Catafalque

Catafalque (pronounced kat-uh-fawk, kat-uh-fawlk or kat-uh-falk)

(1) A (temporary or permanent) raised structure on which the body of a deceased person lies or is carried in state.

(2) A hearse (obsolete).

1635–1645: The orthodoxy is that catafalque is from the seventeenth century French catafalque, from the Italian catafalco, from the Late Latin catafalicum (scaffold), the construct being cata- (from the Ancient Greek κατά (katá) (downwards (and used in Medieval Latin with a sense of “beside, alongside”))) + fal(a) (wooden siege tower) + -icum (neuter of –icus; (the suffix used to denote "belonging to; derived from or pertaining to"), from the Etruscan.  However, etymologists are divided on the origin.  Some believe English picked up the word directly from the Italian and not via French and regard the Italian of uncertain origin, the connection with the Late Latin only speculative.  From the Medieval Latin catafalicum Old French gained chaffaut & chafaud (scaffold) which exists in the Modern French échafaud (scaffold).  Catafalque (the rare alternative spelling is catafalco) is a noun; the noun plural is catafalques.

The coffin carrying Queen Elizabeth II, rested on its catafalque for the lying in state, Westminster Hall, London, September 2022.

A catafalque is the platform upon which the body of the dead lies before their funeral.  In the West the modern practice is for the body to be placed in a coffin but historically the body was sometimes wrapped and this remains the practice for burials at sea.  Catafalques can be elaborately decorated or constructed with austere simplicity and can be mobile or stationary.  Although associated with state funerals they are a common fixture in crematoria or chapels and exist so the coffin is permitted to sit at an appropriate height for ceremonial purposes, most obviously during “open-casket” services.  Those used by undertakers (funeral directors) are usually mobile 9on wheels) so the coffin may easily be moved from one place to another, by one staff member if need be.  Thus, any appropriately elevated surface used from the purpose can be thought of (if only temporarily) as a catafalque although the name-proper is attached only to dedicated devices.  A catafalque party is a military formation, traditionally numbering four (though it may be more or fewer) assembled to stand guard over the coffin while the body is lying in state or at some other site of memorial.

The 1865 (Abraham Lincoln) catafalque in 2006, after the most recent replacement of its fabric covering.

One catafalque noted for its longevity is that hastily (and, from the point-of-view of a professional carpenter or cabinet maker, rather crudely) fabricated was that used for the coffin of Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) US president 1861-1865) and still in use today.  Of simple construction and using plain framing timber, it’s not at all ornate and gains its aura from the long history of use, having being used in the funerals of some four dozen US figures from politics, the judiciary, the military or society (most recently Senator Harry Reid (1939–2021; US senator (Democrat, Nevada).  Over the years, it has been enlarged and strengthened to accommodate increasingly heavy coffins and the fabric covering has several times been replaced but almost all the original structure remains so it’s not a “grandfather’s axe”.  The simplicity has sometimes been emulated with intent, Pope John Paul II’s (Karol Wojtyła, 1920–2005; Pope of the Roman Catholic Church 1978-2005) plain cypress coffin sitting atop a catafalque so basic it might have been built by Christ himself.  It’s thought JPII’s successor might choose something just as simple.

Voltaire's catafalque.

Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet, 1694–1778), the radical writer of the French Enlightenment, as controversial in death as in life, was buried quietly some way distant from Paris because his friends feared church and state would seek to deny him the proper rites of burial and it was only some thirteen years after his death, just after the French Revolution that his body was disinterred and moved to the Panthéon in Paris, a site created to honor illustrious citizens.  His catafalque was an impressive three tiered construction inscribed: ”Poet, philosopher, historian, he made a great step forward in the human spirit.  He prepared us to become free”.

David Lloyd George's funeral bier, Good Friday (30 March) 1945, Llanystumdwy, Wales.

In the context of funerals, definitionally, there is no difference between a bier and a catafalque.  Bier ((1) a litter to transport the body of a dead person, (2) a platform or stand where a body or coffin is placed & (3) a count of forty threads in the warp or chain of woolen cloth) was from the Middle English beer, beere & bere, from the Old English bēr, from the West Saxon bǣr (stretcher, bier), from the Proto-West Germanic bāru, from the Proto-Germanic bērō, from the primitive Indo-European bher (to carry, bear) and was cognate with the Saterland Frisian Beere (stretcher, bier), the Dutch baar (bier) and the German Bahre (bier, stretcher).  It’s thus functionally the same as a catafalque and the only point of differentiation in modern use seems to be the convention that catafalque is used when the funeral is grand while for more modest affairs (like David Lloyd George’s (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922) “farm cart funeral”), bier is preferred.  The pyre (from the Ancient Greek πυρά (pyrá), from πῦρ (pyr) (fire)), also known as a funeral pyre, is a structure, made almost always of wood, constructed for the purpose of burning a body as part of a funeral rite and thus a form of ceremonial cremation.  Dimensionally, it may be far larger than is required for purposes of combustion because big fires were often an important aspect of the spectacle.

A member of Queen Elizabeth II's catafalque party fainted shortly before his shift was due to end.  He was not seriously injured.