of appeal at Prague, and sentence of death was passed. This was carried out at Dresden on the 9th of October 1601.
See A. V. Richard, Der kurfürstliche sächsische Kanzler Dr Nicolaus Krell (Frankfort, 1860); B. Bohnenstädt, Das Prozessverfahren gegen den kursächsischen Kanzler Dr Nikolaus Krell (Halle, 1901); F. Brandes, Der Kanzler Krell, ein Opfer des Orthodoxismus (Leipzig, 1873); and E. L. T. Henke, Caspar Peucer und Nicolaus Krell (Marburg, 1865).
CREMA, a town and episcopal see of Lombardy, Italy, in the
province of Cremona, 26 m. N.E. by rail from the town of
Cremona. Pop. (1901) town, 8027; commune, 9609. It is
situated on the right bank of the Serio, 240 ft. above sea-level,
in the centre of a rich agricultural district. The cathedral has a
fine Lombard Gothic façade of the second half of the 14th century;
the campanile belongs to the same period; the rest of the church
has been restored in the baroque style. The clock tower opposite
dates from the period of Venetian dominion in the 16th and 17th
centuries. The castle, which was one of the strongest in Italy,
was demolished in 1809. The church of S. Maria, 34 m. E. of the
town, was begun in 1490 by Giov. Batt. Battaggio; it is in the
form of a Greek cross, with a central dome, and the exterior is
a fine specimen of polychrome Lombard work (E. Gussalli in
Rassegna d’ arte, 1905, p. 17).
The date of the foundation of Crema is uncertain. In the 10th century it appears to have been the principal place of the territory known as Isola Fulcheria. In the 12th century it was allied with Milan and attacked by Cremona, but was taken and sacked by Barbarossa in 1160. It was rebuilt in 1185. It fell under the Visconti in 1338, and joined the Lombard republic in 1447; but was taken by the Venetians in 1449, and, except from 1509 to 1529, remained under their dominion until 1797.
CREMATION (Lat. cremare, to burn), the burning of human corpses. This method of disposal of the dead may be said to have
been the general practice of the ancient world, with the important
exceptions of Egypt, where bodies were embalmed, Judaea,
where they were buried in sepulchres, and China, where they were
buried in the earth. In Greece, for instance, so well ascertained
was the law that only suicides, unteethed children, and persons
struck by lightning were denied the right to be burned. At
Rome, one of the XII. Tables said, “Hominem mortuum in urbe ne sepelito, neve urito”; and in fact, from the close of the
republic to the end of the 4th Christian century, burning on the pyre or rogus was the general rule.[1] Whether in any of these
cases cremation was adopted or rejected for sanitary or for
superstitious reasons, it is difficult to say. Embalming would
probably not succeed in climates less warm and dry than the
Egyptian. The scarcity of fuel might also be a consideration.
The Chinese are influenced by the doctrine of Feng-Shui, or
incomprehensible wind water; they must have a properly placed
grave in their own land, and with this view their corpses are sent
home from long distances abroad. Even the Jews used cremation
in the vale of Tophet when a plague came; and the modern
Jews of Berlin and the Spanish and Portuguese Jews at Mile
End cemetery were among the first to welcome the lately revived
process. Probably also, some nations had religious objections
to the pollution of the sacred principle of fire, and therefore
practised exposure, suspension, throwing into the sea, cave-burial,
desiccation or envelopment.[2] Some at least of these
methods must obviously have been suggested simply by the
readiest means at hand. Cremation is still practised over a great part of Asia and America, but not always in the same form.
Thus, the ashes may be stored in urns, or buried in the earth,
or thrown to the wind, or (as among the Digger Indians) smeared
with gum on the heads of the mourners. In one case the three
processes of embalming, burning and burying are gone through;
and in another, if a member of the tribe die at a great distance
from home, some of his money and clothes are nevertheless
burned by the family. As food, weapons, &c., are sometimes buried with the body, so they are sometimes burned with the body, the whole ashes being collected.[3] The Siamese have a
singular institution, according to which, before burning, the
embalmed body lies in a temple for a period determined by the
rank of the dead man,—the king for six months, and so downwards. If the poor relatives cannot afford fuel and the other
necessary preparations, they bury the body, but exhume it for burning when an opportunity occurs.
