As I understand it (and I'm no expert on Catholic lore), it's the spirit that's being put to rest, not the actual body (any "dust to dust" comments notwithstanding). So if the ceremony is performed over "the remains", and "in good faith", then it is "proper".
(Or, as someone said, over an empty coffin, say in the case of a victim cremated beyond any recovery in a massive fire - altho' that may not have been true in medieval times.)
Depends. If the priest is not sincere in the burial itself, no. If the priest is in a state of sin... maybe, dunno.
But if the priest is only corrupt in some other sense (and not in a "mortal damnation" way that would negate their priesthood itself), but truly believes that they are putting a soul to rest, then I'd say it's perfectly legit in the eyes of The Dominion. The soul is not damned to purgatory because the priest took a bribe, only if the priest was not sincere when he sent them along to their reward.
(Unless the Catholic Church had some bizarre rule about this, which Gawd knows they did at times! What we really need is to ask a priest - anyone know one who could be asked?)
This is potentially a very complicated matter but my view is...
A Christian burial requires a Christian Priest and generally interment in consecrated soil. The Priest does not have to be utterly pure, but he does have to conduct a funeral with the sincere understanding that he is passing the persons soul over to God. Thus bribing the Priest is not in of itself an issue, but may have further ramifications. Such a Priest will be the target of Demonic machinations. Burying a head only is not spiritually ideal, but neither is it a deal breaker.
Even if the Priest is utterly corrupt there are social considerations, who is the murder victim? Where are his friends, family and relatives. If a bereaved wife and her angry menfolk beat down the door to the Church is the Priest going to say "hey well I figured it was still spiritually valid so I thought what the hell".
You can't just turn up to a Church in the dead of night with random body parts, request a Christian burial and tip the Priest.
Lastly a Christian burial does not simply lay the dead to rest... though that may be the intention. To me it places the dead person's soul directly into the realm of the divine (I suppose you can argue that souls are always at least indirectly in the realm of the divine). God has his ideas of justice, and you get to play him. Now my first thought is that the deceased body is reamnimated to seek revenge, it can't be permanently destroyed whilst the situation has not been resolved but possibly could be appeased if given it's own burial.
This seems to me quite absurd, comedical, but also thematically apropriate.
I'm not a priest, but only Ordination, Reconcilation and The Mass are reserved to priests in the Middle Ages. Marriage eventually become reserved to the priesthood, but baptism and unction can be performed by Jews, provided they make it orally clear that they intend to do what the church does, and they use a physical vessel suitable. So a Jewish midwife can baptise a sick baby before it dies, and a Saracen can provide unction to a fallen foe on the battlefield. There are clear sources on both.
It is even more weird to see them bury the head without checking where is the body. or the dude being buried twice, once because you have the head and once because you have the body!! :mrgreen:
I absolutely agree that baptism can be conducted by anyone, anywhere. Pagan, Jew, saracen, heretic, it doesn't matter.
However, as far as I am aware, Last Rites had to be administered by a priest. I know that at times exceptions were granted. Like periods of mass casualty, such as plagues, when deacons or even lay-people were allowed to perform the rite. But these were exceptions that required the bishop to grant an explicit dispensation (albeit sometimes retrospectively).
Non-priests performing extreme unction is potentially possible, but is exceptional and requires the church's approval.
Also, "proper burial" is not really an authentic medieval idea, anyway. Last rites is authentic, but that's not quite the same thing as "proper burial". As far as I know, the idea of a "proper burial" (as a church rite, rather than just culturally "proper") is actually a bit of gaming fiction.
Another idea for a story here would be the atonement the priest puts on the assassin (if he asks for confession). That may include admitting his crime on court ...
On the other hand the priest can deny confession, especially if the murder didn't obey to the last atonement he but on him (in case of more such cases)
btw. in my opinion the burial would be proper in most circumstances as long it is done on sacred ground, as it is for the sake of the victim ...
Would a priest attach such a "temporal" penance to a sin? I would think (just a layman's guess here) that "sin and penance" would be the limited to the realm of the church and God, not of the courts of man.
If I was a priest and someone wanted me to bury a head to insure soul is in heaven and not reachable any way. I would wonder if the assassin would then kill me to so I can't tell anyone about him.
Well, actually I don't know. But I thought this would be a usual penance today. But feel free to think about anything that brings up a good story, especially if the murder is a PC there are a lot of possibilities:
There's a statement in the Bible about "rendering unto Caesar that which is Caesar's". One Christian (not Catholic) friend of mine has used this to support the idea that Christians should obey the laws of the land, even when they don't align with God's laws. I don't know how important this statement was in the medieval Catholic church, but it should be enough of a fig leaf for requiring submission to temporal authorities as part of penance.
That's a common interpretation.
I've heard other claim that it means you need to pay your taxes to be a 'proper christian' - or christian organization. Their word, not mine.
One of the canons (42) of the 1215 ecumenical council http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/lateran4.asp uses this quote to explain that clergy should not use "the pretext of ecclesiastical liberty to [undermine] secular justice". This wasn't about obeying the laws of the land even when they don't align with canon law, it was more about not using canon law to ursurp the rights of laymen or the rights of secular justice which is not quite the same thing.
