Medieval Death: The Danse Macabre

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black death, cemetery, charnel house, dance of death, Danse Macabre, death, Death Art, Holbein, Holy Innocents, John Lydgate, Medieval, memento mori, Paris, Religion, Rowlandson, St Paul's

Ms. 109 (2011.40), fol. 156 c 1493-1510. Getty collection.

In the late Middle Ages, life was tough and brief, and King Death presided over all.  Plague, social upheaval, famine, and the Hundred Years War had all taken their toll on the population and this was reflected in the dark art of the fifteenth century.

Ars Moriendi, or Art of Dying, texts set out how a Christian could have a Good Death; Memento Mori images, such as the three living and the three dead, reminded people of the transient nature of earthly pleasures – and the judgement to come;  Cadaver or Transi tombs begged the passer-by to pray for the departed and so to quicken their passage through purgatory.

Grim traditions for a grim time.  However, the late Middle Ages also saw the development of the gleefully morbid Danse Macabre or Dance of Death which could be found in Northern Europe and as far south as Italy. It is worth noting that the subject of the Danse is a vast one which encompasses performance, literature and the visual arts.  This post will focus mainly two of the more well known, but now lost, visual representation of the Danse at Holy Innocents Cemetery in Paris and Old St Paul’s in London.

Origins of the Macabre

Nuremberg_chronicle Dance of Death (CCLXIIIIv) Via Wikimedia

Macabre, a word that evokes not just morbid themes, but also hints at a certain fascination or even relish for the subject.  A word that fits the art of the post plague Medieval world like a decaying body fits a tattered shroud.

There is scholarly debate as to the origin of the word macabre. It has been argued to be Hebrew, Arabic or a derivation of the Biblical name Maccabeus (the slaughter of the Maccabees was a popular subject of Medieval Mystery plays) [1].  Whatever its true origin, it soon became indissolubly linked with a particular form of Medieval Memento Mori art, the Danse Macabre.

The first literary reference that partners it with the Danse Macabre appears in 1376 in Jean Le Fevre’s Le respit de la mort, written, appropriately, when Le Fevre was recovering from plague.  Here ‘Macabre‘ appears to be a character or a personification of death:

I did the dance of Macabre
who leads all men to his dance
and directs them to the grave,
which is their final abode.[2]

This poem exemplifies the Medieval literary penchant for didactic poetry.  Such poetry often took the form of a conversation between the body and the soul, and usually had a Christian, moral theme entreating the reader to eschew the vanities of life in favour of preparing the soul for the afterlife.  This genre sat comfortably alongside other Memento Mori traditions such as the Three Living and the Three Dead.  Its didactic form was also a perfect fit for the Danse Macabre theme – with the personification of Death summoning his unwilling victims to the grave.

The hours of Dionara of Urbino’), Italy, ca. 1480

Dancing in the graveyard

The Danse Macabre usually depicted a line of dancers, from different estates in society, partnered by cavorting skeletons.  Dancers are drawn from all levels of the social hierarchy – from Popes and emperors, princes of the church, kings, labourers and even children. Later depictions added women and newly emergent professional classes such as doctors and merchants – all clearly identifiable by stereotypical dress.

Often text or dialogue accompanies each pair of dancers, death calling each one and the dancer bemoaning their fate. Examples were found on charnel houses, cemetery walls and in churches. As a subgenre of the popular Medieval Estates Satire, the Danse Macabre hammered home, like nails into a coffin that, no matter your position in society, death was the great leveller [3][4].

Guy Marchants Danse Macabre from Holy Innocents Cemetery. c1491 -92.

The first known artistic representation Danse Macabre was to be found, appropriately enough, on the walls of the charnel house of Holy Innocents Cemetery, Paris. Holy Innocents cemetery was the oldest in Paris, dating from the end of the twelfth century and was situated next to the bustling marketplace of Les Halles. The cemetery would have been bustling with people, traders, scribes, sex workers. The Charnel house, a place where the bones of the dead, high and low, were all mixed together regardless of rank, would have been an ideal location for the mural.  The Images at Holy Innocents were also accompanied by Le Fevre’s text, forever linking the two in the popular imagination and creating what some have likened to a Medieval comic strip with images and speech ‘bubbles’ [5][6].

