What are the similarities among these grave stones? How would you describe the conventions of mortuary art in New England, 1650-1700? What might the grave stones tell us about the colonists’ understanding of death? Are they afraid? Looking forward to an afterlife?
11 thoughts on “The Puritan Way of Death”
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Gravestones are noticeably absent of religious symbols. Instead, the gravestones’ central image tends to be a winged skull—seeming to represent physical death and the freedom of the soul found therein. Other prominent images include the hourglass and crossbones, both functioning as momento mori for the puritan onlooker.
Although, in theory, death is a benevolent occasion for the puritans as it denotes a break from the unimportant stuff of the physical world, it is clear persons are afflicted by sadness upon the passing of their loved ones. No better example of this can be found than on the gravestone of Josiah Miller, whereupon it is written that the deceased lived for “4 Years, 4 Mo[nths] & 15 Days” before the Lord claimed him. The emphasis of Josiah’s life down to the days, as opposed to the more macroscopic year count found on all the other gravestones we looked at, denotes a preciousness of the child’s life that his parents cherished and wanted to commemorate. Taking such pains to commission a memento like the gravestone, especially considering it conflicted with the asceticism of pious puritan society, bespeaks emotional ones from Josiah Miller’s passing.
The gravestones all share a similar aesthetic design in that they include the skull with wings, crossbones and hourglasses, but I was more intrigued by the numbers and dates. I think that the Puritans were looking forward to the afterlife or at least thought they should be looking forward to the afterlife because of the fact that almost every gravestone includes the date of death but not the date of birth. Yes, they do include the age, but that is more to represent the insignificance of a short life in the grand scheme of god’s plan.
I also noticed that there were only one or two stones that had an inscription other than name, age and marital status. One said, “Did much good in her life” and another said, “Memory of the just is blessed”. The attention to detail of estimating ages and dates of death (in the case of the young boy his age is even given down to the day), combined with the lack of inscriptions suggests to me that gravestones were used as a form of record keeping in a way.
I think that if the Puritans were performing their duties as either a wealthy person or a lowly person, and happy in their roles, then any inscription or ornate engraving would seem to be an attempt to curry favor with god or to assert a family’s ability to finance such an elaborate gravestone. These are the exact practices that the Puritans left England to escape from so I am not surprised that the stones have very similar lettering and iconography and are all rather simple and small in design and size.
I get the impression from these gravestones that the Puritans do fear death, though they may not want to admit it. They clearly have the belief that it is all a part of God’s plan, but it seems to me like they struggle with that mightily. Bradstreet’s poems are like the poem about her house fire; she knows the theological position she must uphold, but she seems to be drilling it into her brain rather than honestly accepting it. Further, shared on all these gravestones is the winged skull. Sure, the wings refer to the soul’s ascendence after death, but the skull is a pretty striking choice as well. They do not present some beautiful angelic figure to represent the soul’s ascent to heaven, but rather a morbid reality of the body that stays behind. Clearly they believe, or want to believe, that death is always a part of God’s plan, but judging by this art, it seems like they still consider it a fearful truth (Unless the skull and crossed bones have some positive cultural association I am unaware of, but that seems unlikely).
From the readings and lectures, I have learned that Puritans view death as a natural occurrence and understand that God is in control of death. In the poem “In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Elizabeth Bradstreet”, Anne Bradstreet says “farewell” to here grandchild as if she was just taking a journey. The farewell seems comfortable and assured that the baby is going to a safer and more peaceful place. With this understanding, one can analyze the gravestones as having natural understanding of death. Like everyone else has commented, the skull/crossbones and wings signify a natural ascendence towards heaven. The second stanza of the poem begins with death in the natural world of plants. For instance she writes that “by nature trees do rot when they are grown, and plums and apples thoroughly ripe do fall, and corn and grass are in their season mown,”. She is relating human death to the natural occurrences of plants growing and dying. One of the gravestones even has an engraving of one single leaf attached to a branch. This leaf looks like it is about to fall and perhaps fly off into heaven. I would not say the Puritans are exactly looking forward to the afterlife, but they are not afraid of it and they understand the afterlife as a natural happening.
The bones and skulls of Puritan gravestones, as mentioned before, most likely signify an acceptance of death. In reading poetry by Anne Bradstreet, they also suggest a return to a primal form outside of flesh and skin. In “In Memory of My Dear Grandchild Anne Bradstreet,” the typical response of shock and trauma after the death of a loved one is replaced with the language of change and a natural order. Death is “a withering flower,” “a bubble,” “or like a shadow turning”– a necessary, elusive, and beautiful “fading.” In life, Bradstreet seems to be saying, all things are measured and poised to end, as the seasons do. The gravestone markers are therefore not quite morbid, but elemental.
The final gravestone belonging to Joseph Tapping stands out the most. Like the others, it has an engraved skull with wings and an hourglass. I agree with the prior comments that the skull likely represents for the deceased’s ascendance to heaven, and that the hourglass is a form of memento mori. But it’s surprisingly decadent and large compared to the other gravestones. Its shape is the most complex and its carving is the most intricate. I wonder if Joseph Tapping was a prominent member of his community or a wealthy merchant. A large gravestone could have served as a status symbol in puritan New England. As we noted during class last Wednesday, the puritans were not opposed to flourishes and decoration, and this is reflected in their gravestones. They could have left simple headstones that served to denote a person’s place of burial. The artwork reflects that the puritans believed that there was value in elaborate reminders of the dead of and death. This belief conveys that the puritans had death on their minds and were always preparing for death. They thought that this life was merely a short intermediate phase before the afterlife.
