Churches, Charnel Houses, and Catholic Repentance

So, in the 17th Century, the Portuguese were really into God. This meant that people were also really into being buried at their local church, cathedral, or other Christian-flavored places of worship. Over time, these place's cemeteries became full of bodies, and most churches resorted to stuffing skeletons behind the walls, underneath the floorboards, or just deeper into the cemetery. This meant that after a while, Iberian churches were just absolutely full of bodies, which wasn't exactly sustainable. Skeletons aren't exactly known for being that decomposable, even if their flesh vanishes pretty quickly, which led to churches literally overflowing with bones. During times of disasters and plague, churches would have to bury thousands of bodies at once, which left little room for other bodies. 

                     An ossuary in Portugal.

The solution for this, the Portuguese Catholic establishment concluded, was bone houses, which became charnels in English. They're also known as Ossuaries in Latin, from the Latin word os, meaning bone. Basically, they were just small chapels filled to the brim with a whole lot of bones, just in a big pile. Sure, it was crowded and perhaps a little claustrophobic, but it was close to the holy place, and it provided a sustainable and comparatively cheap method of body disposal. Some charnel houses are basically storerooms with a big pile of bones in them, but some are fantastically decorated. Because clergy and monks often went to charnel houses to think about metaphysics or whatever, some churches decided these charnel houses deserved a little interior design. This likely started with just putting a little art in these rooms, perhaps a small tapestry next to the smaller skull pile, or a sculpture of the Virgin Mary amongst the femurs - but it evolved into decorating with the bones, which is pretty damn resourceful.

One of the most fascinating charnel houses in Portugal is at Evora, called the Capela dos Ossos, or Chapel of Bones. It's housed in a former Franciscan dormitory. Whilst most Spanish and other European monks practising this kind of bone decoration were Capucian, in Portugal, it was mostly practised by Franciscan monks. At the chapel, the message over the door reads (in Portuguese) "We Bones Are Here Waiting for Yours," which I'll admit is a tiny bit creepy - but kinda poetic all the same. The Chapel houses almost 5000 full skeletons worth of bones, most of which were actually exhumed from local cemeteries. This charnel has existed since the 1650s. The whole setup at the Capel dos Ossos is meant to encourage repentance.

Basically, in the 17th Century, groups of monks from all across the Catholic world got into the idea that everyone in the world at the time was really ungodly, so they needed to remind people they were going to die, and therefore force them to think about what they're condemning themselves in the afterlife, therefore encouraging they repent. Of course, very logically, their big solution to this problem was to build huge bone palaces out of the locally exhumed remains of thousands of people and force the patrons of their churches to visit them. Seems legit. 

Honestly, I'm all for it. I don't know if I believe in a God, and I'm almost certain that if I do it's not a Christian one, but I think that provoking thoughts about what happens after we die, and valuing appreciating and making good our lives is a very good idea. Encouraging the idea of repentance just so you don't go to hell does seem a little self-centred, especially for monks, but if it works, it works. Also, clergymen making huge bone houses for the patrons of their churches would make me wanna spend my Sunday in a pew, so that's a bonus. It sucks that it's really quite illegal to make art out of exhumed bodies now because I'd totally buy that, but it's also great that I can see them in action on the Iberian Peninsula. 

07/03/2022

by Frankie E.J. Robinson