1.
IX monogram
The IX monogram or XI monogram is a type of early Christian monogram looking like the spokes of a wheel, sometimes within a circle. The IX monogram is formed by the combination of the letter I or Iota for IHSOYS, the spokes can be stand-alone, without the circle. These monograms can often be found as ancient burial inscriptions
2.
Classical architecture
Different styles of classical architecture have arguably existed since the Carolingian Renaissance, and prominently since the Italian Renaissance. Although classical styles of architecture can vary greatly, they can in all be said to draw on a common vocabulary of decorative and constructive elements. The term classical architecture applies to any mode of architecture that has evolved to a highly refined state, such as classical Chinese architecture and it can refer to any architecture that employs classical aesthetic philosophy. The term might be used differently from traditional or vernacular architecture, for contemporary buildings following authentic classical principles, the term New Classical Architecture may be used. Classical architecture is derived from the architecture of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, with the collapse of the western part of the Roman empire, the architectural traditions of the Roman empire ceased to be practised in large parts of western Europe. In the Byzantine Empire, the ancient ways of building lived on, the first conscious efforts to bring back the disused language of form of classical antiquity into Western architecture can be traced to the Carolingian Renaissance of the late 8th and 9th centuries.
In general, they are not considered classical architectural styles in a strict sense, the classical architecture of the Renaissance from the outset represents a highly specific interpretation of the classical ideas. Most of the styles originating in post-renaissance Europe can be described as classical architecture and this broad use of the term is employed by Sir John Summerson in The Classical Language of Architecture. The elements of architecture have been applied in radically different architectural contexts than those for which they were developed. For example, Baroque or Rococo architecture are styles which, although classical at root, during these periods, architectural theory still referred to classical ideas but rather less sincerely than during the Renaissance. Neoclassical architecture held a strong position on the architectural scene c. With the advent of Modernism during the early 20th century, classical architecture arguably almost completely ceased to be practised, as noted above, classical styles of architecture dominated Western architecture for a very long time, roughly from the Renaissance until the advent of Modernism.
That is to say, that classical antiquity at least in theory was considered the source of inspiration for architectural endeavours in the West for much of Modern history. Furthermore, it can even be argued that styles of architecture not typically considered classical, like Gothic, therefore, a simple delineation of the scope of classical architecture is difficult to make. The more or less defining characteristic can still be said to be a reference to ancient Greek or Roman architecture, and the architectural rules or theories that derived from that architecture. In the grammar of architecture, the word petrification is often used when discussing the development of sacred structures, such as temples, during the Archaic and early Classical periods, the architectural forms of the earliest temples had solidified and the Doric emerged as the predominant element. And not everyone within the reach of Mediterranean civilization made this transition. Nor was it the lack of knowledge of working on their part that prevented them from making the transition from timber to dressed stone
3.
Gothic architecture
Gothic architecture is a style of architecture that flourished in Europe during the high and late medieval period. It evolved from Romanesque architecture and was succeeded by Renaissance architecture and its characteristics include the pointed arch, the ribbed vault and the flying buttress. Gothic architecture is most familiar as the architecture of many of the cathedrals, abbeys. It is the architecture of many castles, town halls, guild halls, universities and to a less prominent extent, private dwellings, for this reason a study of Gothic architecture is largely a study of cathedrals and churches. A series of Gothic revivals began in mid-18th-century England, spread through 19th-century Europe and continued, largely for ecclesiastical and university structures, the term Gothic architecture originated as a pejorative description. Hence, François Rabelais, of the 16th century, imagines an inscription over the door of his utopian Abbey of Thélème, Here enter no hypocrites, slipping in a slighting reference to Gotz and Ostrogotz.
Authorities such as Christopher Wren lent their aid in deprecating the old medieval style, the Company disapproved of several of these new manners, which are defective and which belong for the most part to the Gothic. Gothic architecture is the architecture of the medieval period, characterised by use of the pointed arch. As an architectural style, Gothic developed primarily in ecclesiastical architecture, the greatest number of surviving Gothic buildings are churches. The Gothic style is most particularly associated with the cathedrals of Northern France. At the end of the 12th century, Europe was divided into a multitude of city states, norway came under the influence of England, while the other Scandinavian countries and Poland were influenced by trading contacts with the Hanseatic League. Angevin kings brought the Gothic tradition from France to Southern Italy, throughout Europe at this time there was a rapid growth in trade and an associated growth in towns. Germany and the Lowlands had large flourishing towns that grew in comparative peace, in trade and competition with other, or united for mutual weal.
