of the Romans is in these words—“Let no dead body be interred or burnt within the city.” Something may be got to help pay for a church, by selling tombs below. When a church was built here, some years ago, an eminent physician, one of the proprietors, was consulted and gave his sanction. Yet more than one of our board is very sure, that, on a warm, close Sunday, in the spring, he has snuffed up something that wasn’t particularly orthodox, in that church.

The old Romans were very careful of the rights of their fellows, in this respect: the twelfth law of the tenth table runs thus—“Let no sepulchre be built, or funeral pile raised within sixty feet of any house, without the consent of the owner of that house.” They certainly conducted matters with great propriety, avoiding extravagance and intemperance, as appears by the seventh law of the same table—“Let no slaves be embalmed; let there be no drinking round a dead body; nor any perfumed liquors be poured upon it.” So also the second law—“Let all costliness and excessive waitings be banished from funerals.” The women were so very troublesome upon these occasions, that a special law, the fifth, was made for their government—“Let not the women tear their faces, or disfigure themselves, or make hideous outcries.”

It was not unusual for one person to have several funerals: to prevent this, however agreeable to the Roman undertakers, the tenth law of the tenth table was made—“Let no man have more than one funeral, or more than one bed put under him.” There was also a very strange practice during the first Decemvirate; the friends often abstracted a finger of the deceased, or some part of the body, and performed fresh obsequies, in some other place; erecting there a cenotaph or empty sepulchre, in which they fancied the ghost of the departed took occasional refuge, when wandering about—in case of a sudden shower, perhaps; or being caught out too near daylight.




Jewish Cemetery in King's Lynn, Norfolk

© Godric Godricson



For the correction of this folly, the Decemvirs passed the sixth law of the tenth table—“Let not any part of a dead body be carried away, in order to perform other obsequies for the deceased, unless he died in war, or out of his own country.” It was upon such occasions as these, in which an empty form was observed, and no actual inhumation took place, that the practice  of throwing three handsful of earth originated. This usage was practised also by the Jews, and has come down to modern times. Baron Rothschild (Nathan Meyer) who died in Frankfort, July 28, 1836, was buried in the ground of the Synagogue, in Duke’s Place, London. His sons, Lionel, Anthony, Nathaniel, and Meyer, his brother-in-law, Mr. Montefiore, and his ancient friend, Mr. Samuels, at the age of ninety-six, commenced the service of filling up the grave,—by casting in, each one of them, three handsful of earth. Not satisfied with carrying a bottle of sal volatile to funerals, the women, and even the men, were in the habit of carrying pots of essences, which occasioned the enactment of the eighth law—“Let no crowns, festoons, perfuming pots, or any kind of perfume be carried to funerals.”

Burning or interring was adopted, by the ancients, at the will of the relatives. This is manifest from the eleventh law, which prohibits the use of gold in all obsequies, with a single exception—“Let no gold be used in any obsequies, unless the jaw of the deceased has been tied up with a gold thread. In that case the corpse may be interred or burnt, with the gold thread.” A large quantity of silver is annually buried with the dead. It finds its way up again, however, in the course of time.

Courtesy : Dani Simmonds

Common as burning was, among the ancients, it was looked upon, by some, with great abhorrence. The body to be burned was placed upon a pile—if the body of a person of quality, one or more slaves or captives were burned with it. When not forbidden, all sorts of precious ointments and perfumes were poured upon the corpse. The favourite dogs and horses of the defunct were cast upon the pile. Homer tells us, that four horses, two dogs, and twelve Trojan captives were burnt upon the pile, with the dead body of Patroclus. The corpses, that they might consume the sooner, were covered with the fat of beasts. Some near relative lighted the pile, uttering prayers to Boreas and Zephyrus to increase the flame. The relatives stood around, calling on the deceased, and pouring on libations of wine, with which they finally extinguished the flames, when the pile was well burnt down. They then collected the bones and ashes. How they were ever able to discriminate between men, dogs, and horses, it is hard to say. Probably the whole was sanctified, in their opinion, by juxtaposition. The bones might be distinguished, but not the dust. Such bones as could be identified, were washed and anointed by the nearest relatives. What an office! How custom changes the complexion of such matters! These relics were then placed in urns of wood, stone, earth, silver, or gold, according to the quality of the parties. Where are these memorials now! these myriads of urns! They were deposited in tombs—of which a very perfect account may be found in the description of the street of tombs, at Pompeii."

Sint-Andrieskerk - Antwerp

Saint Andrew’s Church in Antwerp is testimony to a loyalty that withstood the test of time. Although  her remote Jacobite descendant, King Henry IX , was present at the siege of Antwerp in 1746. Queen Mary Stuart of Scotland is still commemorated in this beautiful Antwerp Church. Paid for by her ladies in waiting Barbara Mowbray and Elizabeth Curle, the monument is a small but important ending to the long story and captivity of Queen Mary Stuart.

When I came across the monument I was very much captivated by the story of the ladies making their long flight from the problems of the English protestant Court and making away to the relative peace of the Spanish Netherlands as Belgium was known. The monument is a sort of cultic centre for Mary Stuart on the continent and an example of the monument being inside the Church.

© Godric Godricson

I recently said my prayers both for Queen Mary and for the ladies in waiting amidst the few tourists in the Church. May their loyal souls find repose in the Lord and may the City of Antwerp be rewarded for the haven it gave to the women.

Nieuw Amsterdams Peil

This is a photograph of mine that featured in a newspaper in The Netherlands

65-jarige Groothof maakt kinder-Matthäus

Door Merlijn Kerkhof

Foto: Godric Godricson

 

Amsterdam, 14 februari – De vandaag 65 jaar geworden Frank Groothof werkt aan een kindervoorstelling gebaseerd op Bachs Matthäus-Passion. De Amsterdamse acteur en theatermaker maakt al vele jaren bewerkingen van opera’s, maar wil nu ook het lijdensverhaal voor kinderen ontsluiten. Dat verhaal is behoorlijk gruwelijk: de protagonist, Jezus Christus, wordt aan een kruis genageld.

Het fonds Turing Foundation schreef op zijn website dat het een subsidie ter waarde van 20.000 euro heeft toegekend voor de realisatie van het project. De uitvoeringen gaan begin 2014 van start. Groothof wil dat er een traditie ontstaat om het lijdensverhaal aan kinderen te vertellen. In Nederland vinden er op Goede Vrijdag ieder jaar talloze uitvoeringen van de Matthäus-Passion plaats.  Lees de rest van 65-jarige Groothof maakt kinder-Matthäus

Charles William Jerningham



Norfolk Annals 1820



Died, aged 47, at Dunkirk, Mr. Charles William Jerningham, second son of Sir William Jerningham, of Costessey.  “Mr. Jerningham had served eight camps in the Austrian Army with distinguished valour, being engaged in the great battles of Jemappe and Fleurus, and was several times wounded.”  His remains were interred at Costessey on October 23rd.