Creepy Burial Practice For Freaky Friday...!

Burial rites and practices have changed over the years and will probably continue to do so for a long time.

Many of these practices seem odd and extreme to us now, and with good reason. They had a very high creepy factor! This article from Listverse shows just what I mean!

Thousands Of Dead Under Church Floorboards

Before separate cemeteries were created in old England, the preferred place to bury the dead was in churchyards. There was much profit to be made from this practice. A particularly famous and grim example of the profit from London’s prolific dead occurred at Enon Chapel. The preacher of the church, who was motivated by profit, began to inter the city’s dead at a rate of 30 per week beneath the floorboards of his church. The piles of dead bodies kept accumulating until there were over 12,000 bodies. This was unsustainable for a church basement, and compromises were made.

Corpses were stacked to the ceiling, and the gases seeping through the floorboards caused parishioners to faint and children to be accosted by corpse flies during Sunday school. Eventually, the basement couldn’t hold all the bodies so the dead were carted away to be dumped in the Thames River. Occasionally, parts fell out of the carts during such journeys. This horrified local residents who found skulls littering their streets. The chapel was eventually shut down once authorities discovered what was happening, though it was later bought by another party and turned into a dance hall. The parties were called “dances of the dead.”

I'm sorry, but this is definitely NOT a church I would want to attend! I'm funny that way!

Coffee in the kitchen this morning. Donut holes for everyone!