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David Beauregard
Our Lady of Grace Seminary, Boston
Abstract
Certain elements in Hamlet, together with historical and biographical events, suggest that
Shakespeare’s play can be better understood from a Catholic perspective. The representation
of the Ghost from Purgatory contains obviously Catholic imagery and allusions. The notion
of revenge or vengeance, understood in terms of a proper intention in appropriate circum-
stances, is considered a virtue in Thomistic theology rather than a vice, a notion applicable to
the play particularly when the opposing vices of being excessive and being remiss in punishing
(cruelty and negligence) are taken into account. And, finally, the Erastian measures taken by
Claudius, whose “great command o’ersways the order” of Ophelia’s funeral, deforms a tradi-
tional Catholic liturgy in producing “maimed rites.”
Keywords
Shakespeare, Hamlet, Catholic ritual, Erastianism, Aquinas, Purgatory
1)
All quotations are from The Riverside Shakespeare.
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007 DOI: 10.1163/156852907X172421
2)
See Edwards.
3)
The Blackfriars Gatehouse complex was a continuous center of Catholic activity until the
famous “Fatal Vespers” in 1623, when the upper floor over the gatehouse of the French ambas-
sador’s house collapsed during a Jesuit service, killing one hundred of the three hundred peo-
ple in attendance. It is possible that the same upper floor, or one section of it, had connected
to Shakespeare’s house, since according to the deed for the property, Shakespeare’s section
included a part “erected over a great gate” (Foley 1: 78–9; Chambers 2: 154–7).
4)
For attempts at applying Protestant theology to the play, see Sinfield, Waddington, Mathe-
son, and Hassel, “Hamlet’s ‘Too, Too Solid Flesh.’”
They maie digge for some earthe out of the same to make morter for a
walle, and so shall thy seelie bodie (beinge now changed into earth)
become afterwardes an earthen walle, although it be at this present the
most noble bodie and most delicately cherished of all bodies in the
worlde. And how manie bodies of Kinges and Emperors trowest thou
have come already to this promotion.
Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the
dust is earth; of earth we make loam, and why of that loam whereto he was
converted might they not stop a beer-barrel?
Imperious Caesar, dead and turn’d to clay,
Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.
5)
See Greenblatt 234–37.
6)
On the references to Wittenberg and the Diet of Worms, see Waddington 27–32,
Matheson 391–92, and Rust 260–62.
7)
The phrase “nasty nineties” is from Collinson 154 (see also 19).
8)
On Elizabeth, see Haigh, Elizabeth I and The Reign of Elizabeth I.
who has murdered his brother, an anointed king, just as Elizabeth was
perceived by some Catholics as an illegitimate tyrant who executed her “sis-
ter,” Mary Queen of Scots. There is the disruption of religious ritual with
Claudius’s marriage and Ophelia’s funeral, just as there was disruption of tra-
ditional Catholic ritual by the Elizabethan regime. There is a great deal of
spying with the activity of Polonius, Reynaldo, and Rosencrantz and Guil-
denstern, just as Elizabeth had employed an elaborate system of spying
inspired by Burghley and led by Topcliffe. There is even a remarkable similar-
ity between Polonius and Burghley. Both are obsequious servants of the
crown, given to spying, and both give preceptual advice to sons going abroad
to Paris, employing an Attic style.9 Finally, there is Hamlet’s botched plot
against the reigning monarch, similar to the clumsy plots mounted against
Elizabeth.
In light of these suggestive atmospheric parallels, I want to explore some of
the ways in which Hamlet is rooted in Catholic discourse and doctrine. On a
larger scale, there are three points at which Hamlet seems to reflect a Catho-
lic perspective: in the sympathetic characterization of the Ghost from Purga-
tory, in the complex treatment of the “problem” of revenge, and in the implied
criticism of the Erastian actions of Claudius. That is, Shakespeare assumes
that spirits are real and can return from the dead, he employs a conception of
morality based on virtue ethics rather than a voluntaristic conception of obe-
dience to law, and he portrays an Erastian interference in religious ritual as an
unwarranted violation of tradition. None of these positions are in accord
with the sixteenth-century theology of the Church of England. My claim
will be, therefore, that in these matters Shakespeare manifests a Catholic per-
spective. By way of qualification it must be said, however, that except for the
doctrine of Purgatory there is some overlap here with Reformed theologians,
not all of whom adopted a completely voluntaristic ethics and not all of
whom favored a fully Erastian conception of the relation of the state to the
church. In spite of this overlap, Shakespeare displays a fully Catholic constel-
lation of concerns about Purgatory, maimed funeral rites, deprivation of
sacraments, and remembrance of the dead.
