Apologies for getting into this discussion late, but I
needed a few days to dig up some notes. Specifically, I
needed to find a copy of the paper I gave at Kalamazoo last
year, "Pollution and Community: Church Burials in Later
Medieval Canon Law." While burial in a church is a more
limited topic than burial in consecrated ground, what
applies to the former applies to the latter as well.
Leaving aside for the moment the main argument of the
paper, I find I referred to the following cases in 12th and
13th century canon law, which hopefully are not too far off
the topic:
Gratian's _Decretum_, C.13 q.2 c.16; "those whose sins have
not been forgiven should not be assisted by the holy place
after death." If sinners are buried in a holy place, "the
holy place will not free them, but rather accuse them of
the sin of presumption" at the Last judgement. C.13 q.2.
c.17 states that "no deceased person shall be buried under
a church, except for bishops, or abbots, or worthy priests,
or faithful laypersons." Also, De cons. D.1 c.27-28
declare that the corpses of _pagani_ and _infideles_ must
be removed from a church before it is dedicated.
Related to the topic of burying (or not) unchurched women
in consecrated ground: from Huguccio onwards, the
decretists and decretalists were much exercised by the
question of what to do about a woman who dies while
pregnant. As it happens, Huguccio and those who followed
tended to discuss burial in churches and consecrated
graveyards interchangeably. I attribute this to a canon of
Innocent III (in the _Liber extra_ at 3.40.7) which
discusses the case of a church or cemetery polluted by the
body of an excommunicate, recommending the same remedy
(sprinkling with holy water) for both.
Getting back to Huguccio: he states that some (the infamous
_quidam_) argue that a pregnant woman cannot be brought
into a church, have the office of the dead read over her,
or be buried in consecrated ground unless the fetus is
first removed. A living fetus can then be baptized and be
buried in consecrated ground, but if it is dead, it must be
buried in unconsecrated ground. Huguccio disagrees with
this reasoning, arguing that a pregnant woman, once
deceased, can be brought into the church and buried in
consecrated ground. His reasoning is that, if a pregnant
woman cannot be buried in consecrated ground because of her
"pagan" fetus, she should not have been allowed into the
church or allowed to hear Mass or receive communion while
alive; but since this is allowed, she can be buried intact
in consecrated ground after death. Here, as elsewhere,
Huguccio's argument basically won the day.
Bonus topic for those interested in the historical roots of
modern arguments: Goffredus of Trano dismisses the whole
question of whether a pregnant woman can be buried in
consecrated ground by simply saying that "the fetus is part
of the mother's intestines (_viscera_)." This would seem
to contradict the idea that a fetus is a separate
individual with inherent rights, which is the basis of much
of the anti-abortion argument, at least in the United
States. Discuss.
Stephen A. Allen
The Medieval Institute
University of Notre Dame
Notre Dame, IN 46556-5692
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