Plague coffin
The Pestsarg (formerly also called bump dead tree) is a reusable coffin , which during the plague was used instead of individual coffins. Formally, such a plague coffin does not differ from the usual reusable transport coffin ( community coffin), which was used for coffin-free burials from the late Middle Ages to the 19th century.
A characteristic of most plague coffins is that they had two flaps on the underside in addition to the lid flap. These bottom flaps could be opened by a special mechanism so that the corpse fell straight into the grave. This enabled the coffin to be used for many more dead.
Since there was a shortage of coffins during such epidemics due to the many deaths, the plague coffin allowed a more honorable burial than the usual burial in mass graves .
Most of the folding coffins now referred to as plague coffins are likely to be ordinary community coffins . The same type of coffin was used after the end of the plague trains for the Josephine savings coffin, which was introduced at short notice by imperial decree in 1785 .
literature
- Robert Durrer : Bulge Dead Trees . In: Anzeiger für schweizerische Altertumskunde 8 (1896), pp. 19–21.
- Central Institute for Sepulchral Culture Kassel: Large lexicon of funeral and cemetery culture . Dictionary of Sepulchral Culture. Folklore-cultural-historical part: From abdication to second burial. Edited by Reiner Sörries , Braunschweig 2002.
- Museum of Sepulchral Art: boxes, carriage, caravan. On the way to rest . Accompanying publication to the exhibition of the same name, Kassel 1999.
- Stefan Hess : The so-called plague coffin of Mandach - an informative testimony to early modern sepulchral culture, in: Argovia 125 (2013), pp. 124-133.