9)
Burghley’s letter to his son Robert is most accessible in Wright 7–13 and in Cecil 80–82.
Burghley died in 1598, and his letter, probably written around 1584 when Robert went
abroad, was finally published in 1615 (STC 4899). Shakespeare could have known it from the
Earl of Southampton, who was educated in the Burghley household.
10)
On the ghost, see Prosser 118–43 and appendix A; see also Frye 14–29. Siegel surveys
criticism on both problems.
And he has been deprived of the sacraments of penance and extreme unction,
Roman Catholic but not Protestant sacraments:
Ham. O God!
Ghost. Revenge his foul and most unnatural murther.
Ham. Murther!
Ghost. Murther most foul, as in the best it is,
But this most foul, strange, and unnatural. (1.5.24–28; see also
5.1.382)
Thus his murder is couched in natural law terms, not in terms of a voluntaris-
tic code or duty ethic. It is described as a violation of nature, not as a violation
of a divine command.
Shakespeare in this scene stresses the intention and goal of an action rather
than its conformity or obedience to law. That is, Hamlet exhibits the habit of
mind characteristic of what is currently called “virtue ethics,” as opposed to
“duty ethics” or an ethics based on obedience to law. According to Aquinas,
law is an exterior principle and virtue is an interior principle of action. Virtue
ethics requires the agent to act in accordance with a good intention, a good
end, and a prudent assessment of the circumstances. Simple unreflective con-
formity to law will not do, as is obvious in the case of unjust laws. Indeed, the
law says nothing about many minor matters or rare sets of circumstances.
Virtuous action requires the acting agent to moderate the dispositions or
natural inclinations moving him, so that the action performed is in keeping
with right reason, or what should be done in any given situation. Thus the
command that the Ghost gives Hamlet: “But howsomever thou pursues this
act, / Taint not thy mind” (1.5.84–85) is open to undetermined and unknown
circumstances. The manner of carrying out vengeance is left open, provided
that, as Aquinas says, “the mind of the avenger” is not tainted by hatred. The
Ghost’s emphasis is on the interior principle, on motive and intention. By
contrast with the virtue ethics of Hamlet Sr., Polonius displays a form of duty
ethics when Laertes prepares to return to Paris (1.3.58 ff.). He acts like a
Protestant father, heaping “these few precepts” on him, much as Lord
Burghley proceeds with his son in his famous letter.
Given these preliminary reflections of a Catholic perspective, it is not sur-
prising that a serious interpretive problem arises when Hamlet is approached
from a Reformed standpoint. I refer to the supposed “problem” of revenge.
What follows from Protestant assumptions about the Ghost and the com-
mand to revenge is a dilemma. Since according to Protestant doctrine ghosts
are either evil spirits or illusions, it follows with some consistency that the
Ghost’s command to revenge must be taken to be immoral, a claim that is
allegedly confirmed by the scriptural injunction in Romans 12:18: “Ven-
geance is mine: I will repay, sayth the Lord.” Such a reading unfortunately
would put Hamlet in the position of being a villain and rather ironically
make of Claudius a victim. But there was also popular support for revenge,
and so according to a number of modern critics, there is a certain dilemma in
dealing with Hamlet, arising from the disparity between the official and the
popular attitudes.11
Approached from a Catholic standpoint, however, the “problem” of
revenge disappears. If the Ghost is a spirit from Purgatory, then his command
to avenge his murder can be seen as morally good, something quite in accord
with justice and the virtue of vengeance. Clearly Claudius is a tyrant, both in
his murderous seizure of the throne and in his use of power, and so a just
vengeance seems called for. The Catholic tradition, stemming from Aquinas
(ST 2a2ae 108) and extending to Suarez in the sixteenth century, allowed for
tyrannicide under certain conditions:12
11)
See especially Bowers 3–40 and Prosser 3–35. Most recently, Greenblatt similarly observes
that Purgatory and the last rites are “utterly incompatible with a Senecan call for revenge”
(237, 253).
