Editing Cremation (section)

===Middle Ages===
In parts of Europe, cremation was forbidden by law, and even punishable by death if combined with [[Germanic paganism|Heathen]] rites.<ref>{{cite book| title = A History of the Church | url = https://archive.org/details/ahistorychurch00dlgoog | last = von Döllinger | first = Johann Joseph Ignaz | publisher = C. Dolman and T. Jomes | year = 1841  | page = [https://archive.org/details/ahistorychurch00dlgoog/page/n17 9] | quote = The punishment of death was inflicted on the refusal of baptism, on the heathen practice of burning the dead, and on the violation of the days of fasting [...]}}</ref> Cremation was sometimes used by Catholic authorities as part of punishment for accused heretics, which included [[Death by burning|burning at the stake]]. For example, the body of [[John Wycliff]] was exhumed years after his death and burned to ashes, with the ashes thrown in a river,<ref>{{cite book| last = Peach| first = Howard| title = Curious Tales of Old North Yorkshire| year = 2003| publisher = Sigma Leisure| isbn = 1-85058-793-0| page = 99 }}</ref> explicitly as a posthumous punishment for his denial of the [[Roman Catholicism|Roman Catholic]] doctrine of [[transubstantiation]].<ref>{{cite book| last = Schmidt| first = Alvin J.| title = How Christianity Changed the World| year = 2004| publisher = Zondervan| isbn = 0-310-26449-9| page = 261 }}</ref>

The first to advocate for the use of cremation was the physician Sir [[Thomas Browne]] in Urne Buriall (1658) which interpreted cremation as means of oblivion and reveals plainly that "there is no antidote against the Opium of time...".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Williams |first1=Howard |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kBg9DAAAQBAJ&pg=PA295 |title=Archaeologists and the Dead: Mortuary Archaeology in Contemporary Society |last2=Giles |first2=Melanie |date=2016 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-875353-7 |pages=295 |language=en}}</ref> Honoretta Brooks Pratt became the first recorded cremated European individual in modern times when she died on 26 September 1769 and was illegally cremated at the [[St George's, Hanover Square#Burial ground|burial ground on Hanover Square in London]].<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EJs7AwAAQBAJ|title=The Little Book of Death |author=Neil R Storey|year=2013|publisher=The History Press|isbn=9780752492483 }}</ref>