Totenzettel - Death card; prayer card; memorial card.'
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Example of a Totenzettel from the Aachen city archive;
Marie Sibille Startz's Totenzettel from 1793.
Marie Sibille Startz, geborene Theilen, starb vor 125 Jahren am 21. September 1793 Jahren nach 48 Lebens-, 23 Ehe- und vier Witwenjahren.
Translation:
Pray for the soul of the deceased
Marie Sibille Startz, née Theilen, died 125 years ago on September 21, 1793 after 48 years of life, 23 years of marriage and four years as a widow.
We owe this information to one of the many valuable sources in the Aachen city archive - the Totenzettel.
The story of the death note begins in Belgium and the Netherlands (called Bidprentjes*) in the second half of the 17th century and continues to this day. The death notes were created during the Reformation as a reaction of the Catholic Church to the widespread funeral sermons of Protestantism. While these sermons gave detailed information about the deceased, the death notes distributed during the Catholic Requiem - the funeral mass - were mainly intended to be used to pray for the soul of the deceased.
The shape of the death note has changed several times over the years. The copies, which were initially still handwritten on parchment or paper and which only the clergy, the nobility or the upper bourgeoisie could afford, essentially contained the names and dates of the deceased as well as a request for a prayer for salvation. The latter should serve to shorten the purgatory torments of the deceased. The size of the death notes varied greatly and could reach the size of a small poster. Often they were richly decorated with religious motifs, often in the form of a frame. These were mostly dark symbols of death such as the grim reaper, skulls, coffins, broken and extinguished candles, urns and clocks.
The prestige of the deceased was underlined
After the French Revolution, death notes spread to all classes of the bourgeoisie. Their religious purpose was soon suppressed, the death slips were now used more and more to the prestige of the deceased
underline. In addition to the life data, information on marriage, deceased spouses, children, occupation, status, titles, honorary positions, public functions, awards given, diseases and their course as well as the cause of death can be included.
Intended to be kept in the prayer book
The death notes were printed on both sides and provided with depictions of saints or Christian texts on the back. The religious pictorial decorations used now had a more comforting effect. Replaced from around 1900
Portraits of the deceased often include images of saints. Closed résumés are often found on the double-leaf death slip, which is now increasingly appearing. With their now small format (approx. DIN A6), the death notes were intended to be kept in the prayer book. So they were always at the Mass
Hand and should thereby preserve the memory of the deceased and encourage prayer for him. From the 1960s of the last century, the custom of distributing death slips fell sharply and was replaced by the publication of an obituary notice in the newspaper.
Death notes are very important in research. They thus serve as a substitute and supplementary tradition in personal and family research. At the same time, they document the sometimes very extensive ramifications of the Aachen families across the borders into the Netherlands and Belgium as well as the interdependence of individual companies. And last but not least, they reflect to a not inconsiderable extent historical and cultural developments as well as the respective zeitgeist.
The Aachen City Archives will shortly begin digitizing the death slip collection in order to make it easier to use.
Bidprentjes - See collection online: Open Archive index to Bidprentjes