Wearing black to mourn the death of royalty
Death and fashion go hand in hand. The Norwegian royal family caused shock at the funeral of King Olav in 1991 by wearing black, a custom which has been abandoned by the people, whereas Queen Fabiola of Belgium at the funeral of King Baudoin a couple of years later broke the protocol of court mourning by adapting to today's fashion trends and not wearing black. Fashion - including mourning fashion - captures the spirit of the age, making it visible and accessible.
The author of this study focuses on the custom of wearing black for national mourning in Sweden in the past three hundred years. Mourning was both a political means to create uniformity in the country and a tool for the religious education of the people. Changes reflect economic cycles, while mourning customs function in practice as social distinguishing markers.
The breakthrough for the custom of wearing black for mourning came during the baroque period, following the example of Spanish fashions. The rules for the funeral of Queen Ulrika Eleonora in 1693 set a pattern in this respect. Although black had been used before, death and mourning were now draped in black in every parish throughout Sweden. At the same time, mourning ceremonies were enlarged and exaggerated in the early days of the custom, through both the nature of the arrangements and the length of the mourning (summed up in a diagram in the article). Central control was gradually replaced by voluntary practice, through which mourning was transformed into a general convention.
Mourning was shown by wearing black, which was compulsory for all estates of society except the peasantry. It was only after the death of King Oskar II that the custom became voluntary. Mourning dress also originally included draping hats, swords, and drums with black veils, which meant good business for the drapers. The prohibitions issued to limit popular excess in mourning dress were ignored by the rulers themselves.
In accordance with what was already the practice in the capita!, all parishes in Sweden were ordered in 1693 to drape altars and pulpits in black cloth. This could also be used as a sign of mourning during Holy Week and at the funerals of persons of rank. The use of black coffin drapes and chasubles goes back to the baroque mourning customs, although it was not until 1810 that a decree was issued stipulating the use of black chasubles.
Black mourning display was an outward accompaniment to the inner feeling of sorrow and the sense of spiritual guilt which the citizens were supposed to feel over the death of royalty. The death of the king was interpreted during the era of orthodoxy as a punishment inflicted on the people. On specially decreed lamentation days, the people had to go to church to do penance. The prescribed sermon texts were all taken from the Old Testament and the Apocrypha. It was only at the beginning of the nineteenth century that the law and the gospels were balanced. On these lamentation days and at the services held in churches in the kingdom on the actual day of the funeral, a brief printed biography of the deceased was read aloud. Like the widely spread lithographic pictures of the royal death-bed, the death of a king became a mod el of "the good death ". In the twentieth century, memorial services were purely a concern of the church.
The reduction in the ceremonies of national mourning from the Age of Greatness until the present day ultimately reflects the gradual weakening of the monarchy in Sweden, which is perhaps clearest from the extent of bell-ringing at the death of royalty. The present change in trend - not wearing black for mourning - can be said to be the definitive end of the baroque mourning display. Mourning has lost its external distinguishing marks, as well as much of its social foundation and its ideological support.
Translation: Alan Crozier
