The twice-buried Major Toll: Burial Chapel on Unblessed Land
Abstract
Being buried twice is quite an extraordinary occurrence. In this study we focus on the private burial chapel of Kourla Manor in Vihti and one particular burial there in. Archeological fieldwork of Kourla chapel in 2020 revealed that one of the deceased was buried in double coffins, one inside another. Osteological analyses as well as written sources confirmed that the deceased in question was late Major Carl Fredrik Toll (1718–1784), whose widow Catharina Charlotta Swedenmarck had the burial chapel built against the rules of the Church. The rules regarding burials on unblessed land at the Kourla Manor, which occurred following the death of Major Toll. As the construction work continued, Major Toll was first buried inside the family crypt in Tenhola church, even though it was forbidden at the time. By using archaeological data and archival sources from Tenhola parish, this article concludes that the Kourla chapel is presumably the oldest example in Finland of a private burial chapel built on private land. The building was constructed during a time when the under-church-floor burials were forbidden in parishes and the elite had difficult time of accepting that they could not bury their relatives in family crypts under the churches any longer. The acceptance for building the Kourla chapel and relocating the coffin of Major Toll in the chapel was ultimately sought and obtained from the Swedish King.
Keywords: church burial; burial chapel; nobility; Kourla; Swedenmarck