12)
See the excellent discussion by Miola.
He who takes vengeance on the wicked in keeping with his rank and
position does not usurp what belongs to God, but makes use of the
power granted him by God. For it is written (Rom. xiii.4) of the earthly
prince that he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath upon him
that doeth evil. If, however, a man takes vengeance outside the order of
divine appointment, he usurps what is God’s and therefore sins.13
Aquinas points out, however, that the avenger’s intention must not be
directed by hatred for the offender but rather by charity intending some
good, such as the offender’s amendment or the common good. This accords
with what Hamlet, who is an “earthly prince,” says very late in the play:
For as long as in this first kingdome [Eden] the subiects [Adam and Eve]
continued in due obedience to GOD their king, so long did GOD
13)
On the interpretation of this passage, see MacIntyre.
14)
For an important survey of Protestant views on passive obedience to unjust rulers, see
Greaves.
embrace all his subiects with his loue, fauour, and grace, which to enioy,
is perfect felicity, whereby it is euident, that obedience is the principall
vertue of all vertues, and indeed the very root of all vertues, and the cause
of all felicitie. But as all felicitie and blessednesse should haue continued
with the continuance of obedience, so with the breach of obedience, and
breaking in of rebellion, al vices and miseries did withall breake in, and
ouerwhelme the world. (2.21.1.27–34)
Here the homily does not emphasize virtuous intentions applied flexibly to
circumstances, but rather it insists on an absolute and blind obedience to law.
Against the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of virtue ethics, obedience
becomes “the principall vertue of all vertues,” not the virtue subordinated to
the cardinal virtue of justice or to the limited jurisdiction of legitimate
authority. Moreover, it has become the cause of “all felicity and blessedness.”
In linking the “first kingdom” of Eden with contemporary England, the
homily idealizes the Elizabethan regime. The phrase “God their king,” equat-
ing God and king, implies divine right. Thus, by a threefold linkage identify-
ing obedience with happiness, Eden, and God, and further equating it
with prosperity, England, and the Queen, any sort of disobedience and rebel-
lion is precluded and delegitimized. Absent the flexibility of Aristotelian-
Thomistic ethics, then, the absolutist doctrine of divine right forecloses on
the possibility of royal corruption and any redress of injustice, a problem
addressed by Shakespeare in several plays. Thus, for example, John of Gaunt
and Hamlet, by adopting a posture of passivity in the face of royal corrup-
tion, suffer the consequences and bring on their own demise.
Of additional importance is Aquinas’s description of vengeance in terms
of a virtue with two extremes, as the golden mean between an excess and a
deficiency:
Two vices are opposed to vengeance: one by way of excess, namely, the sin
of cruelty or brutality, which exceeds the measure in punishing: while
the other is a vice by way of deficiency and consists in being remiss in
punishing, wherefore it is written (Prov. xiii. 24): He that spareth the
rod hateth his son. But the virtue of vengeance consists in observing
the due measure of vengeance with regard to all the circumstances.
(2a2ae 108.2.3)
Reuenge is of two sorts; one publike, and an other priuate. And as for
publike, which ought to be exercised by the magistrate; so far is it off
from prohibiting therof, as God commandeth the same; warning alwaies
the magistrates, that they should execute iustice and iudgement, and not
suffer wickednesse to escape vnpunished. But it is not lawfull for priuate
men to reuenge, vnlesse it be, according to the prouerbe, To repell vio-
lence by violence. This is not prohibited them, when the magistrate can-
not helpe them. For somtime the case happeneth so vpon the sudden; as
a man cannot straitwaie flie to the helpe of the publike power. Where-
fore we may then defend our selues, vsing neuerthelesse great modera-
tion; to wit, that we onelie indeuour to defend our selues, and them that
be committed vnto vs, not wishing with a mind of reuenge to hurt our
aduersaries; in such sort as that action may proceed, not of hatred, but of
charitie.
