The Normans in the Mediterranean

7

Death & burial : funerary rites

 

    Funerary practices in the Norman Mezzogiorno were no different from other parts of Christian Europe. For the common run of people, burial in consecrated ground was the rule, generally in parish cemeteries now laid out around the church. The practice of burial inside the church only began to develop at the turn of the 11th and 12th c.

As newcomers to the Mezzogiorno, the Norman lords set about asserting their authority by funerary practices to which they attached a great deal of importance. Both on the continent and in Sicily, the Norman lords made certain major sanctuaries their preferred place of burial, where they had some imposing monuments built. The memory of the dynasty also appears in the epitaphs that have come down to us, like those of Robert Guiscard, Roger the Great Count and Bohemund of Taranto.

 

 

Cemeteries
The Norman lords' funeray monuments
Funerals for the Norman kings
Epitaphs and funerary literature

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