Terminus: The Night, the Crossroads and the Stake

This chapter explores the nature, popularity, and cultural resonances of the long practice of outcast burial at crossroads, whose liminal status meant they were considered appropriate places to leave materials expelled from society. These were often the worst of criminals, the murderers and traitors. But since the unfortunate victims of suicide were regarded as a species of criminal in the early modern period, they were also buried at the crossroads. However, the fact that these burials are often commemorated might suggest that such interment can become almost auspicious to the culture that orders it. Although the more dominant view of such burials is negative, this alternative line of interpretation expresses a more nuanced response to the historical outcasting of the undesirable dead.