One thing that hasn’t been touched upon that stuck out to me was the amount of detail and writing on some of the gravestones. Some were quite descriptive about how and where the person died, for example the grave of Peter Adolph. Some also gave me clues about whether or not the Puritans feared or accepted death. The gravestone of Joanna Cotton reads, “The memory of the just is blessed.” To me, this implies that those who did good – did what they were supposed to and practiced their beliefs properly – had nothing to fear of the afterlife. Consistent with what Anne said, I believe that they believed in an afterlife and would be brought there by the angels, as shown by the detailed engravings of wings on the gravestones. Perhaps if you were buried with those wings on your stone, you were worthy of the afterlife.
The main qualities that the Puritan grave stones from 1650-1700 shared were the inclusion of the skull with wings at the top of the gravestone, inscriptions of deceased’s age and date of death, and the lack of religious iconography. Also included on some of the grave stones are hourglasses and crossbones. Without any other knowledge of the Puritans I would likely think these gravestones were made by a people who are not looking forward to an afterlife. The hourglasses seem to suggest a reminder of the brevity of life (without showing any indication of the eternity of the afterlife) and the crossbones are simply a reminder of death. The repeated skull with wings symbol seems to be the one element on the gravestone that shows any slight indication of belief of an afterlife. Knowing the Puritans obviously did believe in an afterlife, the skull with wings seems to symbolize the human soul being flown up towards heaven (hence being at the top of all the gravestones). It is surprising that the gravestones show no religious symbols to make the Puritans’ religious beliefs of the afterlife clearer. From other passages, like the Bradstreet and Taylor poems, we know that the Puritans actually do value the afterlife and even though they grieve the deaths of loved ones, they take solace in knowing the soul is now with God.
The Puritans accept death and view it as a reunion with God, and that death too is an act of God’s will. The last image in the slides (“Tempus Erat”) particularly shows that while death snuffs the light of a human being, God is really controlling death’s hand. The repetition of the hourglass carving seems to imply that there is only a matter of time before our allotment on earth ends. Much of the language also suggests that our time here on earth is merely borrowed. Anne Bradstreet describes how time was “lent” to both Elizabeth and Anne Bradstreet before they died. It seems that the Puritans do not fear their own death but acknowledge the sadness about others’ deaths. There is an intriguing struggle of pain and acceptance over death – Bradstreet comments that Simon, who passed away after only a month, caused the family to weep, and yet follows with: “Such was His will, but why, let’s not dispute.” Ultimately they feel that they must accept God’s will, as Edward Taylor exhibits with the final line of his poem, expressing his hope that he might create children too whether God lets them grow up or not.
As Tyler previously mentioned, a repeated image on these gravestones is the skull with wings, suggesting the dead will ascend to heaven. Considering Edward Taylor’s poem, “Upon Wedlock, and Death of Children,” this image my represent “a glorious hand from glory came/ Guarded with Angels.” The dead will ascend into Heaven with a helping hand from the angels. The Puritans do not fear death, because they know they will not be alone. Additionally, the images of the crossbones and hourglass are engraved in many of the gravestones. The images considered together seem to be a reminder for the living that eventually everyone’s time will run out, and their bodies will be reduced to bones, while your spirit moves on. Anne Bradstreet mimics the idea of death reminding the living of their fate, and seems to be comforted by what lies beyond death. Though she is saddened by her granddaughter’s death, she proclaims, “farewell dear child, thou ne’er shall come to me,/ But yet a while, and I shall go to thee.” Her granddaughter’s death reminds her that although death is devastating to the living, all will one day meet the same fate and connect with their loved ones, who “with they Savior art in endless bliss.”
The gravestones all share decorative aspects that suggest an ascendance to heaven and leafy, “nature-like” designs that seem to designate the deaths as natural and destined by God’s design. Specifically the symbol of wings emanating from both sides of a skull repeatedly appears, especially near the top of the gravestones. This symbol links death to angels – messengers of God – in order to evoke the feeling that although death is sad, it is also just because God has sanctioned it. Such sentiments resonate with the Bradstreet and Taylor poems in which both authors express deep pain from the deaths of their young relatives but ultimately accept the deaths through their devotion to God and “His hand alone that guides nature and fate”. The epitaphs are matter of fact and direct, omitting any indication of tragedy or sorrow; one even describes a washed-up drowned man in an unsentimental and straightforward manner. One engraving detail shows a skeleton being lead by a God-like figure in snuffing out a candle, a metaphor for the role of God’s will in death. They spin death into an almost positive light at times, as in Taylor’s poem he thanks God for the death of his child because now he feels more connected to heaven: “It is my pledge in glory, part of me Is now in it, Lord, glorified with Thee”. Although death is not celebrated, it is made out to be less of a terrible occurrence in the grand scheme of God’s plans.