Necropolis Quotes

“Meanwhile, we have carved out a place for ourselves among the dead; the glittering pinnacles of commerce rise along the skyline, their foundations sunk in a charnel house; and the lost lie forgotten below us as, overhead, we persaude ourselves that we are immortal and carry on the business of life.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“More than a hygenic method of disposing of the dead, cremation enabled lovers and comrades to be mingled together for eternity:

The ashes of Domitian were mingled with those of Julia; of Achilles with those of Patroclus; All Urnes contained not single ashes; Without confused burnings they affectionately compounded their bones; passionately endeavouring to continue their living Unions. And when distance of death denied such conjunctions, unsatisfied affections concieved some satisfaction to be neighbours in the grave, to lye Urne by Urne, and touch but in their names.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“Meanwhile, we have carved out a place for ourselves among the dead; the glittering pinnacles of commerce rise along the skyline, their foundations sunk in a charnel house; and the lost lie forgotten below us as, overhead, we persaude ourselves that we are immortal and carry on the business of life.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“The faithful clamoured to be buried alongside the martyrs, as close as possible to the venerable remains, a custom which, in anthropological terms, recalls Neolithic beliefs that certain human remains possessed supernatural properties. It was believed that canonized saints did not rot, like lesser mortals, but that their corpses were miraculously preserved and emanated an odour of sanctity, a sweet, floral smell, for years after death. In forensic terms, such preservation is likely to be a result of natural mummification in hot, dry conditions.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“Accounts from Europe indicate that the danse macabre took another form, inspired by the Black Death, rather like our children's rhyme 'Ring o' Ring o' Roses', which refers to the Great Plague. In 1374, a fanatical sect of dancers appeared in the Rhine, convinced that they could put an end to the epidemic by dancing for days and allowing other people to trample on their bodies. It is not recorded whether they recovered but, incredibly, they began to raise money from bystanders. By the time they reached Cologne they were 500 strong, dancing like demons, half-naked with flowers in their hair. Regarded as a menace by the authorities, these dancers macabre were threatened with excommunication.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“...in other spheres of Victorian Society the appeal of a young woman dressed in black from head to toe was acknowledged. In Victorian popular culture, widows had two manifestations: the battleaxe and the man-eater, preying upon husbands and bachelors alike. Even today, an attractive, dark-haired person dressed in all black has vampiric connotations, as the novelist Alison Lurie has noted, 'so archetypally terrifying and thrilling, that any black-haired, pale-complexioned man or woman who appears clad in all black formal clothes projects a destructive eroticism, sometimes without concious intention.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“In a policy shift which the historian Guy de la Bedoyere has compared with Western Imperialism, the Romans converted militant Britons to their way of life with consumer entincements, introducing them to the urbane pleasures of hot spas and fine dining, encouraging them to wear togas and speak Latin.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“Following directly behind the bier were the servants who would, in earlier times, have been slaughtered at the graveside, along with a warrior's horse. Musicians and torchbearers came next, with the rear taken up by the mimes- sinister, silent figures in wax masks modelled on dead members of the family.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“Death and burial were a public spectacle. Shakespeare may have seen for himself the gravediggers at St Ann's, Soho, playing skittles with skulls and bones.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“By the mid-eighteenth century, another new attitude was emerging, one which encouraged reflection on death as a spiritual exercise and a valid form of artistic expression. The experts on Victorian death, James Stevens Curl and Chris Brooks, have described this tendency as, respectively, ‘the cult of sepulchral melancholy’ and ‘graveyard gothic’.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“In 1666, an Act designed to promote the wool industry came into force, insisting that everyone should be buried in a woollen shroud. Other fibres, such as silk or linen, were banned.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“Even in London, where space was at a premium, churchyards were traditionally filled with trees, evidence of a lasting pagan influence.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“Grave clothes were part of a young woman’s trousseau. These grim garments were sewn in the knowledge that they might be needed. For the same reason, a potential bride habitually prepared at least one set of burial clothes for any child she might bear. Babies dying within a month of baptism were buried in their baptismal robes and swaddling bands. Children were often elaborately dressed.