Fascinating! Lucille Richmond -----Original Message----- From: Edward Andrews <edward.andrews@btinternet.com> To: SCOTLAND-GENWEB-L@rootsweb.com <SCOTLAND-GENWEB-L@rootsweb.com> Date: Wednesday, September 22, 1999 7:31 AM Subject: Re: - Stonehouse - misc and mortcloths, Don & Mary >---- 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 > > > >==== SCOTLAND-GENWEB Mailing List ==== >Scottish Universities >Their Libraries & Archives >http://www.ozemail.com.au/~jimjar/jimjargg.htm > >============================== >Search the Social Security Death Index online for FREE! >http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com/ >The most powerful SSDI search engine on the Internet! >