Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation

This is a study of the social, theological and cultural issues involved in death and dying in Europe from the end of the Roman Empire to the Reformation in the early 16th century. Drawing on both archaeological and art historical sources, the book examines pagan and Christian attitudes towards the dead, the aesthetics of death and the body, burial ritual and mortuary practice. The evidence is accumulated from a wide variety of medieval thinkers and images, including the illustrations of the "Dance of Death" and other popular themes in art and literature which reflect the medieval obession with notions of humility, penitence and the dangers of bodily corruption. Also discussed is the impact of the Black Death on late medieval art and the development of the medieval tomb showing the changing attitudes to the commemoration of the dead between late antiquity and the late Middle Ages. In the final chapter the progress of the soul after death is studied through descriptions of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory in Dante and the other writers and portrayals of the Last Judgement and the Apocalypse in scripture and painting.