Locating the Danse Macabre in a cemetery fitted with folk belief as well, it has been noted that in popular culture, it was not uncommon for people to report seeing corpses dancing in graveyards [7]. Overall, the average Medieval person was concerned with the unquiet dead, sinners roaming about with unfinished business amongst the living – as many contemporary reports of revenants, attest.

Charnel House at Holy Innocents/Cimetière des Innocents, Paris. Via Wikimedia.

The mural was commissioned between August 1424 and Lent 1425, a period of truce in the One Hundred Years war.  The Treaty of Troyes gave Henry V, right to the throne of France, when he died in 1422, his son Henry VI, became king of France and England.  However, as Henry VI was only a baby, France was placed under the regency of John of Bedford, Henry VI’s uncle and a well-known patron of the arts.

The image is a macabre carnival – death mocks and pulls at his dance partners, the fat abbot is told he will be the first to rot, while death flirts with the handsome chevalier and gropes the physician.  There are 30 couples in all, from the highest to the lowest.  With an ‘authority’ figure to introduce the dance, and another authority figure and a dead king to deliver the moral of the dance [8].  As John Lydgate put it:

Come forth, sir Abbot, with your [broad] hat,
Beeth not abaissed (though thee have right).
Greet is your hede, youre bely large and fatte;
Ye mote come daunce though ye be nothing light.
[..]
Who that is fattest, I have hym behight,
In his grave shal sonnest putrefie. [9]

The subject matter of the mural may have been influenced by the contemporary political situation – the figures mainly depicted the ruling and martial classes, the king, constable and, of course, a corpse king.  It was also this political situation, a lull in the hostilities, that allowed English poet John Lydgate to visit Paris in 1426.

Lydgate was impressed with the image and accompanying text and was influenced to write his English translation of Le Fevre’s text with the addition of extra characters drawn from Mystery plays and masques of the time.  Lydgate also introduced some female characters to the text [10].

Danse Macabre from Talllinn by Bernt Notke c1500.

In 1430 a version of the Danse Macabre was painted at the Pardoner Churchyard, Old St Paul’s, London (commonly known as the ‘dauce of Poulys‘).  Both image and text were influenced by the Mural at Holy Innocents. This version depicted 36 dancers from different stations in life, summoned by death.  The St Paul’s images were augmented with dialogue between death and his victims, this time provided by John Lydgate’s translation ‘Out of the Frensshe’ [11].  Writing in 1603 in his Survey of London, John Stow described the St Paul’s Dance, thus:

“[..] About this Cloyster, was artificially and richly painted the dance of Machabray, or dance of death, commonely called the dance of Pauls: the like whereof was painted about S. Innocents cloyster at Paris in France: the meters or poesie of this dance were translated out of French into English by Iohn Lidgate, Monke of Bury, the picture of death leading all estates, at the dispence of Ienken Carpenter, in the raigne of Henry the sixt.”

Stow’s comments highlight how influential the Danse Macabre at Holy Innocents was on subsequent versions.

Another common feature of both Holy Innocents Danse Macabre and St Paul’s was that they were situated in busy areas bustling with life and frequented by the public, both became popular, and thought provoking, attractions.  Sadly, neither survive – Holy Innocents Cemetery was completely removed at the end of the eighteenth century and the mural at St Paul’s was destroyed in 1549.

Holy Innocents Cemetery by Guy Marchant c1491-92.

Many other examples of the Danse Macabre were created in the following decades, notable ones having existing at Basel (c1440), Lubeck (1463) and Tallinn, Estonia (1500).  Each was tailored to its own locale and reflected the patrons who commissioned it – where Holy Innocents focused on the martial classes, Lubeck featured more from the merchant classes.

Sadly, many examples are lost, surviving only in copies or as fragments of vast originals – such as the fragment at St Nicholas’ Church Tallinn by Bernt Notke (a copy of his earlier lost work at Lubeck).  Clearly, later ages did not share the Medieval fondness for macabre public art.

So, how did the Medieval viewer read such an audio-visual experience?

The Unwanted Dance Partner

Danse Macabre by Bernt Notke via Wikimedia.

The most obvious message that even an illiterate Medieval viewer could take away from the Danse Macabre, is that death is the great leveller.  No matter how high your estate, in the end death is coming for you.

