Banning from burial in consecrated ground was the fashion for
excommunicates. Reformers among Peter the Chanter's circle used it to
terrifying effect for notorious usurers of ill fama and
heretics--sometimes both were exhumed posthumously and buried in a
field before a rapt audience. [Amaury de Bčne's bones were exhumed and
burned by a tribunal in Paris in 1210--standard treatment]. From what
I understand, dying intestate [after a prolonged illness] also
rendered one liable for exclusion from the church cemetery. Reformers
and bishops decried monastic communities' practice of accepting
usurers, 'raptores' and other flagrant sinners as confraters (informal
or formal) and giving them communion, confession and burial (Raymond
of Toulouse was a notable case--in friendly with the Hospitallers,
although he was never buried . . .). This meant that the
excommunicate could escape the episcopal sanction of excommunication
without making restitution to his/her victims.
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