<論説>ネルソンの国葬 : セント・ポール大聖堂における軍人のコメモレイション (特集 : モニュメント)

Abstract

本稿では、モニュメントの意味を問い直す試みとして、一八〇六年一月に挙行された提督ホレイシオ・ネルソンの国葬をはじめとする公式の記念・顕彰行為に注目し、セント・ポール大聖堂という空間のもつ意味を考察する。国葬とならんで、当時実施・計画された海陸軍のメリット勲章の創設、モニュメント建立のようなネルソンへの顕彰行為は、イギリスの首都の大聖堂に、国民的英雄の霊廟という特徴をもたらしただけではない。大聖堂という空間を介して、彼の「神格化」がはかられることで、その記憶に特権的な地位をあたえることをめざしたものでもあった。このときみられたコメモレイションとモニュメントとのあいだの相互の働きは、後年、著名な英雄の埋葬にさいして、セント・ポール大聖堂のもつ軍人のパンテオンとしての意味が人びとに再確認されると同時に、強い国民的合意も促されることで、繰り返されることとなる。

St Paul's Cathedral, the cathedral church of the diocese of London and the architectural masterpiece by Sir Christopher Wren, became the most important site of royal and military state commemoration in the period of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. This article argues a series of rituals and projects to commemorate Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson and British naval victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in this metropolitan cathedral in 1805-6. With the emphasis on a spatial dimension of commemoration of the departed hero, this article aims to improve our understandings about the meaning of monument. In modern Britain, state funeral had been a rare public occasion except for the cases of the royalty. It can be defined as a funeral superintended by the Earl Marshal and the College of Arms at the public expense. Though Nelson's state funeral followed a manner of heraldic military funerals in the former period, it was simultaneously attempted to constitute a departure from this tradition because of both the intention of the organizers of Nelson's funeral and public anticipation. It could be considered a naval spectacle: Admiral of the Fleet as the chief mourner, a bond of many naval officers and an iconoclastic attendance of veterans of HMS Victory and pensioners of Greenwich Hospital. Not only was this naval presence and symbolism appropriate the interment of the distinguished naval hero, but also affirmed the public British naval and military supremacy over Napoleon. Along with the discussion and preparation of funeral arrangements, the Pitt ministry considered to inaugurate a new order of merit as a reward for naval and military officers. This order, as called the 'Naval and Military Order of Merit', had two prominent features: an unlimited number of knights and the creation of an official 'Trafalgar Day'. For the latter, the choir of St Paul's Cathedral was assumed as the chapel of this order and the investiture ceremony would be held there on 21 October in every year. In spite of an elaborate arrangement and a royal approval, the scheme to institute a new order of merit was suddenly abandoned. This was perhaps attributable to the death of Pitt the Younger in 1806, which led to the end of close cooperation between the government and St Paul's in state naval and military commemoration. In the period of Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, British parliament had continuously voted to erect monuments for the departed heroes on an unprecedented scale and consequently invented a new naval and military pantheon in St Paul's. The entombment of Nelson was the sequence of the state funeral and the institution of an order of merit, and generated a range of public debate as it was regarded as the focal point in this parliamentary effort. While John Flaxman's monument, which was consisted of patriotic narrative and classic allegory to fascinate emulation for later generations, only constituted a position amongst a naval and military pantheon, the magnificent tomb occupied the most important site in St Paul's, the crossing of the crypt under the dome. In later years, the authority of St Paul's exceptionally permitted the burials of admirals and Nelson's kinsmen to enhance the sacred place of the national martyrdom. The process of the 'apotheosis' of Nelson in St Paul's was derived from correlation between commemoration and monument: naval commemoration effected the characteristic of mausoleum of the national hero in this cathedral but its very site conferred a privileged position to the memory of Nelson and Trafalgar. The conjunction of St Paul's with the pantheonization of the hero might be contingent, without any effort of continuance. However, the burials of other heroes such as Wellington had given the strong sense to the cathedral as the site of naval and military commemoration. At the same time, St Paul's itself not only reinforced the meanings of naval and military achievements in former days, but also justified and created wider national consensus for military state funerals in modern Britain.