The Saints Innocents Cemetery (Holy Innocents’ Cemetery), or Cimetière des Saints-Innocents, stood as Paris’s oldest and largest burial ground. Initially accommodating individual tombs, the surge in demand for city burials surpassed the cemetery’s capacity, leading to the adoption of mass grave pits. These pits, each holding approximately 1,500 bodies, became the norm for interment. Charnel houses, constructed along the cemetery walls, served as repositories for the stacked bones of the deceased.
On the south side’s back wall, beneath the charnel houses, a striking depiction of the Dance of Death adorned an arcade. This early pictorial representation featured a procession of thirty figures, ranging from Pope and Emperor to common members of society, engaged in a macabre dance with Death. John Lydgate, an English monk and poet visiting Paris in 1426, was inspired by this mural and later published an interpretation of the accompanying French text upon his return to Bury St Edmunds.
The impact of Lydgate’s interpretation was profound, prompting town clerk John Carpenter to commission a series of Dance of Death paintings for old St Paul’s Cathedral in 1430. The popularity of this theme, known as Daunce of Poulys (Dance of (St) Paul’s), spread nationwide. The Dance served as a response to the calamities of famines, plagues, and blights that afflicted Europe during the Middle Ages. It served as a memento mori, reminding individuals of life’s transience and the constant possibility of an unexpected demise.
Advancements in woodblock printing and Gutenberg’s press facilitated the widespread adoption of the Dance of Death theme by graphic artists. Notably, Hans Holbein the Younger’s series in the 1520s, published in 1538 as Les simulachres et historiees faces de la mort, exemplifies the genre’s finest work. Holbein’s miniature masterpieces skillfully portray Death’s encounters with various individuals, incorporating emotion, wit, and individuality into each tableau. The theme transcends moralism, conveying the inevitability of death and the equality of all in the grave.
Holbein’s detailed images feature Death engaging with victims in various scenarios—sometimes expected, often not—with each encounter telling a unique story. From the Pope to the Emperor, and even a Nun and a Child, Death spares no one. The satire and humor within Holbein’s work do not overshadow the overarching message: Death is an inescapable reality.
As an intriguing aside, when the Saints Innocents Cemetery reached capacity in the 1760s, the decision was made to transfer the bones to the disused mines below Paris—the catacombs. To their surprise, when the mass graves were opened, instead of bones, tons of fat were discovered. Deprived of oxygen, the bodies had transformed into margaric acid. This fat was repurposed by fat boilers and chandlers to create soap and candles, offering Parisians an unconventional second chance to memorialize their ancestors.