The Danse was also personal, all of the estates of society could be found, so whether you were a king, a merchant or a labourer, or even a child, you could find your own representation in the danse; some of them even set the dance in a recognisably local landscape, for added impact.  The viewer could also, in a sense, participate in the dance, because many of the life size frescoes within churches, such as that at Tallinn, required the viewer to process along the fresco in order to see all of the original 48-50 figures[12].

The danse was also undeniably slapstick.  Viewers would have been familiar with figure of death or devils and their comedic antics in Mystery plays and even court masques so the viewer could laugh at the expense of their betters as they are dragged to the grave by a cavorting skeleton, whilst also being viscerally reminded of their own mortality.

A medieval burial, from a Book of Hours made in Besançon (detail), France, c. 1430–1440, Rare Books Collection, State Library Victoria.

But more than that, the Danse subverted the natural order of things.  The dead should be at rest, subject to the funeral mass, and quiet in their graves, not cavorting about.  It’s notable that many of these images were associated with graveyards – often sights of lively activity, commercial and personal, so much so that in Rouen in 1231 and Basel in 1435 edicts were passed prohibiting dancing in graveyards [13].  The Danse images were challenging the norm.  Dancing in Medieval thought was primarily associated with sin, paganism and seduction. Placing images of a sinful activity in a holy setting would seem to point to their purpose being penitential or confessional [14].

But, what of the text that sat alongside the images.  In a world where the majority of people were illiterate, how important was it?  While the images convey death as the great leveller, the dialogue between death and the living, prompts people to remember that earths glories are temporary, pride is the greatest sin of all, and that they should repent and prepare their souls for the afterlife.

However, while only a few would have been educated enough to read the text themselves, the message of atonement it conveyed would not have been lost on the illiterate.  The images would have been viewed in the context of lively sermons on the subject and oral tales reinforcing the message that death could strike at any time, so you should prepare your soul.  After the ravages of the Black Death this would have been particularly poignant [15].

The reformation and Death gets a reboot

The Abbess by Holbein 1523/5. Public domain.

In the sixteenth century, the religious and political landscape of Europe was drastically altered by the Protestant Reformation as well as technical innovations like the printing press. Nevertheless, it was during this period that the Dance of Death had its most famous reboot.  In 1523-25, Hans Holbein produce his famous version of the Dance of Death, however, rather than a public fresco in a church, his work was a series of woodcuts often reproduced in codex/book form.  This broke up the dance into a series of pages and also provided a more private and personal experience for the viewer. And, also, from a modern perspective, reinforces the link between the format of the Dance and modern graphic novel or comic strip art forms. Holbein’s Dance of Death also repurposed the genre as a tool of social satire and religious reform, rather than as a moral or religious lesson [16]. 

Dancing down the ages

The heyday of the Danse Macabre as religious symbolism was the Late Middle Ages, however, the striking visual image of death harrying the living has remained a popular subject for artists throughout the ages, although its message may have changed.

In the nineteenth century, Thomas Rowlandson collaborated with poet William Combe to produce the satirical series The English Dance of Death in 1815.  In the twentieth century, Ingmar Bergman’s Iconic film the Seventh Seal (1957) used Dance imagery, and in the twenty-first century, English Heavy Metal Band Iron Maiden’s 2015 album was named for the Dance of Death.

The English Dance of Death, Thomas Rowlandson 1815. Image from Haunted Palace Collection.And if you thought that the Dance of Death was now just the preserve of historians and heavy metal fans, one school of thought has it that the modern predilection for dressing up in scary costumes at Halloween can be linked back to that most macabre of medieval traditions [17].

Sources and notes

Binski, Paul, Medieval Death, Cornell University Press, 1996 [3] [13] [14] [16]

Cook, Megan, L, and Strakhov, Elizaveta, Ed. John Lydgate’s Dance of Death and Related works, Medieval Institute Publications, 2019 [1] [2] [4] [5] [7] [9] [10] [11]

Dodedans – St Paul’s dance, [8] http://www.dodedans.com/Epaul.htm#:~:text=The%20most%20famous%20dance%20of%20death%20in%20England,%28And%20fro%20Paris%20%2F%20to%20Inglond%20hit%20sent%29.

