%0 Journal Article %A De Spiegeleer, Christoph %T Secularization and the Modern History of Funerary Culture in Europe %D 2019 %J Trajecta, %V 28 %N 2 %P 169-201 %@ 2665-9484 %R https://doi.org/10.5117/TRA2019.2.002.DESP %K Europe %K Belgium %K death %K secularization %K funerary culture %I Amsterdam University Press, %X Abstract This article connects the history of attitudes toward death and funerary practices in 19th- and 20th-century Europe to the ongoing discussion on secularization. It emphasizes how recent scholarship on the history of death – following broader trends within religious studies – has abandoned the standard modernization-narrative of secularization, and moved to view the issue through the prism of conflict and market competition. Depending on the historical context and the Church-State relationship, a conflict and/or market competition perspective can deepen our understanding of the secularization of death and burial practices. In periods of intense socio-political struggle over the role of religion in the modern polity, a conflict perspective helps to grasp the processes of secularization. Once secular forces have succeeded in breaking the grip of the churches on death and burial, a market perspective can be more useful. Both serve as alternatives to the traditional understanding of secularization as an anonymous process of modernization. An in-depth analysis of the development of a secularist funerary culture in Belgium aptly demonstrates the shift in the master variable influencing secularization – from socio-political conflict to market competition. %U https://www.aup-online.com/content/journals/10.5117/TRA2019.2.002.DESP