A line seems to have been drawn, however, when it came to the matter of
unjust rulers. In opposition to some Protestant theorists, passive obedience
to tyrants, as we have seen, was preached by the late Elizabethan Homilies
(see Greaves).
Catholic authorities such as Francisco Suarez and Robert Parsons fol-
lowed Aquinas in arguing that resistance to a tyrant could be justified,
15)
See Calvin 4.20.17–20, 31; Peter Martyr 417–18, pt. 1, ch. 9; and for Wilson see
Vickers 87.
Then Hamlet proceeds to insist on the virtuous mean that should moderate
passion. A crucial part of the moderation and tempering of speech, what
Hamlet calls the “modesty of nature,” is the avoidance of the extremes of
excess and deficiency.
Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently,
for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your pas-
sion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smooth-
ness . . . Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your
tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this spe-
cial observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. (3.2.4–8,
16–19)
For anything so o’erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both
at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as ’twere the mirror up to nature,
to show virtue her own feature, scorn [pride] her own image, and the
very age and body of the time his form and pressure. (3.2.19–24)
The purpose of mimesis here is historically specific, uniting poetics and Aris-
totelian-Thomistic moral philosophy. As I have argued elsewhere, this con-
ception is operative in two other major sixteenth century poets, Sir Philip
Sidney and Edmund Spenser (Beauregard 23–28). In his Apology for Poetry
(1583), Sidney describes mimesis as “an arte of imitation . . . that is to say, a
representing, counterfeiting, or figuring foorth,” and he conceives of the
object of mimesis as “virtues, vices, and what els [that is, the passions]” as they
have been abstractly defined and distinguished by “the Schoolemen” (See
16)
On the word speculum, see Bradley.
17)
The first commentator to point this out was Campbell, whose work I have developed fur-
ther in Virtue’s Own Feature. See also Kirsch.
18)
Indeed, Petrarch, Boccaccio, and Tasso clearly seem to be precursors of this poetical pro-
gram and its connection to Aristotelian-Thomistic moral philosophy. Thus Petrarch begins
his Canzoniere describing them as a record of his youthful passions of hope and sorrow atten-
dant upon love. For Boccaccio’s representation of the virtues, see Kirkham; see also Tasso
469–74.
19)
On this point, see especially Marker.
On the contrary, following the doctrine of the sinful depravity and intel-
lectual darkness in which postlapsarian human nature found itself, Reformed
theologians saw actions largely in terms of revelation and obedience to law,
particularly the Ten Commandments, which could be found revealed in scrip-
ture. Luther considered Aristotle’s Ethics the worst enemy of grace, and Cal-
vin likewise dismissed the philosophers in preference to the Revealed Word.
As philosophers have fixed limits of the right and the honorable, whence
they derive individual duties and the whole company of virtues, so Scrip-
ture is not without its own order in this matter, but holds to a most beau-
tiful dispensation, and one much more certain than all the philosophical
ones. The only difference is that they, as they were ambitious men, dili-
gently strove to attain an exquisite clarity of order, which may serve
to show the nimbleness of their wit. But the Spirit of God, because he
taught without affectation, did not adhere so exactly or continuously
to a methodical plan. (Luther 31: 12; 44: 200–201; see also Calvin 1:
685, 3.6.1)
In spite of this lip service to virtue, Calvin and Reformed theologians put
more emphasis on law.20 Even Richard Hooker adopted this voluntaristic
conception of ethics.21 But Shakespeare shows the influence of Aristotelian
philosophical ethics and its historical development.
20)
For a survey of Reformed ethics, see Sinnema.
21)
See the important article by Westberg, who argues that Hooker’s theory of agency differs
from that of Aquinas: “Instead of attraction and love, it is obedience; and for moral action,
not the development of virtue, but duty and obligation” (208).
its spying, its executions of Catholic priests, and its general disruption and
suppression of traditional Catholic ritual. In Shakespeare’s eyes, the evil that
Hamlet is commissioned to expunge is primarily the crime of murder, but
there is yet another evil that emanates from the person of Claudius.