Ebenstein, Joanna, Ed. Death: A Graveside Companion, Thames & Hudson, 2017. [6]

Gertsman, Elina, The Dance of Death in Reval (Tallinn): The Preacher and His Audience, in Gesta Vol. 42, No. 2 (2003), pp. 143-159 (17 pages) Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the International Center of Medieval Art [12] [15 [17]

Platt, Colin, King Death: The Black Death in England and its aftermath in late-medieval England,  UCL Press.

Ghosts, deadly judges, and the hanging of cousin Charlotte

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after-life, anthology, Carmilla Voiez, death, Dennis Higgins, Essays, Franco Esposito, Ghost stories, Ingrid Hall, Our Day of Passing, Poems, reincarnation, Short stories

Our Day of Passing – An Anthology of Short Stories, Poems and Essays

Complied by Ingrid Hall and Franco Esposito

Free Kindle Download

King Death

Illustration from Chapter 6: ‘Ghosts’; Our Day of Passing.

Death is a subject that most of us are at least mildly curious about. The fact that it is inevitable and that there is no hiding from it adds to its macabre appeal. I have always had a strange relationship with death and rather than becoming increasingly afraid of it in my middle-age, if anything, I have come to respect the power that it has over us all. You can be the sweetest person ever to walk the earth or a twisted, psychopathic serial-killer…but ultimately that great leveler, Death, will come for you.

The beauty of Our Day of Passing – An Anthology of Short Stories, Poems and Essays is that it has been written from a wide range of authors and poets from around the world. Rather than looking at death from one fixed, religious perspective it contains a full range of opinions proving that when it comes to death, there is no right or wrong answer.

So, whether you are pagan in your leanings or deeply rooted in your Catholic faith, or just like a good ghost story, I am sure that you will find something that will make you not only contemplate your own mortality but embrace your life.

Illustration from Chapter 5: ‘The Immortals’; Our Day of Passing.

Our Day of Passing was compiled by Ingrid Hall and Franco Esposito; edited by Ingrid Hall, Carmilla Voiez and Joanne Armstrong; and has contributions from the following international writers and artists:

Ingrid Hall, Franco Esposito, Dennis Higgins, Virginia Wright, Candida Spillard, Valeri Beers, Dada Vedaprajinananda, Strider Marcus Jones, Adam E. Morrison, Allyson Lima, D. B. Mauldin, David A. Slater, David King, Dee Thompson, Donald Illich, Edward Meiman, Eileen Hugo, Emily Olson, Joan McNerney, J.S. Little, Kin Asdi, Madison Meadows, Malobi Sinha, Marianne Szlyk, Mark Aspa, Mark David McClure, Megan Caito, Michael Brookes, Michael Burke, Pijush Kanti Deb, Prince Adewale Oreshade, Rafeeq O. McGiveron, Robin Reiss, Sasha Kasoff, Stephanie Buosi, Talia Haven.

Our Day of Passing is free to download on Amazon until Tuesday 23 February 2016 and will be available in paperback soon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Our-Day-Passing-Anthology-Stories-ebook/dp/B01BQLXBXE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1456046999&sr=8-1&keywords=our+day+of+passing

Michael Scott: The Wizard of the North

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Alchemists, border folklore, border history, Frederick II, judicial astrology, medieval history, medieval scholars, Medieval Wizards, Michael Scott, scottish borders, Scottish history, Wizard of Melrose Abbey, Wizard of the North

The Wondrous Michael Scott

Tomb of Michael Scott at Melrose Abbey, no longer extant. Image adapted by Lenora.

“In these far climes, it was my lot
To meet the wondrous Michael Scott
A Wizard of such dreaded fame,
That when in Salamanca’s cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,
The bells would ring in Notre Dame!”

So wrote Sir Walter Scott in his 1805 poem ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’. But who was the wondrous Michael Scott and why did his legend outlive him by centuries particularly in the English-Scottish borders?   Walter Scott certainly had a lot to do with embellishing Michael Scott’s reputation as the Wizard of the North; but growing up in the borders as he did he would also have been aware of the many tales of Michael’s magical feats such as splitting the Eildon Hills in to three and spinning rope from sand and turning a coven of witches into the stone circle now known as Long Meg and her daughters.  But was Michael Scott a real living person and was he actually a wizard?

