Back in 1784 Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II decreed that his Viennese citizens must start using reusable coffins in Vienna's five cemeteries. (Joseph's full name was eventually Holy Roman Emperor Joseph Benedikt Anton Michael Adam Hapsburg.) Joseph wanted to speed up the process of the body turning to dust/ash and so it was dropped through a trapdoor in the bottom of the reusable coffin directly into the earth. But since there were so few emperors they, including Joseph, should be placed in nice coffins that would only be used once. Joseph was actually reacting to an escalation in his time of the mourning process. People were trying to outdo their neighbors by having very elaborate and expensive funerals and burials. They were obsessed with a "schoene Leich" or beautiful funeral. But his new reusable coffin decree lasted only 5 years. It was so unpopular that there were mass protest marches against it and near-riots.
As a footnote, caskets today range in price from about $900 all the way up to about $250,000.
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