This week we discover an instance of institutional kindness – unusual in the early 17th century – following the suicide of a maid of East Smithfield.
7 October 1616
Mary Play, a Maid of East smithfeild, who poysened hir selfe, in the house of hir Maister, Mr John Barbour, was (by a Licence from my Lord Bishoppe of London) buried in our new Church-yard, without any buriall Service, shee was coffind, and had our Black Cloth, Be Sober and watch, for your aduersary the Divel, as a roaring lion walketh abour, Seeking whom he may devour. 1 Peter. 5 Chap. 8 verse
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The first thing that struck me about this entry was the choice of scripture, which seemed to express a great sympathy for the unfortunate Mary Play. This made me wonder if John Clerke (the aptly-named Parish Clerk) and church leaders had information about the circumstances of Mary’s suicide that left them feeling sympathetic rather than merely condemnatory towards her actions as was more usual at this time. We will, of course, never know, but the choice of Bible verse sounded so heartfelt that it I couldn’t help but wonder.
The second particularly interesting thing about this was the fact that Mary was buried in hallowed ground – without a Christian burial service, but in hallowed ground nonetheless – the church having sought permission from the Lord Bishop of London. It was more usual at this time for suicides not only to be denied burial in hallowed ground, but often to suffer descecration of their corpses, and punishment of their families.1
It wasn’t until later in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that suicide began to be viewed not as a sinful decision made voluntarily, but as the result of melancholy madness which was beyond the control of the unfortunate victim. Martin Luther went so far as to argue that suicides were driven to their deaths by the devil, and that they – and their families – therefore could not be held responsible for their actions.2 Our Parish Clerk seems to be of this view as well.
By the early 1700s, the laws disgracing suicides and punishing their families gradually disappeared, and a more humane approach was adopted across Europe.3 It would be interesting to find out how many licences allowing suicides to be buried in hallowed ground were granted by John King, the Lord Bishop of London from 1611 to 1621. I know that he was a well-known Calivinist and anti-Catholic preacher before being appointed Lord Bishop. Did this make him more willing to challenge the dogma of the day? It would certainly appear that at least in this instance he, and St Boltolph’s, were very much ahead of their time.
1 Gale Encyclopaedia of the Early Modern World. http://www.answers.com/topic/suicide accessed 16 August 2011
2 ibid.
3 Sleepless Souls: Suicide in Early Modern England (1990) Michael MacDonald, Terence R. Murphy. Oxford University Press
Many thanks to St Botolph without Aldgate and London Metropolitan Archives for permission to reprint extracts from the Parish Clerks' Memoranda.
The Parish Clerks' Memoranda transcripts were prepared by the Centre for Metropolitan History team as part of their Economic and Social Research Council-funded Life in the Suburbs project (Grant Reference: RES-062-23-1260; http://www.history.ac.uk/projects/life-in-the-suburbs).