Intriguingly enough the answer to both of these questions is YES.  He was a real live Scottish medieval scholar and by the definition of his peers he was also a wizard.  But that was not all there was to Michael Scott – peel back the legend and the folk tales and you find a well-travelled, cosmopolitan man at the cutting edge of medieval learning.

Early life and education

Michael Scott’s early life is not well documented, scholars place the date of his birth around 1175.  This is based on the fact that he arrived at the court of the Holy Roman Emperor in 1220 as a fully qualified scholar with an international reputation.

Some claim Durham, England for his birthplace other say Fife or Balwearie in Scotland.  His family name may not have been Scott – this could be a latter appendage acquired during his European Travels.  Nevertheless who ever his family was it is likely that they were monied enough to fund his education and extensive travels.

Michael was educated possibly at Durham cathedral School and definitely at Oxford and Paris.  In Paris he studied sacred letters, divinity and became a Dr of Theology as well as earning the soubriquet Michael Mathematicus (Michael the Mathematician).   Following his studies he embarked on a scholarly tour of Europe.

International Man of Mystery

For Michael the first decade of the thirteenth century was taken up with establishing his reputation as a monastic scholar of the first water and a practitioner of arcane sciences.  He took up residence in Toledo University, a university famous for the study of the occult.  Here his fame grew as a talented translator of Arabic works into Latin.  His work translating Arabic copies of Classical texts (such as the works of Aristotle) helped to reintroduce much lost classical learning back into Europe.  He translated works such as ‘Liber Astronomie’ by Alpetragius (Abu Ishaq Nured-din-al-Bitruji Al-Ishbilt) and ‘De Animalibus’ prior to 1220.  This familiarity with ‘secret’ knowledge of the east may, at the time of the Crusades when the secrets of the ‘infidel’ were regarded with suspicion, have added to his occult reputation.  Michael’s eccentric dress sense may also have added to his Wizardly credentials as he favoured a long robe, tied at the waste and topped off with a pointed hat.  This may have been in the style of an Arabic Sage but it did cause comment amongst his contemporaries.

The science of heresy

From Toledo, Michael travelled to Bologna, Padua (where he penned his treatise on Judicial Astrology), and Salerno where he may have taken on pupils including the famous mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci (creator of the Fibonacci sequence – so famous it even merited a mention in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code!)

During this time his fame as a translator spread across Europe – even the pope sought out his skills.  One of his areas of expertise that the Catholic Church was less keen on was Judicial Astrology – the practice of divining the future by calculating the position of the planets and sun in relation to the Earth.  Unlike natural and meteorological Astrology which were reputable branches of the sciences, Judicial Astrology existed in the unholy borderlands between religion and science and was considered a heresy by the Catholic Church.  It was also one of the key factors in being considered a Wizard in the Medieval world.

At the crossroads of civilisation

Frederick II Holy Roman Emperor, artist unknown

Frederick II (1194-1250), Holy Roman Emperor was known as Stupor Mundi – the Wonder of the Age.  His court at Palermo in Sicily was situated at the crossroads of civilizations – where the Mediterranean world met the Islamic and Jewish; Frederick was an enthusiastic patron of learning and the sciences and welcomed scholars to his court.  Into this cosmopolitan and glamorous world came Michael Scott, his invitation secured by his fame as a scholar and philosopher.  Frederick wanted a description of the universe and thought Michael Scott was the man for the job.  He posed a series of questions that Michael was to answer.

When not defining the universe for the enlightenment of Frederick, he continued his work as a translator and  his study of alchemy and judicial astrology, writing:

“every astrologer is worthy of praise and honour since by such doctrine as astrology he probably knows many secrets of God, and things which few know.”

such words only help to illustrate why this branch of study rankled the Church so much – after all priests held the monopoly on the secrets of God not heretical scholars!

At Frederick’s Court Michael also produced a number of original works on astrology, alchemy and the occult sciences (not all were completed).  He also studied medicine and was credited with curing Frederick on several occasions.

It is said that he and Frederick enjoyed a close friendship although on at least one occasion it was a testing friendship.  Legend has it that Frederick asked Michael to calculate the distance between the top of a church tower and heaven.  Untroubled by this, Michael confidently produced the figures. Wishing to test his friend, Frederick secretly had the tower’s height reduced and asked the question again hoping to catch Michael out.  The canny Scott was too clever for the cunning Emperor though and responded by saying:

“Either heaven has drawn further away from the earth – or the tower has got smaller!”