Civic building was of importance to these towns as a sign of wealth. England and France remained largely feudal and produced grand domestic architecture for their kings and bishops, the Catholic Church prevailed across Europe at this time, influencing not only faith but wealth and power. Bishops were appointed by the lords and they often ruled as virtual princes over large estates. The early Medieval periods had seen a growth in monasticism, with several different orders being prevalent. Foremost were the Benedictines whose great abbey churches vastly outnumbered any others in France, a part of their influence was that towns developed around them and they became centers of culture and commerce
4.
Ancient Roman sarcophagi
At least 10,000 Roman sarcophagi have survived, with fragments possibly representing as many as 20,000. The same workshops produced sarcophagi with Jewish or Christian imagery, Early Christian sarcophagi produced from the late 3rd century onwards, represent the earliest form of large Christian sculpture, and are important for the study of Early Christian art. They were mostly made in a few cities, including Rome and Athens. Elsewhere the stela gravestone remained more common, Sarcophagi divide into a number of styles, by the producing area. The time taken to make them encouraged the use of standard subjects, to which inscriptions might be added to personalize them, the sarcophagi offer examples of intricate reliefs that depict scenes often based on Greek and Roman mythology or mystery religions that offered personal salvation, and allegorical representations. Roman funerary art offers a variety of scenes from life, such as game-playing, hunting. The Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus is of type, and the earlier Dogmatic Sarcophagus rather simpler.
The huge porphyry Sarcophagi of Helena and Constantina are grand Imperial examples, cremation was the predominant means of disposing of remains in the Roman Republic. Ashes contained in cinerary urns and other vessels were placed in tombs. From the 2nd century AD onward, inhumation became more common, the Sarcophagus of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus is a rare example from much earlier. A sarcophagus, which means flesh-eater in Greek, is a stone used for inhumation burials. Sarcophagi were commissioned not only for the elite of Roman society, but for children, entire families, the most expensive sarcophagi were made from marble, but other stones and wood were used as well. Along with the range in production material, there existed a variety of styles and shapes, depending on where the sarcophagus was produced, inhumation burial practices and the use of sarcophagi were not always the favored Roman funerary custom. The Etruscans and Greeks used sarcophagi for centuries before the Romans finally adopted the practice in the second century.
Prior to that period, the dead were cremated and placed in marble ash chests or ash altars. Despite being the main funerary custom during the Roman Republic, ash chests and it is often assumed that the popularity for sarcophagi began with the Roman aristocracy and gradually became more accepted by the lower classes. Due to this fact and the lack of inscriptions on early sarcophagi, surviving evidence does indicate that a great majority of early sarcophagi were used for children. This suggests that the change in practice may not have simply stemmed from a change in fashion
5.
Walters Art Museum
The Walters Art Museum, located in Mount Vernon-Belvedere, Maryland, is a public art museum founded and opened in 1934. It holds collections established during the mid-19th Century, located across the back alley, a block south of the Walters mansion on West Monument Street/Mount Vernon Place, on the northwest corner of North Charles Street at West Centre Street. The following year, The Walters reopened its original building after a dramatic three-year physical renovation and replacement of internal utilities. The Archimedes Palimpsest was on loan to the Walters Art Museum from a collector for conservation. This was one of the largest and most comprehensive such releases made by any museum, the Walters collection of ancient art includes examples from Egypt, Greece, Rome and the Near East. In 1911, Henry Walters purchased almost 100 gold artifacts from the Chiriqui region of western Panama in Central America, the museum owns the oldest surviving Chinese wood-and-lacquer image of the Buddha. It is exhibited in a gallery dedicated solely to this work, the Museum holds one of the largest and finest collections of Thai bronze and banner paintings in the world.
Islamic art in all media is represented at the Walters, the Walters Museum owns an array of Islamic manuscripts. Walters Art Museum, MS W.613 contains five Mughal miniatures from a very important Khamsa of Nizami made for the Emperor Akbar, Henry Walters assembled a collection of art produced during the Middle Ages in all the major artistic media of the period. This forms the basis of the Walters medieval collection, for which the Museum is best known internationally. Considered one of the best collections of art in the United States, the Museums holdings include examples of metalwork, stained glass, icons. Sculpted heads from the royal Abbey of St. Denis are rare surviving examples of sculptures that are directly connected with the origins of Gothic art in 12th Century France. An ivory casket covered with scenes of jousting knights is one of about a dozen such objects to survive in the world, many of these works are on display in the Museums galleries. Works in the collection are the subject of active research by the curatorial and conservation departments of the museum.
