Saint-Maclou Aître, the ossuary that swallowed an entire French parish

The Black Death arrived by boat. Jean Froissart, chronicler of 14th century France, put the death toll at one third of the European population. Modern estimates are closer to half. Yet, in the densely-populated French port city of Rouen, three quarters died. Their bodies accumulated to turn a small parish cemetery into the ossuary of Saint-Maclou Aître.

I arrived in Rouen by train, equally inconspicuous but, if you believe what you may have read about me, no less dangerous. Unlike the great plague of medieval Europe, however, I made my way directly to the ossuary, ducking into the unassuming passage that leads visitors under timber-framed houses and to the remains of Saint-Maclou Aître beyond.

The French get their word aître from the Latin atrium – an open courtyard surrounded by a covered gallery. Before 1348, this was the site of what was soon to be called le petit aître. This parish cemetery, small though it was, served the community just fine. That is, until the Black Death pushed the death rate beyond what it could hold. Suddenly, a grand aître was a morbid must-have. The authorities set about swallowing surrounding houses (likely easier and definitely darker than it sounds when you consider that most of their inhabitants were already within the cemetery walls). And Saint-Maclou Aître became the final resting place of Rouen’s plague-stricken population.

Of course, as is always the case with funereal sites, a few details were included for the living. In the 16th century, the parish added three new galleries and a roof truss. These would serve as an ossuary – a place for old bones when gravediggers needed space for fresh burials. On the wood beams, builders marked its purpose the same way that the Black Death had marked their city. With skulls, coffins and shovels. And on the stone pillars that lined the galleries of Rouen ossuary, they joined a procession that had started in Paris a century before.

The anonymous artist behind the Holy Innocents’ Cemetery danse macabre inspired similar works in ossuaries and burial sites across Europe. At Saint-Maclou Aître, the gaunt figure of death leads the living in a dance around pillars along the east and west galleries.

Today, Saint-Maclou Aître is a place for the dead-in-waiting. Like many cemeteries across France, local authorities cleared out Rouen ossuary to protect the living. But its décor, swollen in wood or worn in stone, is still attracting visitors and serving as a reminder that, eventually, death comes for us all.

If you’re in the area, Saint-Maclou Church at the top of the street is still serving the community. And if you’re in the mood, the Paris Catacombs remain one of Europe’s most impressive and well-preserved ossuaries.