The "innocent and touching custom" of maidens' garlands: a field report

Folklore, Dec, 2003 by Rosie Morris

Abstract

Aspects of garlanding as a popular custom have received little attention in folkloristic scholarship. Funeral garlanding, particularly the creation of flower-decked shrines to commemorate victims of accidents, as in the case of Diana, Pricess of Wales, has also been explored. This paper deals with another manifestation of mortuary garlanding--the custom of making maidens' garlands for deceased young female virgins. The history, distribution, construction and meaning of these funeral mementoes are dealt with, and detailed fieldwork on maidens' garlands conducted at five churches in Shropshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire from 1990 to 2002, including photographic documentation, is reported in detail.

Introduction

As a child in Shropshire I attended Sunday school at Holy Trinity church, Minsterley, and I can remember gazing up in wonder at the seven garlands suspended from the gallery. The opportunity to research these dusty relics of the past arose in the form of a dissertation topic for my final year of degree study at Birmingham University in 2001, under my mentor Bob Bushaway. In this paper, based on extensive local, regional and national archival research, fieldwork and interviews, I update previous research by a variety of commentators from the nineteenth century onwards, and I present a snapshot of a popular religious custom that has withstood considerable orthodox opposition (see also my "Maidens' Garlands" website--www.dave.morris17.btinternet.co.uk).

Historical Background

Garlanding is a popular, multifaceted custom, some examples of which--for example, May Garlanding and ceremonies such as the Castleton Garland--have received attention in folkloristic literature (Boyes 1993; Robson 1993). Funeral garlanding, in particular the creation of flowery shrines to the victims of accidents, has recently been explored in Folklore (Everett 2000), especially since the death of Diana, Princess of Wales (Evans 1998). Anne Rowbottom (1999) has written an excellent essay on the use of flowers to commemorate the Princess. An older custom, however, in which the connection between funerals and flowers has been demonstrated, that is, the "innocent and touching custom" of using maidens' garlands, as Charlotte Burne described it in 1883 (Burne 1883, 313), has received relatively little attention in recent scholarship (see, however, Brears 1982; Spriggs 1982-3).

Maidens' garlands, or virgins' crowns or crants (the latter term deriving from the German word Kranz or the Dutch word Krans, meaning "wreath" or "chaplet") were funeral mementoes for young, usually female, virgins [1] celebrating "their triumphant victory over lusts of the flesh." Writing from Bromley, Kent, in the south of England, Edward Steele provides a mid-eigh-teenth-century eye-witness account of the adaptation of the custom of providing maidens' garlands at funerals to changed local attitudes:

   In this nation (as well as others) by the abundant zeal of our
   ancestors, virginity was held in great estimation; insomuch that
   those which died in that state were rewarded, at their deaths, with
   a garland or crown on their heads, denoting their triumphant
   victory over lust of the flesh.

   ... the ancients had also their depository garlands, the use of
   which were continued even till of late years ... which garlands,
   at the funerals of the deceased, were carried solemnly before
   the corpse by two maids, and afterwards hung up in some conspicuous
   place within the church, in memorial of the departed person.
   About forty years ago these garlands grew much out of repute, and
   were thought, by many, as very unbecoming decorations for so sacred
   a place as the church; and at the reparation, or new beautifying
   several churches, where I have been concerned, I was obliged, by
   order of the minister and church-wardens to take the garlands
   down ... Yet notwithstanding, several people, unwilling to forsake
   their ancient and delightful custom, continued still the making of
   them, and they were carried at the funerals, as before, to the
   grave, and put therein upon the coffin, over the face of the
   dead; this I have seen done in many places (Steele 1747, 264-5).

Eighty years later George Oliver describes the use of the garlands at Clee, in Lancashire:

   At the death of an individual, a messenger is despatched to every
   householder in the village, with an invitation to join the
   procession to the Church; and it happens, not infrequently, that
   the corpse is attended to its final resting-place by a concourse of
   three or four hundred persons. In the early times it was customary
   in this parish to crown such young females that died in their
   virginity with a triumphant chaplet composed of filigree work, as a
   testimony of their conquest over the lusts of the flesh. This
   token of respect merged, in process of time, into the practice of
   gracing the procession of young unmarried women, with children of
   their own sex, habited in white, and arranged in pairs, and bearing
   garlands cut in white paper, emblematical of their uncorrupted
   innocence, variously disposed according to the rank or situation of
   the deceased, together with long slips of white paper to represent
   ribbons, and other pieces cut into the form of gloves, all of which
   were solemnly suspended when the funeral was over, in some
   conspicuous part of the church, where they remained as a perpetual
   trophy, or memento of the deceased. This practice is of considerable
   antiquity, and derived probably from the Romans, who hung garlands
   about the tombs of young people, as we learn from Lucian, Tibullus,
   and others (Oliver 1829, 413-17).