Michael’s reputation was not entirely unblemished, he was thought to be a vain man, especially in relation to his scholarly works.  He also claimed to have turned copper into gold and was not above putting on public displays of miracle-working and manipulation to the astonishment of the general population.  Such showmanship would have further cemented his image as a wizard in the minds of the ordinary folk – pre programmed to believe in wonders and miracles rather than look for rational explanations.

This vanity and showmanship also granted him a place in Dante’s Divine Comedy.  Michael appears in the 8th Circle of hell and is introduced thus:

“that other there, his flanks extremely spare,Was Michael Scott, a man who certainly
Knew how the game of magical fraud was played”

And this despite Michael being Dante’s favourite astrologer!  His inclusion is likely to be a political gesture to the Pope and a swipe at the Pope’s sworn enemy ‘The Anti-Christ’ Frederick II.

Michael was also noted for his gift of prophecy and is credited with accurately prophesying the outcome of the Lombard War, the time and manner of Frederick II death and the manner of his own death.  Perhaps Frederick was not too happy having a date set for his demise, and eventually Michael left the glittering Court of the Holy Roman Emperor and continued his travels.

Returning Home

Michael’s final travels appear to have been through Germany, Italy and England and he may have planned to retire to a Monastery. At some point the pope must have got over Michael’s association with his arch nemesis and offered Micheal and arch-bishopric in Ireland but Michael turned the living down.

Lay of Last Minstrel 1806 Ed, collection of Lenora

It is said that Michael, having foreseen his own death being caused by a falling stone, took to wearing a metal hat; however, God or the devil (depending on your viewpoint) has a way of claiming His own. On attending church one day Michael removed his hat and was struck by a piece of falling masonry.  He died later from his injuries.  He is recorded as having died in 1236.

As with his birth, the place of his death and burial is disputed, however the most famous tale is associated with Melrose Abbey where it is said he was buried with his books of magic.

Sir Walter Scott has the Minstrel describe it thus:

“I buried him on St Michael’s night,
When the bell tolled one, and the moon was bright,
And I dug his chamber among the dead,
When the floor of the chancel was stained red,
That his patron’s cross might over him wave,
And scare the fiends from the wizard’s grave.”

Aftermath

Soon after his death, Michael Scott’s legacy was under scrutiny.  Although he was referred to as ‘The most renowned and feared sorcerer and alchemist in the thirteenth century’ he was also consigned to the 8th Circle of Hell by Dante; appeared in Cornelius Agrippa’s “De Occulta Philosophie”; was both derided and defended by later scholars for his occult studies; and entered into the folk memory of the borders as a wizard and magician.  The fact remains, however that he was one of the greatest thinkers of his day: an internationally renowned philosopher, translator and scientist.

Although Michael Scott may have been a little put out that his other scholarly pursuits have been overshadowed by his more occult practices; I don’t think his vanity would have been too pricked to learn that history had granted him the sobriquet: Wizard of the North.

Sources

BBC History, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/scottishhistory/earlychurch/oddities_earlychurch.shtml
Dante, Divine Comedy, Harmondsworth, 1977
New Scotsman, http://www.scotsman.com/news/scottish-wizard-who-tutored-the-pope-1-466356
Phillip Coppens, http://www.philipcoppens.com/michaelscott.html
Rampant Scotland, http://www.rampantscotland.com/famous/blfamwizard.htm
Scott, Walter, ‘The Lay of the Last Minstrel’, London, 1806
Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Scot and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_astrology

Highgate Cemetery, Part Two: A Walk Amongst the Dead

Tags

Highgate Cemetery, Highgate Vampire, London Cemeteries, Victorian Cemeteries, Victorian Death

The Victorian Way of death

Pathway amidst the graves

It was a crisp March day when I found myself making may way down Swains Lane, the lane that cuts through West and East Cemeteries.  I had always wanted to visit Highgate Cemetery, it features in so many of my favorite old horror films such as Tales from the Crypt and From Beyond the Grave (and always appears in my imagination accompanied by an overblown 1970’s horror soundtrack and maybe the odd scream as well…)

You would be unwise to wonder around Highgate Cemetery alone, many of the graves and monuments are fragile and a wrong step off the path could lead the unwary to spending some time up close and personal with a cadaver in a lead-lined vault that could be up to 30 feet deep. The cemetery is vast and has many secluded spots so rescue, should it even come, could be slow indeed….