Erastianism, the idea that the state has supremacy over the church in eccle-
siastical matters, was so called after Thomas Lüber (1524–83), whose Latin
name was “Erastus.” Lüber was a Swiss physician, rector of Heidelberg Uni-
versity, and the Zwinglian theologian who wrote Explicatio gravissimae ques-
tione, utrum Excommunicatione (A Treatise of Excommunication). Lüber’s
work merely laid out a scripturally based argument against excommunica-
tion, which developed into “Erastianism,” or what can be summed up as the
theory “that the civil magistrate exercised all sovereignty within the state,
that the church exercised no coercive power, and that excommunication
should not be exercised” (Hillerbrand, “Erastianism”). Well before the time
of the publication of Lüber’s work, the governments of most Protestant cities
and areas were in fact already Erastian, as had been the case in England with
the passage of the Act of Supremacy (1534) under Henry VIII. The Refor-
mation in Denmark (c. 1522–40) had employed measures that were similar
in some respects to those taken in England. A Lutheran creed had been
adopted, the monasteries had been appropriated, a new liturgy had been
devised, and the Bible had been translated into the vernacular. The king came
to exercise supreme power over the church (Hillerbrand, “Denmark”).
Influential in England, Lüber’s work, by virtue of its argumentation, rein-
forced the position of John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1583
to 1604, against Presbyterian arguments in favor of the separate jurisdiction
of church and state. In late medieval England neither canon law nor liturgical
ritual was subject to royal command or civil law,22 but in Reformation
England, Henry VIII had changed all that and made the church subject to
the crown. With the Act of Supremacy he repudiated papal supremacy, des-
ignated himself “the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England”
and thus collapsed the distinction between temporal and spiritual jurisdic-
tion. In Henry’s wake, Elizabeth revised the Act of Supremacy in 1559, call-
ing herself somewhat more modestly “the only supreme governor of this
22)
On this point, see Skinner 144–48. Skinner mentions that Suarez and other Jesuit theolo-
gians “insist on the traditional claim that the visible church is unquestionably an independent
legislative authority, operating its own code of canon law in parallel with, and never in subjec-
tion to, the civil laws of the commonwealth” (2: 145).
And as in temporal causes, the king by the mouth of his judges in his
courts of justice, doth judge and determine the same by the temporal
laws of England, so in causes ecclesiastical and spiritual . . . the same are
to be determined and decided by judges according to the king’s ecclesi-
astical laws of this realm.24 (qtd. in Mortimer 58–59)
23)
On Erastianism in England, see Crowley and also Nichols 21–24.
24)
For a historical survey, see especially Houlbrooke, “Ecclesiastical” 7–20, 249 (on
funerals).
25)
On maimed rites, see Quinlan 303–6. See also Frye 297–309, who is seriously corrected
by MacDonald 309–17 and Holleran 65–77.
Clearly, Hamlet’s reflections stress the need for an extended period of mourn-
ing. His words suggest the decline in the remembrance of the dead, which
had its roots in the liturgical changes introduced by the Prayer Book. The
Edwardine Prayer Books had curtailed the rite for burial of the dead, with
profound social and cultural implications:
But in the world of the 1552 [Prayer Book] the dead were no longer with
us. They could neither be spoken to nor even about, in any way that
affected their well-being. The dead had gone beyond the reach of human
contact, even of human prayer. There was nothing which could even be
mistaken for a prayer for the dead in the 1552 funeral rite. The service
was no longer a rite of intercession on behalf of the dead, but an exhorta-
tion to faith on the part of the living. Indeed, it is not too much to say
that the oddest feature of the 1552 burial rite is the disappearance of the
corpse from it. So, at the moment of committal in 1552, the minister
turns not towards the corpse, but away from it, to the living congrega-
tion around the grave. “Forasmuche as it hathe pleased almightie God of
his great mercy to take unto himselfe the soule of our dere brother here
departed: we therefore commit his body to the ground, earth to earth,
asshes to asshes, dust to dust.” Here the dead person is spoken not to, but
about, as one no longer here, but precisely as departed: the boundaries of
human community have been redrawn. (Duffy 475)
Later, the Ghost of Hamlet Sr. bids Hamlet, “Adieu, adieu, adieu! Remember
me.” And in response Hamlet repeats the word “remember” almost hysteri-
cally, suggesting a Catholic frame of mind (1.5.92–111).
