A Dying Tradition
Tuesday, June 26th, 2007The bells are deafening. Our eardrums buzz and vibrate making us want to run and hide from them.
Which is exactly what the Charitons have in mind.
The Charitons are burial societies which became vital community organizations during the grim years of the Black Death in the Middle Ages. Then the insistent hand-bells warned that the body of a plague victim was being carried to the cemetery for burial.
The ringing also helped scare away evil spirits, said some villagers. In the face of the deadly and mysterious plague, many were afraid to surrender the old beliefs and easily blended them with the newer Christianity as a form of back-up protection. After all, who knew what had brought on such a pestilence? We can use all the help we can get, no matter where it comes from, they thought.
At any rate, with the first sound of a clanger hitting a bell, the entire population shut itself up, literally turning villages into ghost towns.
No longer. Today their bells–each chariton has a distinctive rythym for its ring–don’t send people fleeing. Rather, they call forth crowds to watch as the members pass by in their elaborately embroidered chaperons carrying the highly-decorated banner of the local society.
Normandy is the maison mere or home base of Charitons thanks to the Vikings or Norsemen who repeatedly invaded the area early in the 11th century. They left behind more than their name stamped on the region; they also left their custom of organizing groups to take care of their dead. Being part of such a group was a recognition of virility–tough enough to look death in the eye or maybe just strong enough to give a huge old Viking a shove on his way to meet Odin.
The Catholic Church, no slouch about seizing an opportunity, was quick to co-opt the virility clubs during the plague. It was the first time it had given laymen rights to participate in what had heretofore been a monopoly of the Church–funerals.
With the Black Death ravaging the countryside, the peasants drafted into the Charitons of the time probably weren’t all that thrilled. And have no doubt about it, the Charitons were almost entirely drawn from the peasant population. Noblemen had no desire to deal with either virulent disease or physical labor.
Today’s Charitons are somewhat different. For one thing, they are now democratic organizations, electing their leader annually. They concentrate on community service, visiting the sick as well as arranging free funerals for the indigent of the village. And now females are admitted to the societies.
But tradition remains strong in the Charitons. They carefully preserve their embroidered chaperons, many of which date from the 18th century. These they drape over their left shoulders and fasten under their right arms in bandolier fashion for official events, such as the annual chariton pilgrimage on Pentecost. One major one, and the one pictured here, is in Les Preaux-Saint-Sebastian where Charitons from across the Pays d’Auge gather for a march and a special mass.
