---- Original Message ----- From: Don and Mary Saban <dsaban@trib.com> To: <SCOTLAND-GENWEB-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 1999 4:53 AM Subject: Re: - Stonehouse - misc and mortcloths, Don & Mary > > I am hoping we get an educated answer to your question from someone on the > list. We have just recently started researching mortcloth rentals. And we > do not know if the person listed is the name of the deceased or the name of > the person paying the rental to the church. > > Have had someone else ask a very basic question which we cannot answer -- if > they "rent" the use of the mortcloth, does that mean that the mortcloth was > reused numerous times? Was the tradition stopped when the populace became > more educated on the possibility of transmitting a disease? > > Someone out there should know the answers. Help!!! "(Just before the remains were transported to the grave) a mortcloth was laid over the coffin. This funeral pall originated in the days when ordinary Scottish people could not afford a coffin, and the corpse, in a winding-sheet but uncoffined, was covered or wrapped in a sheet, plaid or piece of blue homespun for the journey to the burial ground. There it was unwrapped from this additional covering and lowered into the grave. Although the mortcloth originated with those who could not afford coffins, it came in time to be regarded as an indispensable feature of all funerals of whatever class. It was the done thing to use one and no one would see a loved one buried without one - with one exception. In some places, such as the parish of Coldingham, Berwickshire, a mortcloth was not used for a woman who died in childbirth; instead, she was wrapped in a sheet. While the use of the mortcloth began by the 15th century at least, a contributory factor to its universal acceptance must have been the Proclamation of Council in 1684 forbidding the decoration of coffins with fringes and metal work, at which point those who would normally have had such handsome coffins, found that a good alternative was a handsome fringed mortcloth. Although mortcloths sometimes belonged to private people, they were usually owned by corporate bodies such as burghs, craft guilds and trade incorporations, as well as some privately-run charities. They were lent out at reduced rates, or even free, to members of these groups, and were also available for hire to other people, the income often going to the poor. Kirk Sessions also owned them and rented them out; even in rural parishes they usually had at least two, the best and the second-best, with possibly a child's size as well, so that people could choose which was within their means. The second-best was a poorer cloth altogether but it lent a touch of dignity to burials and gave some appearance to a rough poorly made coffin. It was the one which the Kirk Session allowed paupers to have free; sometimes inability to pay for a coffin, even though not on the poors' roll, was regarded as a qualification for having this cloth without charge." From Anne Gordon "Death is for the Living" Edinburgh 1984. ISBN 0 8628 089 3. p 52 The use of Mortcloths died out at the end of the last Century, Ibid. p58. By the time that they used Mortcloths there was no danger of transmitting disease to the person using it.!!! I would expect that the name of the person recorded would depend upon precisely what the custom of the district was, and precisely which agency was involved. A Craft Guild would obviously operate differently where the levy for the Mortcloth was included in the admission charge would operate differently from a parish which was merely noted the loan of the second cloth. Edward Andrews St. Nicholas Buccleuch Parish Church Dalkeith, Midlothian, Scotland Visit our Web site http://www.btinternet.com/~stnicholas.buccleuch/index.htm