The collection of European Renaissance and Baroque art features holdings of paintings, furniture, metal work, the museum has one of ten surviving examples of the Sèvres pot-pourri vase in the shape of a ship from the 1750s and 1760s. William and Henry Walters collected works by late 19th Century French academic masters, Henry Walters was particularly interested in the courtly arts of 18th Century France. The museum’s collection of Sèvres porcelain includes a number of pieces that were made for members of the Royal Bourbon Court at Versailles Palace outside of Paris. Portrait miniatures and the examples of works, especially snuffboxes and watches, are displayed in the Treasury, along with some exceptional 19th-
6.
Alexander Milne Calder
Alexander Milne Calder was a Scottish American sculptor best known for the architectural sculpture of Philadelphia City Hall. Both his son, Alexander Stirling Calder, and grandson, Alexander Sandy Calder, Alexander Milne Calder was born in Aberdeen, the son of a tombstone carver. He began his career in Scotland, working for sculptor John Rhind and he moved to London and worked on the Albert Memorial. Calder immigrated to the United States in 1868 and settled in Philadelphia, where he studied with Joseph A. Bailly, in 1873, he was hired by architect John McArthur, Jr. to produce models for the architectural sculpture of Philadelphia City Hall. The commission involved more than 250 pieces in marble and bronze and that same year, he was commissioned by the Association for Public Art to create an equestrian statue of Major General George Gordon Meade for Fairmount Park. In 1875 he won the competition for the bronze statue of William Penn that was to crown its tower. He is buried in West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd, Philadelphia City Hall architectural sculpture, John McArthur, Jr.
architect, Pennsylvania 1873 –1893. General Meade, West Fairmount Park, Pennsylvania 1887, William Warner Tomb, Laurel Hill Cemetery, Pennsylvania 1889. William Penn, 37-foot-tall statue atop Philadelphia City Hall, Pennsylvania, placed in 1894
7.
Sulawesi
Sulawesi, formerly known as Celebes, is an island in Indonesia. One of the four Greater Sunda Islands, and the worlds eleventh-largest island, within Indonesia, only Sumatra and Papua are larger in territory, and only Java and Sumatra have larger populations. The landmass of Sulawesi includes four peninsulas, the northern Minahasa Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the South Peninsula, the Strait of Makassar runs along the western side of the island and separates the island from Borneo. The name Sulawesi possibly comes from the words sula and besi, the term sula means tines, horn or spikes, derived from Sanskrit, as trishula refer to trident. Thus sulawesi means iron spikes, which suggested that the island was a producer of iron edged weapons, the name came into common use in English following Indonesian independence. The name Celebes was originally given to the island by Portuguese explorers and it is widely considered a Portuguese rendering of the native name Sulawesi. Sulawesi is the worlds eleventh-largest island, covering an area of 174,600 km2, the central part of the island is ruggedly mountainous, such that the islands peninsulas have traditionally been remote from each other, with better connections by sea than by road.
The three bays that divide Sulawesis peninsulas are, from north to south, the Tomini, the Tolo and these separate the Minahassa or Northern Peninsula, the East Peninsula, the Southeast Peninsula and the South Peninsula. The Strait of Makassar runs along the side of the island. The island is surrounded by Borneo to the west, by the Philippines to the north, by Maluku to the east, the Selayar Islands make up a peninsula stretching southwards from Southwest Sulawesi into the Flores Sea are administratively part of Sulawesi. All the above-mentioned islands, and many smaller ones, are part of Sulawesis six provinces. The island slopes up from the shores of the seas surrounding the island to a high, mostly non-volcanic. Active volcanoes are found in the northern Minahassa Peninsula, stretching north to the Sangihe Islands, the northern peninsula contains several active volcanoes such as Mount Lokon, Mount Awu and Karangetang. Because of its several tectonic origin, faults scar the land, as a result, Sulawesi, in contrast to most of the other islands in the biogeographical region of Wallacea, is not truly oceanic, but a composite island at the centre of the Asia-Australia collision zone.
Parts of the island were attached to either the Asian or Australian continental margin. In the west, the opening of the Makassar Strait separated West Sulawesi from Sundaland in the Eocene c.45 Mya. Before October 2014, the settlement of South Sulawesi by modern humans had been dated to c.30,000 BC on the basis of dates obtained from rock shelters in Maros. Initial settlement was probably around the mouth of the Sadan river, on the northwest coast of the peninsula, although the south coast has been suggested
8.
