OBSEQUIOUS LAMENTS”: MOURNING and COMMUNAL MEMORY in SHAKESPEARE’S Richard III
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“OBSEQUIOUS LAMENTS”: MOURNING AND COMMUNAL MEMORY IN SHAKESPEARE’S Richard III KATHARINE GOODLAND College ofStaten Island,City University ofNew York n1590,outraged reformers inLancaster documented“ enormitiesand I abuses”and “ manifoldpopish superstition used in the burialof the dead”by the local community: And when the corpse is readyto be put into the grave, some bykissing the deadcorpse, others bywailing the deadwith morethan heathenish outcries,others with open invocationsfor the dead,and another sort with jangling the bells, sodisturb the whole action,that the minister is oftcompelled to let pass that partof the service andto withdraw himself fromtheir tumultuousassembly. 1 The Elizabethan prelates decry the practice of“ wailingthe dead”as alawless abominationthat undermines civil authorityand impedes the progressof the reformedchurch. In Shakespeare’s Richard III,Gloucester andBuckingham similarly view lamentationas athreat.They worry that their furtiveexecution ofHastings will cause the citizens torevolt, andthey imaginethat rebelliontaking the formof wailing the dead. Buckingham asks the mayorto justify their assassination tothe citizens because he fears they “haply may /Misconstrue us in him andwail his death”(3.5.60-1). 2 Buckingham’s wordsdirectly link politicsand lamentation:he impliesthat the citizens will “wail”for Hastings, not as amatter ofcourse,but as adeliberatemeans ofprotest. The citizens donot rebel against Richard, but the women do,staging their rebellionin the same manner that is denouncedboth within the worldof the playand without. In Act Four,Scene Four,which Nicole Lorauxdubs “ the scene ofmothers” (1), the Duchess ofYork, Queen Elizabeth, andOld Queen Margaretcongregate outside the Tower and“ wail”their dead.They invoke the spiritsof their deadsons and husbandswith “heathenish”cursing andchanting. Earlier in the play, LadyAnne performsa similar ritualover King Henry VI’s corpse, Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 08:38:00PM via free access RELIGION and the ARTS 7:1-2(2002): 31-64. c KoninklijkeBrill NV,Leiden ° RELIGION and the ARTS invokinghis ghost,weeping over his body,and calling downcurses on his murderer. Scholars oftenrefer tothe ritualisticnature of the women’s laments in Richard III.However, noone has yet recognized that these scenes evoke actualmourning practices that were viewedas increasingly problematic afterthe Reformation.In this essay, IexploreShakespeare’ s tragichistory ofan England dividedagainst herself in the context ofElizabethan tensions overmourning and burial ritual. As Ihopeto show, the reintegrationof the fragmentedkingdom depends not upon the proud elegies ofthe men in power,but instead upon the woefullaments of the disenfranchised women.My approachquali es Stephen Greenblatt’s recent readingof Richard III,in which he arguesthat the ghosts in the play,“ functionas the memory ofthe murdered,a memory registered notonly in Richard’s troubledpsyche : : : butalso in the collective consciousness ofthe kingdom. : : : [And]as the agents ofarestoredhealth andwholeness tothe damagedcommunity” (180). I proposethat itis the women,not the ghosts, who articulatethe communal consciousness and catalyze the healingof the kingdom.For the appearanceof the ghosts andRichard’ s troubleddreams arepoetically and dramatically linked tothe rituallaments ofthe widowedqueens. Richard III thus probes the relationshipbetween funeralritual and communal consciousness, registeringa sense ofloss forthe medievalstructure ofcommunal mourningand remembrance that was dismantledby the Reformation. I Shakespearewrote Richard III “about1592” (Baker 708),within two years ofthe riotousceremony recordedin Lancaster. It is astriking coincidence that he stages asimilarLancastrian uprisingwith his weeping widowedqueens. Whether ornot he knew aboutthis particularevent, however, the conjunctionof dramaand ecclesiastical recordsuggests that “wailingfor the dead”was amatter ofsome concern in late sixteenth- century England. What is itabout “ wailingfor the dead”that threatens those seeking politicalpower, as inthe case ofShakespeare’s Richard III,orecclesiastical control,as in the case ofthe Lancastrian visitationrecord? For Buck- inghamand Gloucester itrepresents notonly publicgrief, but civic grievance: acommunal commemorativeritual that wouldcall them to account fortheir crimes. Forthe Elizabethan reformers,the practice demonstrates the tenacity ofindigenous mourning customs despitean extensive ofcial programto eliminate them. 3 These instances embody Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 08:38:00PM via free access 32 Katharine Goodland differentanxieties, butboth demonstrate the powerof funerary rites to performand suppress communal memory. 