Don’t be put off by taking a guided tour, touristy it might be, but it is also informative and the cemetery doesn’t lose any of its magic, especially if the group isn’t too large.  The guides are knowledgeable about the famous and not so famous persons buried here, and can help decode the Victorian language of death which written all over their tombstones if you have eyes to see it.  You only have to look at some of the more morbid Victorian paintings (dead shepherds, pining loyal hounds etc) or remember that they often had one last family photo taken with the dearly departed, to know that their attitude to death was very different from our own.

The Circle of Lebanon

One of the first things that struck me about the cemetery was how different it was to modern cemeteries.  Now gravestones are in formal rows, with standardised inscriptions – compared to Victorian exuberance (all weeping angels, obelisks and broken columns) – our way of death seems clinical and regimented.  In a modern cemetery you would never get such a tragic description as that of Emma Wallace Gray who died in 1854 at the age of nineteen “From the effects of her dress having caught fire”.  Her inscription reads thus:

In bloom of youth, when others fondly cling
To life, I prayed, mid agonies for death
The only pang my bleeding heard endur’d
Was, thus so early doomed to leave behind on
Earth those whom I so dearly lov’d.

The architecture too is something you would never find in a modern cemetery, the

Entrance to the Egyptian Avenue

picturesque chaos of the tombstones and mossy angels hidden amongst the trees all overgrown with grasses and wild flowers.  And the monumental grandiose mausoleums; the eerie circle of Lebanon with its use of the natural landscape – the mausoleum is crowned by a Cedar of Lebanon; the austere Terrace of Catacombs cut into the hillside; and of course the fabulous Egyptian Avenue (and the Egyptians knew a thing or two about death).  Walking through the dramatic gateway into the dank alley’s of the Avenue I truly felt like I was walking into another world – a city of the dead.

Highgate and the Macabre

Elizabeth Siddal –
public domain image via Wikimedia Commons

No Victorian cemetery would be complete without some macabre tales, and the one that stuck me most was that of Elizabeth Siddall.  Elizabeth was the beautiful wife and muse of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of the foremost Pre-Raphaelite painters, and herself a talented artist.  Elizabeth died tragically young, only 32, possibly as a result of addiction and depression.  She was buried in 1862 by a grief-stricken Dante Gabriel who tenderly placed a sheaf of manuscript poems by her cheek – how romantic.   But Elizabeth was not to rest in peace for long.  In 1869 Dante Gabriel must have been feeling considerably less grief-stricken and romantic because he ordered her exhumation in order that he could retrieve his manuscript….Hmm.

The Highgate Vampire

The Ham and High Gazette from March 1970

One thing that the tour did not mention was the legend of the Highgate Vampire.  This legend seems to have begun sometime in the late 1960’s, the cemetery was neglected and overgrown and attracted not only vandals but those interested in the occult.  There appears to have been some reports of strange goings on the cemetery and in Swains Lane: reports of dead foxes and of a tall dark figure with burning red eyes (Christopher Lee – I wonder?) scaring dog walkers and generally lurking in a sinister way.

In 1970 an occultist called David Farrant contacted the local newspaper the Ham and High Express and the legend was born…further sightings were recorded (although accounts often varied) and it was proclaimed by Farrant that the figure had Vampiric characteristics and that he and the British Occult Society that he was part of would exorcise it.  Another flamboyant figure, Sean Manchester, appeared at about this time.  The ‘Bishop of Glastonbury’*[please refer to comments section for more information] soon became a rival vampire hunter and a bitter enemy of Farrant (so much so that the best ‘hammer horror’ tradition he is alleged to have challenged his nemesis to a magical duel).

Whatever the truth of the legend, the impact was devastating. On the night of the ‘vampire hunt’ hundreds of ‘vampire hunters’ (many valiantly armed with cans of beer), stormed the police cordon around the cemetery and began basically trashing the place. Needless to say no vampire was found.