Trajan
Trajan was Roman emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born in the city of Italica in the province of Hispania Baetica, Trajans non-patrician family was of Italian, Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in 89 Trajan supported Domitian against a revolt on the Rhine led by Antonius Saturninus, in September 96, Domitian was succeeded by Marcus Cocceius Nerva, an old and childless senator who proved to be unpopular with the army. After a brief and tumultuous year in power, culminating in a revolt by members of the Praetorian Guard, Nerva was compelled to adopt the more popular Trajan as his heir and he died on 27 January 98 and was succeeded by his adopted son without incident. Early in his reign, he annexed the Nabataean Kingdom, creating the province of Arabia Petraea and his conquest of Dacia enriched the empire greatly, as the new province possessed many valuable gold mines. However, its position north of the Danube made it susceptible to attack on three sides, and it was abandoned by Emperor Aurelian.
Trajans war against the Parthian Empire ended with the sack of the capital Ctesiphon and his campaigns expanded the Roman Empire to its greatest territorial extent. In late 117, while sailing back to Rome, Trajan fell ill and he was deified by the Senate and his ashes were laid to rest under Trajans Column. He was succeeded by his adopted son Hadrian, as an emperor, Trajans reputation has endured – he is one of the few rulers whose reputation has survived nineteen centuries. Every new emperor after him was honoured by the Senate with the wish felicior Augusto, among medieval Christian theologians, Trajan was considered a virtuous pagan. As far as ancient literary sources are concerned, an extant continuous account of Trajans reign does not exist, only fragments remain of the Getiká, a book by Trajans personal physician Titos Statilios Kriton. The Parthiká, a 17-volume account of the Parthian Wars written by Arrian, has met a similar fate, book 68 in Cassius Dios Roman History, which survives mostly as Byzantine abridgments and epitomes, is the main source for the political history of Trajans rule.
Besides this, Pliny the Youngers Panegyricus and Dio of Prusas orations are the best surviving contemporary sources and it is certain that much of text of the letters that appear in this collection over Trajans signature was written and/or edited by Trajans Imperial secretary, his ab epistulis. Therefore, discussion of Trajan and his rule in modern historiography cannot avoid speculation, as well as recourse to sources such as archaeology. Marcus Ulpius Traianus was born on 18 September 53 AD in the Roman province of Hispania Baetica, Trajans birthplace of Italica was founded as a Roman military colony in 206 BC, though it is unknown when the Ulpii arrived there. Trajan was the son of Marcia, a Roman noblewoman and sister-in-law of the second Flavian Emperor Titus, and Marcus Ulpius Traianus, Marcus Ulpius Traianus the elder served Vespasian in the First Jewish-Roman War, commanding the Legio X Fretensis. Trajan himself was just one of many well-known Ulpii in a line that continued long after his own death and his elder sister was Ulpia Marciana, and his niece was Salonina Matidia.
The patria of the Ulpii was Italica, in Spanish Baetica, as a young man, he rose through the ranks of the Roman army, serving in some of the most contested parts of the Empires frontier
9.
Fresco
Fresco is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly-laid, or wet lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the fresco technique has been employed since antiquity and is closely associated with Italian Renaissance painting. Buon fresco pigment mixed with water of temperature on a thin layer of wet, fresh plaster, for which the Italian word for plaster. Because of the makeup of the plaster, a binder is not required, as the pigment mixed solely with the water will sink into the intonaco. The pigment is absorbed by the wet plaster, after a number of hours, many artists sketched their compositions on this underlayer, which would never be seen, in a red pigment called sinopia, a name used to refer to these under-paintings. Later, new techniques for transferring paper drawings to the wall were developed. The main lines of a drawing made on paper were pricked over with a point, the paper held against the wall, if the painting was to be done over an existing fresco, the surface would be roughened to provide better adhesion.
This area is called the giornata, and the different day stages can usually be seen in a large fresco, buon frescoes are difficult to create because of the deadline associated with the drying plaster. Once a giornata is dried, no more buon fresco can be done, if mistakes have been made, it may be necessary to remove the whole intonaco for that area—or to change them later, a secco. An indispensable component of this process is the carbonatation of the lime, the eyes of the people of the School of Athens are sunken-in using this technique which causes the eyes to seem deeper and more pensive. Michelangelo used this technique as part of his trademark outlining of his central figures within his frescoes, in a wall-sized fresco, there may be ten to twenty or even more giornate, or separate areas of plaster. After five centuries, the giornate, which were nearly invisible, have sometimes become visible, and in many large-scale frescoes. Additionally, the border between giornate was often covered by an a secco painting, which has fallen off.
