The struggle for consecrated ground : Treatment of suicides' bodies in the Brno diocese after the decriminalisation of suicide (1850-1900)
Abstract
The study deals with the issue of the treatment of suicides' bodies after the decriminalisation of suicide in the Habsburg Monarchy in 1850. Because, in spite of decriminalisation, canon law remained in force prohibiting suicides from resting in consecrated ground, there were frequent conflicts between the ecclesiastical and secular powers in which the local community was often actively engaged.
The aim of the study is primarily to give a sense of these conflicts, using the example of Moravia, and specifically on the material basis of the rich documents preserved in the collections of the Bishop's Consistory in Brno stored at Rajhrad u Brna. The "post-decriminalisation" period in fact includes three basic phases, which divide the study into three basic sections: the period immediately after decriminalisation (1850-1855), when the rules were still being clarified; the period after the Concordat with the Catholic Church, when the Church went on the offensive and proceeded to a more targeted refusal both of church funerals and of interment in the consecrated ground of a cemetery (1855-1873); and finally, after 1873, when the compulsory admission of all suicides to the cemetery was at last formally ordered, which forced new forms of delineation of the cemetery space in order to avoid conflicts with canon law.
The study points out the basic argumentation and organisational strategies chosen by the bereaved, the secular community and finally the church authorities in the "struggle for consecrated ground", which can perhaps be understood as one of the manifestations of the gradual secularisation of the public space and the lives of ordinary citizens.