History and Other Stuff: Moving the Dead: From Churchyards to Cemeteries

When we visit old churches in Europe and the Americas, say older than the mid-19th century, we expect to find graves in the churchyards and in the churches themselves, under the floors, in crypts, in the walls. The two medieval parish churches below are an example. The first is in Eyam, Derbyshire, the other in Beddington, South London.

In the Crypt Café in St. Martin in the Fields, London, you can walk and even dance to jazz on the graves of the dead. None of them have gotten up to join the fun, as far as I know.

Modern churches seldom host the dead, or not very many. Instead, we find them in large cemeteries, usually well away from the old centers of towns and cities.

Why is this? In part, the shift occurred to the rapid growth of population, especially in urban areas. During the industrial revolution, urban populations grew exponentially. New cities mushroomed where once there were mere villages or small towns. Many old cities expanded enormously. London grew from about 600,000 in 1700 to over 4 million by 1900.

Another development that promoted the change in burial practices was increasing acceptance of the miasma theory of disease. This was the idea that disease spread through bad air, or unpleasant smelling miasmas.

The main source of miasmas was said to be decomposing organic matter. Swamp and marshes were a major source of bad air (Italian: mal'aria) and many doctors attributed fevers to the gases that arose from them. The bad air theory survives in our name for an ancient disease that remains a major killer, malaria. It is one of the quintessential "miasmatic" diseases.

Miasmas were blamed for numerous other killer diseases, including typhoid, yellow fever, and one that terrorized 19th century cities: cholera. The color lithograph below, by Robert Seymour (1831), imagines cholera as a death-bearing ghostly cloud.

In the case of cholera and many other infectious diseases of urban areas, the major source of miasmas was believed to human and animal wastes. Disposal of organic wastes became a bigger problem as population densities grew. And they far faster than effective sanitary infrastructures. As historian Stephen Marcus wrote of 1840s Manchester, "people were literally living in shit."

Miasma theory contributed to demands for urban sanitary reform. Although they knew nothing of the role of germs, advocates of the theory campaigned for the cleaning up of noxious streets and privies, removal of human wastes through sewage systems, and the provision of clean water to houses.

They also targeted something else: churchyard burials. The growth of urban populations outstripped the burial space in the church cemeteries. As they became more crowded, churchyards overflowed with bodies whose decomposition often produced foul smells, especially during major epidemics.

The solution, Miasmatists believed, was to ban church burials and create large, parklike cemeteries on the outskirts of towns, away from densely populated areas. The idea produced a lot of opposition from people who believed that burial near the church placed them closer to God. In the end, however, the sanitary reformers won the debate. For good or evil, cities relocated the dead and altered the urban environment in a significant way.

Below are a few examples of early ex-urban cemeteries:

Highgate Cemetery, North London