Playing With Skulls
Reading time: 7 minutes
Playing with skulls, does that still happen? Well, people have done so for centuries. Historians often assume that the attitude towards death and dying has changed, especially during the 20th century. In previous centuries, so it is assumed, people felt closer to death and were therefore more familiar with mortal remains. But were they really? Let us have a look at a number of occurrences.
About a Dog and a Head
In the second half of the 18thcentury, the (possibly alleged) danger of burial in churches and churchyards was quite an issue. Burial within the town walls was claimed to be unhygienic and the proximity of all those corpses deadly to visitors. In 1786 a Dutchman named Terne advocated the abolition of burial in churches and churchyards. To illustrate his point, he told of an incident in the Dutch city of Leiden, where a dog had been running through town carrying a skull “which was only partly decomposed” in his mouth. “This caused great commotion among the lower classes.”
Obviously, it was particularly the poor who were shocked. After all, the better-off members of society were buried in a safe place under the church floor, while the poor were likely to end up on the outskirts of the city or in the churchyards. They were often placed in common graves, where corpses were covered with only a thin layer of earth, and dogs could therefore easily find something to their liking.
Charnel Houses
Some people also objected to the visibility of death in the form of the charnel houses, where bones and skulls of the decomposed bodies were eventually stored. In 1777, professor Kluit of Leiden University, wrote that to him charnel houses were a loathsome sight, which was his main reason for forbidding burials in churchyards. A few years later, Ockerse, a Dutch clergyman, disagreed with professor Kluit. He argued that the charnel houses did not evoke the idea of memento mori at all: “People regard a charnel house with the same indifference as bestowed on a dung heap.” According to him this constituted a sound reason to do away with churchyards and charnel houses. Assuming that both gentlemen chose their arguments carefully, we may safely conclude that not everyone felt comfortable about the sight of all those grinning skulls.
The Idea of Memento Mori Invoked by Skulls?
In her memoirs Keetje Hooijer-Bruins writes about Lambertus Ledeboer (1808-1863), the youngest son of a wealthy Rotterdam merchant. Around 1835, Ledeboer (who later became a clergyman) stayed with Keetje’s parents in the village of ’s Graveland. He was terribly annoyed at the sight of carriages taking the rich occupants of the country houses to church on Sundays. Being the son of a wealthy merchant himself, he must have been accustomed to those carriages in his hometown of Rotterdam, but apparently he felt that it was a sinful practice of churchgoers to use them on Sundays.
The charnel house near the church still contained many bones, although the churchyard had fallen into disuse. Ledeboer selected some skulls and placed them by the side of the road in the form of a pyramid. This way he wanted to instill the idea of memento mori into the minds of the proud and the rich, and show them what they would eventually turn into. He called Keetje’s mother to show the result of his labours. He was very disappointed, however, when he was told that the coaches would drive past the charnel house after having dropped off the passengers. Only then the coachmen would notice the skulls, but surely the spectacle was not meant for them.
Ledeboer’s arrangement of the skulls was intended to frighten people: it is evidence of the fact that the physical presence of death still made a big impression at the beginning of the 19th century. So the alleged age-old familiarity with death did not exist.
Thighbones Used as Swords
Around 1800, boys were not always afraid of dead people’s bones. In 1798, for example, people complained about the churchyard in the small town of Winterswijk, because it contained so many potholes. In some places the half-decomposed contents of collapsed coffins came to the surface. To make things even worse, many bones and skulls appeared when new graves were dug. Eventually, all these remains ended up in the charnel house.
A contemporary wrote: “It was disgusting to see how some boys liked bashing the skulls and took the longest bones and tied them around their waists with a rope, wielding them like swords and using them to fight each other.” In a village near London similar scenes were observed. It was probably the lack of money for buying toys that these bones were used as such.
Even at the beginning of the 20thcentury, boys in the Frisian village of Balk searched for human bones. The schoolyard was situated near the site of an old churchyard, which had not been covered with brick, but with tamped earth. A former pupil serves as an eyewitness: “When we did not play games, we went digging in the schoolyard, although we were not allowed to do that. It may seem a somewhat lugubrious activity, but it was very exciting. If you dug deep enough – about three feet – you would certainly find bones, wooden remains or handles of decayed coffins. From time to time, someone would say: “I have found something again”. I remember that for a long time I had half a jaw in my possession, which I found under the schoolyard! For boys like us that was a real treasure, the envy of all your friends.”
Less than half a century ago, village children still played with human bones. Our eyewitness is Regnerus Steensma, co-founder of both the Frisian and Groningen Foundations for the conservation of old churches. In 1969, on a beautiful summer afternoon, he looked at the dilapidated church of the Groningen village of Obergum. The doors were wide open and the windows were broken, so that rain and wind had had free play. The crypt (where the rich inhabitants of the village had found their final resting place) was also accessible and had already been ransacked by local youngsters, judging by the fact that the children were playing with bones in the streets.
The Catacombs of Paris
In this respect too, the differences between past and present are relative. Skulls are hardly available in our modern, hygienic times. Occasionally, someone has a skull in the hallway, serving as an eye-catcher. But only half a century ago, medical students often managed to acquire real skulls.
For a small fee, it is still possible to take a close look at skulls in the Catacombs of Paris. At the end of the 18th century all the churchyards of Paris were cleared, and the human remains were stored in an old quarry. As the photograph shows, the bones and skulls were then neatly piled up and cemented together. The rest of the bones were stored behind those bony walls. At the entrance of the quarry there is a notice (to prevent liability, I assume) warning people with weak nerves. “Are these bones real?” someone asked. Well, they certainly are: the bones of millions of Parisians, artistically arranged to form the largest charnel house in the world.
Sources: A.M. van der Woude, Lit us tinke oan alde tiden, Leeuwarden 1972; Regnerus Steensma. De oprichting van de Stichting in 1969; B. Stegeman, Het oude kerspel Winterswijk, Zutphen 1927; Peter Barber (ed.), Gin and Hell-Fire. Henry Batchelor’s memoirs of a working class childhood 1823-1837 (London 2004); Keetje Hooijer-Bruins, Domineesdochter in ’s Graveland. (1981, orig. 1884); A. Kluit, Inwijdingsrede over den bijgeloovigen oorsprong en schadelijke gevolgen van’t begraven in kerken en steden (Middelburg 1777); W. Ockerse, Het begraven der dooden buiten de kerk en stadspoorten, 1792.
Translated by Ite Wierenga
