Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Undertaking Trade in England: Its Origins and Early Development, 1660-1830

1994; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 28; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/2739202

1086-315X

Paul S. Fritz,

Historical Art and Culture Studies

The officers of the College of Arms controlled both the form and management of funeral ceremonial for the English elite during the sixteenth and most of the seventeenth centuries.' But in the last quarter of the seventeenth century, they lost their monopoly over funeral ceremonial to a new group-the undertakers. In what follows, I investigate the advent of a distinct undertaking trade, the trade's organization in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and the nature of the opposition to the new trade, particularly that raised by the officers of the College of Arms.