MORTUARY (Med.

See also:

• LAT

Lat. mortuarium, from mortuus, dead)  , of or belonging to the dead, or, in particular, to the burial 2 In his book Morton indulges his fondness for punning and display of Latinity by calling the place Mare-Mount (Hill by the sea) . of the dead . The chief modern use of the word is for a building in which dead bodies awaiting burial may be temporarily kept, for the purpose of inquiry, identification, post-mortem examination, &c . But it has also been applied to many subjects connected with death and burial . In monastic institutions it was the duty of the almoner to send round to other monastic houses notice of the death of a member, asking for prayers for the soul of the dead . This notice was often beautifully illuminated . On being returned with the endorsement of the monastery to which it had been sent, it would be copied into the roll . Both the notice and the roll were known as a mortuarium, or mortuary (see Abbot F . H . Gasquet's English Monastic Life, 1904) . In the English Church a "mortuary " was in certain places a customary oblation or offering paid out of the estate of a deceased person to the church to which he belonged . An act of 1529 (21 Hen .

VIII. c . 6) limited the amount to be paid in mortuaries, the highest being of the value of sos. in estates above £40 . Mortuaries, where customary, can only be enforced in the ecclesiastical courts . The

custom has entirely died out, though claims have been made from time to time .