One of the first painters in the period to use this technique was the Isaac Master in the Upper Basilica of Saint Francis in Assisi. A person who creates fresco is called a frescoist, a secco or fresco-secco painting is done on dry plaster. The pigments thus require a medium, such as egg. Blue was a problem, and skies and blue robes were often added a secco, because neither azurite blue nor lapis lazuli. By the end of the century this had largely displaced buon fresco
10.
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital city of the Roman/Byzantine Empire, and of the brief Latin, and the Ottoman empires. It was reinaugurated in 324 AD from ancient Byzantium as the new capital of the Roman Empire by Emperor Constantine the Great, after whom it was named, Constantinople was famed for its massive and complex defences. The first wall of the city was erected by Constantine I, Constantinople never truly recovered from the devastation of the Fourth Crusade and the decades of misrule by the Latins. The origins of the name of Byzantion, more known by the Latin Byzantium, are not entirely clear. The founding myth of the city has it told that the settlement was named after the leader of the Megarian colonists, Byzas. The Byzantines of Constantinople themselves would maintain that the city was named in honour of two men and Antes, though this was likely just a play on the word Byzantion. During this time, the city was called Second Rome, Eastern Rome, and Roma Constantinopolitana. As the city became the remaining capital of the Roman Empire after the fall of the West, and its wealth and influence grew.
In the language of other peoples, Constantinople was referred to just as reverently, the medieval Vikings, who had contacts with the empire through their expansion in eastern Europe used the Old Norse name Miklagarðr, and Miklagard and Miklagarth. In Arabic, the city was sometimes called Rūmiyyat al-kubra and in Persian as Takht-e Rum, in East and South Slavic languages, including in medieval Russia, Constantinople was referred to as Tsargrad or Carigrad, City of the Caesar, from the Slavonic words tsar and grad. This was presumably a calque on a Greek phrase such as Βασιλέως Πόλις, the modern Turkish name for the city, İstanbul, derives from the Greek phrase eis tin polin, meaning into the city or to the city. In 1928, the Turkish alphabet was changed from Arabic script to Latin script, in time the city came to be known as Istanbul and its variations in most world languages. In Greece today, the city is still called Konstantinoúpolis/Konstantinoúpoli or simply just the City, apart from this, little is known about this initial settlement, except that it was abandoned by the time the Megarian colonists settled the site anew.
A farsighted treaty with the emergent power of Rome in c.150 BC which stipulated tribute in exchange for independent status allowed it to enter Roman rule unscathed. The site lay astride the land route from Europe to Asia and the seaway from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean, and had in the Golden Horn an excellent and spacious harbour. He would rebuild Byzantium towards the end of his reign, in which it would be briefly renamed Augusta Antonina, fortifying it with a new city wall in his name, Constantine had altogether more colourful plans. Rome was too far from the frontiers, and hence from the armies and the imperial courts, yet it had been the capital of the state for over a thousand years, and it might have seemed unthinkable to suggest that the capital be moved to a different location. Constantinople was built over 6 years, and consecrated on 11 May 330, Constantine divided the expanded city, like Rome, into 14 regions, and ornamented it with public works worthy of an imperial metropolis
11.
Vietnam
Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. With an estimated 92.7 million inhabitants as of 2016, it is the worlds 14th-most-populous country, and its capital city has been Hanoi since the reunification of North and South Vietnam in 1976, with Ho Chi Minh City as a historical city as well. The northern part of Vietnam was part of Imperial China for over a millennium, an independent Vietnamese state was formed in 939, following a Vietnamese victory in the Battle of Bạch Đằng River. Following a Japanese occupation in the 1940s, the Vietnamese fought French rule in the First Indochina War, Vietnam was divided politically into two rival states, North Vietnam, and South Vietnam. Conflict between the two sides intensified in what is known as the Vietnam War, the war ended with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975. Vietnam was unified under a communist government but remained impoverished, in 1986, the government initiated a series of economic and political reforms which began Vietnams path towards integration into the world economy.