There can be little doubt that the practice of cremation in modern Europe was at first stopped, and has since been prevented in great measure, by the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body; partly also by the notion that the Christian’s body was redeemed and purified.[4] Some clergymen, however, as the late Mr Haweis in his Ashes to Ashes, a Cremation Prelude (London, 1874), have been prominent in favour of cremation. The objection of the clergy was disposed of by the philanthropist Lord Shaftesbury when he asked, “What would in such a case become of the blessed martyrs?” The very general practice of burying bodies in the precincts of a church in order that the dead might take benefit from the prayers of persons resorting to the church, and the religious ceremony which precedes both European burials and Asiatic cremations, have given the question a religious aspect. It is, however, in the ultimate resort, really a sanitary one. The disgusting results of pit-burial made cemeteries necessary. But cemeteries are equally liable to overcrowding, and are often nearer to inhabited houses than the old churchyards. It is possible, no doubt, to make a cemetery safe approximately by selecting a soil which is dry, close and porous, by careful drainage, and by rigid enforcement of the rules prescribing a certain depth (8 to 10 ft.) and a certain superficies (4 yds.) for graves. But a great mass of sanitary objections may be brought against even recent cemeteries in various countries. A dense clay, the best soil for preventing the levitation of gas, is the worst for the process of decomposition. The danger is strikingly illustrated in the careful planting of trees and shrubs to absorb the carbonic acid. Vault-burial in metallic coffins, even when sawdust charcoal is used, is still more dangerous than ordinary burial. It must also be remembered that the cemetery system can only be temporary. The soil is gradually filled with bones; houses crowd round; the law itself permits the reopening of graves at the expiry of fourteen years. We shall not, indeed, as Browne says, “be knaved out of our graves to have our skulls made drinking bowls and our bones turned into pipes!” But on this ground of sentiment cremation would certainly prevent any interruption of that “sweet sleep and calm rest” which the old prayer that the earth might lie lightly has associated with the grave. And in the meantime we should escape the horror of putrefaction and of the “small cold worm that fretteth the enshrouded form.”
In Europe Christian burial was long associated entirely with the ordinary practice of committing the corpse to the grave. But in the middle of the 19th century many distinguished physicians and chemists, especially in Italy, began prominently to advocate cremation. In 1874, a congress called to consider the matter at Milan resolved to petition the Chamber of Deputies for a clause in the new sanitary code, permitting cremation under the supervision of the syndics of the commune. In Switzerland Dr Vegmann Ercolani was the champion of the cause (see his Cremation the most Rational Method of Disposing of the Dead, 4th ed., Zurich, 1874). So long ago as 1797 cremation was seriously discussed by the French Assembly under the Directory, and the events of the Franco-Prussian War again brought the subject under the notice of the medical press and the sanitary authorities. The military experiments at Sédan, Chalons and Metz, of burying large numbers of bodies with quicklime, or pitch and straw, were not successful, but very dangerous. The matter was considered by the municipal council of Paris in connexion with the new cemetery at Méry-sur-Oise; and the prefect
- ↑ Macrobius says it was disused in the reign of the younger Theodosius (Gibbon v. 411).
- ↑ The Colchians, says Sir Thos. Browne, made their graves in the air, i.e. on trees.
- ↑ In the case of a great man there was often a burnt offering of animals and even of slaves (see Caesar, De bell. Gall. iv.).
- ↑ A temple of the Holy Ghost (see Tertullian, De anima,c.51, cited in Müller, Lex. des Kirchenrechts, s.v. “Begräbniss”).
