Now! Then! Burials must henceforth be in wool, in order to support woollen manufacturers and reduce linen imports

Excerpt

For the encouragement of the woollen manufactures of this kingdom and prevention of the exportation of the monies thereof for the buying and importing of linen be it enacted … that from and after the five and twentieth day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred sixty seven no person or persons whatsoever shall be buried in any shirt, shift or sheet made of, or mingled with, flax hemp, silk, hair, gold or silver, or other than what shall be made of wool only, or be put into any coffin lined or faced with anything made of, or mingled with, flax hemp, silk or hair upon pain of the forfeiture of the sum of five pounds, to be employed to the use of the poor of the parish where such person shall be buried for, and towards the providing a stock or work house for the setting them at work, to be levied by the church wardens and overseers of the poor of such parish or one of them by warrant from any justice of the peace or mayor, alderman or head officer of city, town or place corporate respectively within their several limits by distress and sale of the goods of the party interred contrary to this Act rendering the overplus, or in default thereof by distress and sale of the goods of any that had a hand in the putting such person into such shift, sheet or coffin contrary to this Act, or did order or dispose the doing thereof to be levied and employed as abovesaid.

Provided that no penalty appointed by this Act shall be incurred for or by the reason of any person that shall die of the plague, though such person be buried in linen.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Abbreviations

Comment

The 1666 Act was generally disregarded – burial in linen has a long tradition – and in 1678 more stringent legislation was passed, obliging the clergy to confirm in the registers that an affidavit had been made to the effect that the body was wrapped in woollen only. For burial in linen there was a penalty of £5, half of which went to the informer and half to the poor of the parish. For the moneyed, this became viewed as a tax to be paid rather than a law to be obeyed, and would be halved by the nomination of an informer from the family circle. Enforcement had ended well before the statues were repealed in 1814. The three acts in question are 18 & 19 Cha. II c. 4 (1666), 30 Cha. II c. 3 (1678) and 32 Cha. II c. 1 (1680).

The affidavit requirement made this, where enforced, a tax on Quakers until passage under William of Orange of the Quakers Act 1695, which allowed Quakers to substitute an affirmation where the law previously required an oath. An anecdote. John Ecroyd buried his young son James in his orchard at Briercliffe, near Burnley, on 4 June 1683:

In the latter end of the 6th month 1683, Richard Whitchelqh, John Hargreaves, and Lawrence Thornber, wardens, and Richard Swaine, overseer, took from [me] John Ecroyd of Briercliff, a kersey piece and a stone of wool, worth £2 10s. (beside other goods returned again) by warrant from Thomas Bredwell called Justice, upon information of Robert Hartley of Burnley called curate, for not making certificate upon oath of my child being buried in woollen. Though it was told the said Thomas Bredwell, that information was given to one called a minister, called James Hargreaves, unto whom, by right it did belong to receive the same; and also that my child was buried in woollen. Yet being nothing would satisfy but the oath, and I could in conscience ask none to do it (or swear for me) distress was made as above. John Ecroyd (Friend 1835).

I wish I had (also) found an appropriate first-person excerpt from Yorkshire.

Alexander Pope on the actress Mrs. Oldfield, who died in 1730:

“Odious! in woollen! ‘t would a saint provoke,”
Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke.
“No, let a charming chintz, and Brussels lace,
Wrap my cold limbs, and shade my lifeless face.”
(Pope 1754)

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Original

For the encouragement of the woollen manufactures of this kingdom and prevention of the exportation of the monies thereof for the buying and importing of linen be it enacted … that from and after the five and twentieth day of March in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred sixty seven no person or persons whatsoever shall be buried in any shirt, shift or sheet made of, or mingled with, flax hemp, silk, hair, gold or silver, or other than what shall be made of wool only, or be put into any coffin lined or faced with anything made of, or mingled with, flax hemp, silk or hair upon pain of the forfeiture of the sum of five pounds, to be employed to the use of the poor of the parish where such person shall be buried for, and towards the providing a stock or work house for the setting them at work, to be levied by the church wardens and overseers of the poor of such parish or one of them by warrant from any justice of the peace or mayor, alderman or head officer of city, town or place corporate respectively within their several limits by distress and sale of the goods of the party interred contrary to this Act rendering the overplus, or in default thereof by distress and sale of the goods of any that had a hand in the putting such person into such shift, sheet or coffin contrary to this Act, or did order or dispose the doing thereof to be levied and employed as abovesaid.

Provided that no penalty appointed by this Act shall be incurred for or by the reason of any person that shall die of the plague, though such person be buried in linen.

299 words.