A Study on the Western Shroud of Culture

서양 壽衣文化에 관한 考察

Funeral rites relate to the last ceremonies involving the process of human beings moving from this world to the other world, becoming part of a life which remarkably reflects the world after death. They can be said to be the best culture created by the conception of death. The ceremonies of mourning, or ubiquitius folk phenomena of all the ages from the ancient times to modern times, represent the mass belief of each nation in spiritual worlds as well as the feelings of individuals facing death. In so far as their methods are concerned, the ceremonies vary in accordance with ages, nations, regions and culture. The practices of today\`s funeral rites conducted in the West have been formed and changed throughout its long history. Now that the ceremonies are a combination of complicated cultures, they serve as an important tool for inquiring into the spiritual life of the people of an age in question and the pictures of the society concerned. Therefore this paper is designed to look into the culture of shrouds showing respect for the dead in the West. With the view of examining death, and grave clothes for them, but also with the spiritual culture of human beings in relation to death represented in their pictures. I resort to literature and materials related to the shrouds of the dead which appeared in a period from the Medieval Age to the 19th century.