4 In idealcircumstances, as anthropologistsand social historians have shown, burialrituals accomplish the culturalwork ofupholding and reintegratingcommunities when they arefaced with death. 5 Death rites perform,in orderto contain, the “disintegratingimpulses” which “threaten the very cohesion andsolidarity of the group”(Malinowski 47-50).In the broadestsense, funeralritual resolves the social and psychic disruptioncaused by death through the symbolic enactment of continuity– inthe immediatefamily, in the largerkin groups,and in the widercommunity. However, in post-ReformationEngland, as tensions surroundingthe practice ofwailingthe deadsuggest, funerals were often sites ofdiscord, sources ofangst rather than solace. 6 This unrest arosefrom the eradicationof the doctrineof purgatory, which, as recent studiesshow, was oneof the most unsettling aspects ofthe Reformationin England. 7 It changed, almostovernight, the raisond’ etre ofceremonies forthe dead.The consequent alterations tofuneral ritual were oftensubtle yet profound.On the onehand, many practices, such as heraldic processions andbell-ringing, retained their external shapes with only minormodi cations. On the otherhand, these seemingly slight alterationstransformed the meaningof the ritual. Mostchanges were designedto efface all traces ofthe doctrineof purgatory,effectively cuttingoff communion with the deadand curtailing the acceptable periodof public mourning for the bereaved.Richard L. Greaves describes the “delicateproblem” of the Elizabethan Protestants: “They wantedto curtail ceremonies andsymbols associatedwith such Catholicdoctrines as satisfactionand purgatory, but they neededto retainthe traditionalpomp as an underpinningof the social order; they hadto avoid so alienating the common folkthat Protestantism was repudiated”(695). The banners ofthe Catholicsaints were removed fromthe processions ofheraldic funerals andthe tollingbell was given anew meaning.John Donne’s memorableline, “never send toknow forwhom the bell tolls;it tolls forthee” succinctly encapsulates this revised message (“XVII Meditation”344). The ringingbell, a relic of the MiddleAges, still signals the deathknell, butto a differentend: those who hear itareexhorted to turn inward, to contemplate their own fates,and not concern themselves with the souls ofothers forwhom they now can donothing. The outwardsign remains, butits new message of inwardness andindividuality is remotefrom its functionalorigin, which was toalert the entire community,even farmers tillingtheir elds, tojoin in intercessory, shared prayers forthe souls ofthe dying.The emphasis Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 08:38:00PM via free access 33 RELIGION and the ARTS offuneral practices thus shiftedfrom the communal andspiritual focus of intercession tothe morepersonal and secular focusof commemoration. As Keith Thomas explains, the transformationin the discourseof the afterlifealtered not only the relationshipbetween the livingand the dead,but it also changed the communities ofthe living: Protestantdoctrine meant that each generationcould be indifferentto the spiritualfate of its predecessor.Every individualwas now tokeep his own balance-sheet, anda man couldno longer atone for his sins bythe prayers of his descendants. This impliedan altogethermore atomistic conceptionof the relationshipin which members ofsociety stoodto each other.No longer would they allocateso much oftheir resources tothe performanceof rituals primarilyintended for the spiritualwelfare oftheir dead ancestors. (603) In contrast tothe medievaldiscourse which emphasized continuity andreciprocity between the livingand the dead,the post-Reformation construction ofdeath made the ultimateend nal,with nopossibility formitigation or alteration. The bereavedhad no hope of helping their lovedones throughcompassionate intercessory prayeror weeping. As Michael Neill putsit, intercession was a“liturgyof remembrance,” irrevocablysilenced bythe Reformation:the livingcould no longer “intervene onbehalf of the dead;each man’s deathhad become : : : aprivateApocalypse, whose awfulJudgment couldnever bereversed. The deadmight still call uponthe duty,love, and pity of the living,but the new theologyrendered all such emotionpainfully ineffectual” ( Exeunt 180).This separationbetween the livingand the dead,Eamon Duffy pointsout, is evidentin the revised funeralservice: “itis nottoo much tosay that the oddestfeature of the 1552burial rite is the disappearance ofthe corpse fromit” (475). The banishment ofthe bodyfrom the burialrite suggests early Protestantism’s deepanxiety overany hint ofa communicative link between the worldof the deadand the community ofthe living. Tomany Protestants the change meant againin godliness,a cleansing ofthe church fromcorrupt, pagan-inspired practices, anda nascent sense ofnational identity. 8 Butto