A second “maimed rite” occurs with Polonius’s funeral, a disordered
funeral ritual to which Laertes objects:
26)
On the Catholic tradition regarding widows and remarriage, see Kehler.
In this case, the corpse has indeed disappeared, along with the proper rites
and remembrance of the deceased. Laertes emphasizes the absence of both
the rite and its proper form, together with the funerary objects that would
provide some tribute to and remembrance of his dead father.
Again, Claudius is the moving force behind Polonius’s “obscure” funeral.
His motivation lies mainly in concern for himself:
A question naturally arises at this point: why does Claudius not get rid of
Hamlet by simply accusing him of the crime? Why all this indirection and
cover-up? Why the hurried and “obscure” funeral? Fear of popular blame,
the explanation given in passing, seems hardly enough to account for Claudi-
us’s actions. Later, after his encounter with Laertes, the king after all is quite
willing to be direct and “let the great axe fall” on Hamlet (4.5.219). The
answer seems to lie in Shakespeare’s desire to portray Claudius as an Erastian
tyrant whose self-protecting cover-up disrupts the traditional order. As with
Hamlet’s frenzied desire to remember his father in act 1, the theme of remem-
brance of a father enters again with Ophelia’s lament for Polonius:
Will you ha’ the truth an’t? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she
should have been buried out ’a Christian burial. (5.1.23–25)
On a first reading, it might seem that Claudius is using his royal power
benevolently, that he has commanded that the church order be softened for
Ophelia over against the “churlish” priest who is reluctant to allow Ophelia
her “virgin crants” and “charitable prayers.” In allowing these traditional
features of the funeral, Claudius’s desire is to allay Laertes’s anger. As the pre-
ceding scene comes to a close, he says to Gertrude, who has just described
Ophelia’s death:
Thus Claudius allows Ophelia some of her burial rites over and against a
reluctant churchman who would deny her a full and proper traditional
funeral.
But this reading requires some qualification. The theme of “maimed rites”
carries considerable historical resonance. The “maimed rites” observed by
Hamlet are what an Elizabethan Catholic would have found familiar. It has
been rightly argued that formally the scene presumes the propriety and full-
ness of a traditional Roman Catholic funeral on several counts (Noble 84–
85; Holleran 68–69). When the priest suggests the uselessness of “charitable
prayers,” he is rejecting a distinctly Roman Catholic practice, since prayers
for the dead were said as part of the traditional Catholic funeral ritual and
were attacked by the Reformers (Cressy 386–87; Houlbrooke, “Ecclesiasti-
cal” 249). He also mentions that Ophelia has been “allow’d” her “virgin crants
[and] her maiden strewments,” that is, the casting of flowers into her grave.
This also was a Catholic practice (Cressy 402). Again, Ophelia is denied a
sung “requiem.” In the traditional Catholic funeral ritual, a requiem Mass
was sung in Latin and preceded the burial. The Latin hymn “In Paradisum,”
which ended “Aeternam habeas requiem,” was sung by members of the funeral
procession (Quinlan 305–6). This sense of liturgical disruption and incom-
pletion provokes Laertes’s complaint “Must there no more be done?”
(5.1.235). Thus, all three of the elements mentioned in Ophelia’s funeral
rite—the sung requiem, the strewing of flowers, and charitable prayers—are
in keeping with traditional pre-Reformation ritual. All were progressively
eliminated by the Tudor regime, and Laertes’s expectations and disappoint-
ment are what an Elizabethan Catholic might have experienced.