During the whole Highgate Vampire frenzy not only were monuments damaged but vaults were broken into, corpses attacked and even beheaded.  One gruesome story is that a local resident found a headless corpse sitting behind the steering wheel of his car.  This might sound funny, but really, it’s not, these desecrated corpses were not vampires or demons, just  ordinary people who had hoped to rest in peace.  Perhaps the real vampires of Highgate were Farrant and Manchester who fed off the media hype they  created.

A modern tragedy

Burials are still carried out in the Cemetery, and one of the modern interments the tour visited was that of Alexander Litvinenko the Russian exile and spy buried in 2006.  Litvinenko was poisoned using Polonium after taking tea with two of his Russian contacts, he died from the effects of the posion. I still remember the news footage showing him fighting for his life in his hospital bed.  He is buried here because the Victorian vaults are lead lined and therefore radiation proof.

His  story reminded me that everyone buried in Highgate, however long ago, was once a living breathing individual with their own personal story.  And that one day, despite our iphones and our apps we will all be dust just like them.

Epilogue

My final thoughts on Highgate Cemetery are best summed up by one if its famous incumbents, Christina Rossetti the poet.

Song

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet:
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

Sources

http://lizziesiddal.com/portal/

http://www.highgate-cemetery.org/index.php/home

http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/england/greater-london/hauntings/the-highgate-vampire-how-it-all-began-by-david-farrant.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highgate_Vampire

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19647226

http://brinkofnada.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/highgate-vampire.html

Esto Perpetua – Real Poetry Has Returned…

Esto Perpetua by SA Todd –  a review

Someone once said that poets are the conscience of a nation – and I think that is true to some extent.  However I have always felt that the power of a poet is in being able to express those feelings and emotions we all share but which most of us cannot put into words.

Esto Perpetua is such a book.  Intrigued by the title I resorted to Google for a translation and came up with: ‘Is this forever’, ‘this is forever and ‘may she live forever’.  All of them evocative and all of them subtly different and perhaps this is appropriate for a book of poetry – built upon the shifting sands of human emotions – why would you want to pin down a fixed meaning when there could be so many…?

From the outset this book draws you in, the prologue is a witty noir-ish prose scene in which the author reveals something of himself and his motives to an unnamed intruder….”Tell him that real poetry has returned.”  he declares…

As I began to read the poems  I could sense the echoes of Tennyson, Browning and TS Elliott in the meter and style, but this was not simply a pastiche or homage to older ‘greater’ poets.  Todd creates his own distinctive voice dressed up in these ‘borrowed’ clothes.  Sometimes moving, sometimes profound, sometimes quirky – he moves between the witty cleverness of Food For Thought (quoted in full below) to the brief but damning social critique of ‘On Salvation’ to the reflective and heart rending poems of Unexpected Meeting or Midsummer Images (Quoted in full below).

I think poetry speaks best for itself so, with the kind permission of S.A.Todd,  I have reproduced two of his poems in full (Midsummer Images and Food for Thought Copyright 2012 S.A.Todd). Details of how to purchase Esto Perpetua can be found at the foot of this post.

Midsummer Images

The clean skies.
The dirty roof guttering.
The elusive, icy shadows.
The cool, shadowed lies.
The churning stomach.

I wonder where you are…

Bird without fear treads the road.
Dead and drying flowers, crumbling in
the delicious breeze.
Humid, boiling green.
Torpid dogs slowly evaporating in their yards.

I wonder what you’re doing…

The bright white houses on the hill.
Forests of cables, seas of powerlines.
Seven screams of children playing, still,
Their scraped-knee tears turning to steam
under the relentless UV assault.

I wonder if you ever think of me…

My memories pay homage to that summer afternoon
Absorbing what it might be like to be You.
Before age sounded the division bell
and the aeroplane jetstream cut my sky in two.

Food For Thought

Monosyllabic nonsense
Tastes best in a layer
in oxymoron BLT
on onomatopoeia.

Low fat pentameter
(Iambic or not)
Will give indigestion,
so don’t have a lot.

A short, rigid structure
Three good squares a day
I find is the best
To keep critics at bay.

I’m sure you’ll agree
for I’ve long promoted
That poets who ramble
Should be hung, drawn, and quoted.

Esto Perpetua by S.A. Todd is available to purchase from

http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/3397402-esto-perpetua?redirect=true