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by Kell
4576 days ago
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The Church had almost nothing to do with the catacombs in Paris (I don't know about the others, but IIRC in Rome it's also more complicated since they were created at a time where the Church had almost no political power and not very much wealth... but I could be mistaken for Rome). The Parisian "catacombs" were created in preexisting tunnels. And actually weren't catacombs at all, because people never wanted to be buried there, it's not a necropolis. The catacombs were created because the monarchy in France was pissed with the old Innocent Cemetery which was in the very center of Paris, just north of the City Island and was spreading diseases, wasting real estate and serving as a harbor to criminals etc. Also the graveyard was literally overflowing (yep, literally, basement walls in houses nearby had started to crumble under the pressure of the accumulated bones). So by a royal edict of 1785 the bones in the Innocent Cemetery where moved to an underground ossuary, that became known as the Catacombs of Paris. The Church only did the praying and rituals allowing for the transfer of the dead. But the tunnels where actually the old Parisian quarries.. And people dug those for centuries, at times of war and peace, with rules or without. It was everything but based on a large, stable and wealthy institution. Damn, even during the Revolution people still worked in those tunnels. And miners who worked in the 16th and 17th century were pretty much free workers who lived by selling building material that they mined underground. |
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