„Jarðsett verður í heimagrafreit“

Nýbreytni í greftrunarsið Íslendinga á nítjándu og tuttugustu öld Fyrsta grein

Abstract

Around 1880, an interesting change began to shape the burial customs in Iceland. Previously, like other Christian territories, all Icelanders were buried in common parish cemeteries. Now, more and more farmers began to ask for permission from the authorities to bury their closest relatives on their own farms and to be allowed to be buried there themselves. Because of the commonality of this practice, and its overt violation of the Christian tradition, it is an interesting religious, cultural, and sociohistorical phenomenon.
In the article, this change is described largely with the help of previously unexplored, unpublished sources. The research traces how secular authorities began to authorize private graveyards in the year 1878, how a legal basis was created for them in the early 1930s, and finally how the legislature was changed in the early sixties, making it impossible to establish new private graveyards. The research also shows how fixed methods were formulated in law and regulation for processing the farmers’ applications.
During this period, secular authorities were generally positive towards the private grave-yards, except for a few years around 1920. Thus, they were against the policy of the national church. The bishops, on the other hand, were opposed to home-burial except in very exceptional cases, especially because of difficulty in transporting the corps. This article shows, however, that the bishops could influence the claims set for the establishment of private graveyards and later how the provisions of the law were interpreted and practiced. The bishops’ influences became obvious, not only in the limits on graveyard size, but also in the way the dissolution effects of the custom were counteracted.