Life, death and a fragment of gravestone
This item was originally written for the newsletter of Newcastle Family History Society In the midst of life we are in death This haunting sentence has a long history. In its Latin form it’s an ancient Gregorian chant and it is familiar to many as part of the burial service in the book of common prayer. As a reminder that the dead are always with us, and that – as Shakespeare memorably observed, “our little life is rounded with a sleep” – the sentence is natural epitaph material. It was, for example, engraved on the tombstone…