It seems apparent, then, that Claudius’s royal interference provides an
action analogous to the Erastian disruptions that occurred in Elizabethan
England. Shakespeare’s overall point clearly seems to be that “great command
o’ersways the order.” Just as Henry and Elizabeth had usurped the spiritual
supremacy of the Catholic Church in England, specifically suppressing and
reshaping various rituals, so the funeral rite has been “maimed” by Claudius’s
royal interference. In spite of his concessions of certain traditional elements
of the funeral rite—charitable prayers, “virgin crants, [and] maiden strew-
ments,” still the traditional sung requiem is not allowed. Thus Claudius’s
attempt at a “via media” produces a “maimed rite,” something between the
traditional Catholic ritual and the reduced Elizabethan rite.
The priest-Doctor is less a churchman than a servant of the crown, similar
to a Church of England cleric serving royal authority. Although his rejection
of “charitable prayers” would associate him with Protestantism, he has
executed the warrant to “enlarge” Ophelia’s obsequies, a warrant that comes
from royal and not ecclesiastical authority, clearly identifying him with
Protestant Erastianism. With the hard words of the priest and the angry
objection of Laertes, Shakespeare elicits sympathy for Ophelia, who accord-
ing to canon law should be allowed the full traditional ritual, disrupted and
in part suppressed by the English Reformers.27 Claudius’s action thus resem-
bles that of Elizabeth in that he is a tyrant who has overreached himself by
interfering in religious ritual. And Laertes reminds us of the Catholic experi-
ence of disrupted rituals and “maimed rites.” Shakespeare clearly goes against
the grain of the Erastian developments in the late Elizabethan church.
Over the full course of the play, then, Shakespeare manifests a Catholic
perspective. His conception of Purgatory, his attitude towards the Ghost, his
27)
Some interesting historical considerations can be brought to bear on the scene. To begin
with, the burial of suicides in “sanctified ground” was forbidden by Roman Catholic canon
law, a law that until 1662 the Church of England still followed as custom (MacDonald 314).
However, significant qualifications would have allowed Christian burial for Ophelia. There
were obvious distinctions between canon and civil law, and between sane and insane suicides.
According to canon law, suicides in their right minds (felo de se) were denied burial in conse-
crated ground, but insane suicides (non compos mentis) were allowed such burial. It appears
that by virtue of government financial interest Elizabethan civil courts were harsh and severe
in presuming sanity and rendering felo de se verdicts (MacDonald 310–11; see also the later
treatment by MacDonald and Murphy 15–41). The Tudors produced “a huge growth in the
number of convicted suicides,” more rigorously enforcing the law whereby their goods were
forfeit to the crown. (On late medieval and Reformation funerals, see Cressy 396–420
and Houlbrooke, Death 255–77; on suicides, see Houlbrooke, Death 210–11].) But canon
law was more lenient, since mortal sin requires full deliberation and full consent of the will.
(On the leniency of canon law, Frye cites the Council of Braga, 563 A.D.; the Decretals of
Gratian, mid-twelfth century; Henry de Bracton, thirteenth century; William Lyndwood,
fifteenth century; and Robert Burton, 1621 [299–300]. MacDonald argues from actual civil
cases.) Ophelia’s death is clearly not deliberate and willful but is non compos mentis. In keeping
with Gertrude’s description of her madness and accidental death, and in keeping with canon
law, a strict consistency would logically lead to affording Ophelia burial in consecrated ground.
She was clearly insane, she died accidentally, and therefore she may be accorded a full burial
rite as canon law provides.
position on revenge, his use of Thomistic moral terminology, his use of Luis
of Granada, and his anti-Erastian perspective position him well outside the
pale of the Elizabethan church. By contrast with the numerous Catholic
references in the play, the allusions to Wittenberg are few, and the various
theological commonplaces, such as the prudence of the flesh, individual con-
science, and providence, are not sharply distinctive enough to align him with
Lutheran or Calvinist theology.28 Similar notions can be found in Augustine
and Aquinas, to cite the most obvious authorities. It is possible, of course,
that Hamlet drifts from a Catholic into a Reformed mentality, whether posi-
tively or negatively construed, but this trajectory needs considerably more
clarification and specification than it has received.29
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