Christian Burial - History and Antecedents of Christian Burial Rites - The Wake

The Wake

The custom of watching by the dead (the wake) is an ancient practice probably derived from the similar Jewish custom of a pious vigil over the remains. Its origins are not entirely known. It may have been a Christian observance, attended with the chanting of psalms, or it may have been adopted from paganism, with the singing of psalms introduced to "Christianize" it.

In the Middle Ages, among the monastic orders, the custom was practiced in a desire to perform religious duties and was seen as beneficial. By appointing relays of monks to succeed one another, orderly provision was made that the corpse would never be left without prayer.

Among secular persons, these nocturnal meetings were sometimes an occasion of grave abuses, especially in the matter of eating and drinking. The following is found in the Anglo-Saxon canons of Ælfric, addressed to the clergy:

Ye shall not rejoice on account of men deceased nor attend on the corpse unless ye be thereto invited. When ye are thereto invited then forbid ye the heathen songs (haethenan sangas) of the laymen and their loud cachinnations; nor eat ye nor drink where the corpse lieth therein, lest ye be imitators of the heathenism which they there commit.

In the earliest Ambrosian ritual (eighth or ninth century), which Magistretti pronounces to be derived from Rome, the funeral is broken up into stages: at the house of the deceased, on the way to the church, at the church, from the church to the grave, and at the grave side. But it is also clear that there was originally something of the nature of a wake (vigilioe) consisting in the chanting of the whole Psalter beside the dead man at his home.