medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
A small point: the phenomenon of incorruption of bodies of dead saints does not normally involve mummification, whether natural or induced by embalming. Most incorrupt bodies are entirely flexible when first exhumned and show few if any signs of dessication. Some do show elements of dessication or mummification on a limb or hand etc.
Incorrupt bodies are found in interment circumstances ranging from protective coffins to burial in a simple shroud with no protection at all. Most incorrupt bodies come from climates where the soil is moist rather than the dry conditions conducive to natural mummification. In the case of Saint Charbel Makhlouf (Lebanon), the body was put into a common grave without a coffin and when exhumed, was floating in mud resulting from periodic inundations of the cemetary. It was perfectly intact. In the case of St. Andrew Bobola, who had been half-flayed alive, burned, dragged behind a horse resulting in the ears, nose, one eye etc. being torn away--his mutilated body was discovered 40 years later in the damp ruins of a Jesuit church. It remained incorrupt, flexible, with soft, lifelike skin.
Some bodies found incorrupt upon first exhumation remain flexible and entirely lifelike for centuries, though reinterment usually is not in the ground but in above ground shrines, since the initial exhumations were often associated with canonization proceedings and the bodies were then translated to a crypt near an altar. Others do become leathery, dry out, even disintegrate to dust, in some cases only centuries later, in some cases soon after the initial exhumation. Andrew Bobola's body has deteriorated, dried out in recent decades.
Although sometimes partially embalmed bodies are included among the "incorruptibles," the ones that really count as incorrupt are those that had no embalming performed whatsoever, i.e., the viscera left untouched. The recent exhumation of John XXIII's body really doesn't count here, since it was embalmed and was buried in several sealed caskets. Sometimes bodies found to be incorrupt after the first exhumation were then embalmed.
Some might think that the high statistical correlation between instances of incorrupt unembalmed bodies and people with a reputation for sanctity results from a much higher incidence of exhumations of reputed saints compared to the general population. I don't think this entirely works, since a lot of bodies of normal, common people were exhumed throughout the European Middle Ages to make room for new burials in the same graves. Nor is it true that members of religious orders, belonging to the elites of the culture in many ways, received more careful burials. Some certainly did, but there were enough religious orders that mandated that their dead be buried in a simple shroud, without a coffin, on a plain board etc. to nullify the instances of those who received careful burials in sealed coffins etc. Sealed coffins do not eliminate decay anyway, since anaerobic bacteria do the nasty work, if I am not mistaken. But sealed coffins do cut down on moisture etc. So they would have some effect, at least it would seem to me. This is not an area of expertise for me but an area of interest. The major book, of course, is Joan Carroll Cruz, _The Incorrupti bles_ (1977), which has an entry on Clare of Montefalco. Cruz's book is far from complete, though she tried to be as comprehensive as she could. For instance, she did not know about Blessed Roseline of Arcs (d. 1329), a Carthusian nun, was buried in an simple grave like all her fellow nuns but her noble family protested and insisted that she be moved inside the chapel, where other members of the family rested. It took five years before the bishop of Frejus agreed; at the exhumation in 1334 the body was discovered to be perfectly flexible and lifelike.
In any case, cases of general mummification would for the most part not be considered miraculous enough to be included among the "incorruptibles," since the natural or artificial process of mummification provides a ready explanation for the condition of the body and a mummified body is not really all that lifelike.
Dennis Martin
>>> [log in to unmask] 08/18/01 09:57AM >>>
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I forgot to add to the message below that a recent issue of Discover [June
2001, pp. 66-71] had an article on the mummified bodies of saints, "The
Uncorruptibles." Clare was one.
Tom Izbicki
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