By 2000, it had established relations with all nations. Since 2000, Vietnams economic growth rate has been among the highest in the world and its successful economic reforms resulted in its joining the World Trade Organization in 2007. It is a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie, Vietnam remains one of the worlds four remaining one-party socialist states officially espousing communism. The name Việt Nam is a variation of Nam Việt, a name that can be traced back to the Triệu Dynasty of the 2nd century BC. The word Việt originated as a form of Bách Việt. The form Vietnam is first recorded in the 16th-century oracular poem Sấm Trạng Trình, the name has been found on 12 steles carved in the 16th and 17th centuries, including one at Bao Lam Pagoda in Haiphong that dates to 1558. Then, as recorded, rewarded Yuenan/Vietnam as their nations name, to show that they are below the region of Baiyue/Bach Viet. Between 1804 and 1813, the name was used officially by Emperor Gia Long and it was revived in the early 20th century by Phan Bội Châus History of the Loss of Vietnam, and by the Vietnamese Nationalist Party.
The country was usually called Annam until 1945, when both the government in Huế and the Viet Minh government in Hanoi adopted Việt Nam. Archaeological excavations have revealed the existence of humans in what is now Vietnam as early as the Paleolithic age, Homo erectus fossils dating to around 500,000 BC have been found in caves in Lạng Sơn and Nghệ An provinces in northern Vietnam. The oldest Homo sapiens fossils from mainland Southeast Asia are of Middle Pleistocene provenance, teeth attributed to Homo sapiens from the Late Pleistocene have been found at Dong Can, and from the Early Holocene at Mai Da Dieu, Lang Gao and Lang Cuom. The Hồng Bàng dynasty of the Hùng kings is considered the first Vietnamese state, in 257 BC, the last Hùng king was defeated by Thục Phán, who consolidated the Lạc Việt and Âu Việt tribes to form the Âu Lạc, proclaiming himself An Dương Vương
12.
Christian burial
A Christian burial is the burial of a deceased person with specifically Christian ecclesiastical rites, typically, in consecrated ground. Until recent times Christians generally objected to cremation, and practiced inhumation almost exclusively, but this opposition has weakened, catholics are now able to be cremated also, and this is rapidly becoming more common, but the Eastern Orthodox Churches still mostly forbid it. Among the Greeks and Romans, both cremation and burial were practiced, the Jews buried their dead. Even God himself is depicted in the Torah as performing burial, And buried him in the depression in the land of Moab, no man knows the place that he was buried, even to this day. It is surrounded at all times with some measure of religious ceremony, little is known with regard to the burial of the dead in the early Christian centuries. Early Christians did practice the use of an Ossuary to store the remains of those saints at rest in Christ. This practice likely came from the use of the same among Second Temple Jews, other early Christians likely followed the national customs of the people among whom they lived, as long as they were not directly idolatrous.
Several historical writings indicate that in the fourth and fifth centuries, probably the earliest detailed account of funeral ceremonial which has been preserved to us is to be found in the Spanish Ordinals of the latter part of the seventh century. Recorded in the writing is a description of the Order of what the clerics of any city ought to do when their bishop falls into a mortal sickness and it details the steps of ringing church bells, reciting psalms, and cleaning and dressing the body. Traditionally, the Christian Church opposed the practice of cremation by its members, while involving no necessary contradiction of any article of faith, it is opposed alike to ancient canon law and to the usages of antiquity. Burial was always preferred as the method of disposition inherited from Judaism, during times of persecution, pagan authorities erroneously thought they could destroy the martyrs hope of resurrection by cremating their remains. In reaction against the Christian opposition to some have deliberately instructed that their remains be cremated as a public profession of irreligion.
He further decreed that bodies which had been so treated were to be denied Christian burial, the custom of watching by the dead is an ancient practice probably derived from the similar Jewish custom of a pious vigil over the remains. Its origins are not entirely known and it may have been a Christian observance, attended with the chanting of psalms, or it may have been adopted from paganism, with the singing of psalms introduced to Christianize it. In the Middle Ages, among the orders, the custom was practiced in a desire to perform religious duties and was seen as beneficial. By appointing relays of monks to succeed one another, orderly provision was made that the corpse would never be left without prayer, among secular persons, these nocturnal meetings were sometimes an occasion of grave abuses, especially in the matter of eating and drinking. The following is found in the Anglo-Saxon canons of Ælfric, addressed to the clergy, but it is clear that there was originally something of the nature of a wake consisting in the chanting of the whole Psalter beside the dead man at his home.
The Absolution became common in the half of the eleventh century
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 209.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911).