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“Once the corpse had been dressed, complete with a nightcap which kept the jaw closed and created the impression that the dead person was but sleeping, it was placed in an open coffin. This was lined with a sawdust mattress, to absorb the by-products of early decomposition, and scattered with pungent herbs such as rosemary to disguise the smell.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“In the same year, looking for a diversion from ill-health and overwork, Loudon reviewed a three-volume romance entitled The Mummy’s Tale – A Novel, for The Gardener’s magazine. Set in 2126, in an England that had reverted to absolute monarchy, this featured prototypes for espresso machines, air-conditioning and, most prophetically, ‘a communication system that permitted instant world dissemination of news’.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“Sir Edwin Chadwick, whose Sanitary Report proved to be a bestseller for the Stationery Office in 1842, confirmed that, every year, 20,000 adults and 30,000 youths and children were ‘imperfectly interred’ in less than 218 acres of burial ground, ‘closely surrounded by the abodes of the living’.2”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“The satirical magazine Punch, at that period closer in spirit to today’s Private Eye, editorialized that: ‘A London churchyard is very like a London omnibus. It can be made to carry any number.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“Despite the reservations of Wren, Vanbrugh and their successors, burial in vaults beneath churches had continued. The processes of decomposition, shaky foundations and the British disease of rising damp caused particular difficulties. Chadwick noted that, however solid the coffin, ‘Sooner or later every corpse buried in the vault of a church spreads the products of decomposition through the air which is breathed, as readily as if it had never been enclosed.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“One of the duties of a sexton consisted of ‘tapping’ coffins, ‘so as to facilitate the escape of gases which would otherwise detonate from their confinement’.5 On occasion, the build-up of corpse gas was so intense that coffins actually exploded. In the 1800s, fires beneath St Clement Dane’s and Wren’s Church of St James’s in Jermyn Street destroyed many bodies and burned for days.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“Children were the primary victims of these filthy conditions and there were numerous anecdotes of undertakers temporarily storing the bodies of newborn infants in their own premises until there were enough dead babies to make it worthwhile giving them a decent burial.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“In the 1830s, designers wanted buildings that looked Gothic, but they had no real understanding of the planning and construction behind it. This dichotomy is evident in Charles Barry’s Houses of Parliament: Gothic topdressing on an essentially Classical building. (Passing the Houses of Parliament one day, Augustus Welby Pugin commented: ‘All Grecian, sir. Tudor details on a Classic body.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“Horatio Nelson set the standard after he was mortally wounded by a sniper at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Nelson’s body was pickled in brandy, which was replaced with wine at Gibraltar, and brought back to England, amid macabre speculation that the Admiral’s crew had drunk the embalming brandy in transit.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“Nelson’s body was pickled in brandy, which was replaced with wine at Gibraltar, and brought back to England, amid macabre speculation that the Admiral’s crew had drunk the embalming brandy in transit.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“More than a hygienic method of disposing of the dead, cremation enabled lovers and comrades to be mingled together for eternity:”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“Another practice which also persisted for centuries was that of ‘telling the bees’ when a death had occurred in the family. If this was neglected, it was feared they would abandon their hives, never to return.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“A shortage of coffins was one thing, but then London began running out of graves.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“In fact, the tunnel curves between Knightsbridge and South Kensington stations because it was impossible to drill through the mass of skeletal remains buried in Hyde Park.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“Intent on wiping out their oppressors, Boudicca’s army descended on London and burned it to the ground. This first Great Fire of London was so intense that it melted bronze coins, scorching the earth so profoundly that archaeologists discovered a seared layer of soil centuries later.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“Nottingham’s Rock Cemetery, with its magnificent marble angels and sandstone catacombs.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead

“Only Mary Queen of Scots challenged the prevailing orthodoxy when she wore white to mourn the death of Lord Darnley in 1567, earning the title of ‘The White Queen’.”
― Catharine Arnold, Necropolis: London and Its Dead