Separated by Death? Burials, Cemeteries, and Confessional Boundaries in Seventeenth-Century France

The study of funeral practices and cemetery sharing between Catholics and Huguenots demonstrates three main ways these groups negotiated the construction of confessional boundaries in seventeenth-century communities. Huguenot use of funeral rituals similar to those of Catholics and the burial of their deceased in cemeteries shared with Catholics indicate an indistinct confessional boundary and a continuing place for Huguenots in religiously mixed communities. A second form of boundary is apparent in agreements Protestants and Catholics made to divide parish cemeteries into adjacent burial grounds. The articulation of a space for each group made the confessional boundary clear but still allowed for the integration of both groups into communities. As persecution of Huguenots increased, Protestant cemeteries were pushed out of communities, creating a third, discriminatory form of boundary and undermining the communal bonds between neighbors of different faiths.