The Care of the Dead in Late Antiquity

7. The Church, Christians, and the Dead

140 In recent years, medievalists have shown how the Christian cult of the dead was woven into,and evolved with,social institutions ,even though doctrine itself did not necessarily change. The relationship between doctrine and practice is a complex one,and several points of funerary doctrine were not yet established by the mid-fifth century. It is not my intention to define the stages of development of the Christian cult of the dead. I wish here to reexamine the evidence in the pastoral context in which they were produced in order to reconstruct both sides of a dialogue that has often been approached only as the confrontation of elite and popular cultures. . See in particular, Frederick Paxton, Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 990); Jean-Claude Schmitt, Ghosts in the Middle Ages: The Living and the Dead in Medieval Society, trans. Teresa Lavender Fagan (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 998); Michel Lauwers, La mémoire des ancêtres, le souci des morts: morts, rites et société au moyen âge (Diocèse de Liège, XIe–XIIIe siècles), Théologie historique 0 (Paris: Beauchesne, 997). . This is particularly true of an essential element of the medieval “system”:the status of the dead between the moment of death and resurrection. See Claude Carozzi,Le voyage de l’âme dans l’au-delà d’après la littérature latine (Ve–XIIIe siècle),Collection de l’École française de Rome 89 (Rome: École française de Rome,994);and Peter Brown, “Gloriosus obitus: The End of the Ancient Other World,”in The Limits of Ancient Christianity:Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R.A.Markus, ed. William E. Klingshirn and Mark Vessey, Recentiores (University of Michigan Press, 999), 89–4. . This is usually how Augustine’s De cura gerenda pro mortuis is read; see Yvette Duval, Auprès des saints corps et âme: l’inhumation “ad sanctos” dans la chrétienté d’Orient et d’Occident du IIIe au VIIe q Chapter 7 The Church, Christians, and the Dead Commemoration of the Dead in Late Antiquity THE CHURCH, CHRISTIANS, AND THE DEAD 141 qThe Church and the Cult of the Dead All Souls Day,or the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed,on November , was only introduced into the Christian liturgical calendar at the beginning of the eleventh century by Odilon, abbot of Cluny from 994 to 049.4 Was a feast of the dead observed by the early church as well? qThe Early Church and the Feast of the Dead The traditional Roman calendar included a feast of the dead during the month of February that concluded on February  with the solemnity of the Caristia. The oldest calendar of the Roman Church, transmitted in the Codex-Calendar of 54,indicated a celebration on February  called natale Petri de cathedra.5 This has led specialists of liturgy to think that the Christian ceremony arose as a substitute for the pagan feast. As Louis Duchesne explains it, “The reason will be clear if we glance at the ancient calendars of pagan Rome, wherein we see that the nd of February was devoted to the celebration of a festival, popular above all others, in memory of the dead of each family....It was very difficult to uproot such ancient and cherished habits. It was, doubtless, to meet this difficulty that the Christian festival of the nd of February was instituted.” This hypothesis of the moderns actually dates back to the twelfth century. Jean Beleth (d. 8) had already connected the feast of the Cathedra Petri to the pagan custom of bringing food to the tombs of the dead on that day (Rationale diuinorum officiorum 8). After provoking numerous discussions, the question of the origin of the celebration has been resolved.7 The day was observed by the Church of Rome, but little known in the provinces. It was not a banquet to observe the anniversary of St. Peter that paralleled banquets commemorating the dead; nor was siècle (Paris: Études Augustiniennes, 988), and Vincenza Zangara, Exeuntes de corpore: discussioni sulle apparizioni dei morti in epoca agostiniana, Biblioteca della Rivista di storia e letteratura religiosa. Studi  (Florence: Olschki, 990). 4. Lauwers, La mémoire des ancêtres, le souci des morts, 40–4. 5. Michele Renee Salzman,On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity, The Transformation of...