The Second Mort Cloth

[MrSaunders]

Hello,
What does it mean to have "the second mort cloth"?
Thanks!

[pet50ite]

Hi MrSaunders, I know this won't solve your problems but mort is the french word for dead. What the cloth and second has to do with it, I'm afraid I don't know
pet50ite

[MrSaunders]

Thank you. I know about the custom of using a mort cloth - a black veil over a coffin - but it's the meaning behind the "second" that escapes me!

[Ruskie]

Maybe it was a mort cloth of lesser quality? 

[Berlin-Bob]

There are several Rootschat topics about mort cloths, listed here:

Scot.: Mortcloths were hired out by the kirk session to cover a coffin

http://surname.rootschat.com/lexicon/reflib-lexicon.php?letter=M

Maybe one of these topics will give a reason for a "second mort cloth".

Bob

[GR2]

It was quite common for parishes to have more than one mortcloth. Sometimes a new one was made or presented to the kirk before the old one wore out. One might be heavier than the other or made of velvet. The "second" mortcloth may have been cheaper to hire than the "first" one. Have a look on the page of the accounts and see if there is a different charge for the first and second cloths. In any case the money went into the poor-box.

[Skoosh]

A velvet pall used to cover coffins which varied a lot in quality thus adding respectability to the funeral. The fee for the hire went to the kirk funds. The Second Mort-Cloth would just be the old one so cheaper!

You can imagine the adverse comments after a funeral on the condition of some coffins if there was no Mort-Cloth, nobody seen the coffin! Comments were saved for the whisky dispensed, or the lack of it! 

Skoosh.

[GR2]

Cost of the funeral of Elizabeth Allan, d. Aberdeen, buried Methlick 1800.

1. Mr Catto, merchant Aberdeen, for rum and wine £1 7s 6d
2. John Ferguson for grave linen 13s 9 1/2d
3. John Ligertwood, wright, for coffin £1 1s
4. Peter Imlay, stabler Aberdeen, for hay and corn to hearse horses 13s 3d
5. James Imlay for hearse to Methlick £1 10s
6. John Lumsden, merchant Aberdeen, for tea & sugar 11s 6d
7. For bread 7s 6d
8. Grave digger at Methlick 4s
9. Meal, butter, cheese, candle, tobacco £1 4s

[Skoosh]

I would think that the availability of factory-made coffins in Victorian times, together with the Kirk being relieved of the burden of providing for the Poor under the Poor Laws, made the Mort-Cloth obsolete.

Highland funerals in particular were noted for the quantity of spirits consumed. That of the auld mother of Forbes of Culloden, (a family  who were famously fond of a hauf!) was attended by hundreds of tenants & gentry. Such was the liberality of hospitality dispensed that the funeral party arrived at the kirk without the coffin! 

Skoosh.