The medieval cultures of Europe (800-1450) produced novel cultural forms related to the human experience of death and dying that merit deep consideration. This volume contributes fresh interpretations and a new synthesis of perspectives on this dynamic cultural horizon informed by breakthrough work in a range of fields, including archaeology, art history, history, literature, and theology. The authors of individual chapters bring to their topics not just expertise in their given fields, but also a sense of major shifts in the way we study death, reflecting on the changing norms, attitudes, and values that drove peoples experience of this crucial last phase of life.
Pushing back against the tired cliches about death in pre-modern culture, the essays detail those features of death culture that persist through time and across cultureslike the preference for burial in churches and churchyards across Europewhile also marking the emergence of novel and distinctive practices and beliefslike the evolution of Purgatory, with associated impacts on prayers for the dead. While attending to sharp differences between the medieval world and our own, the authors also note uncanny continuities with the present. The cumulative effect is to leave the reader with a profound sense of the cultural contribution of the medieval period to the moral obligation to take ownership of our own deaths, regardless of our belief system, and to honor our relationship to the dead, on whom our cultures are founded.
A Cultural History of Death is part of The Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available as hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a tangible reference for their shelves or as part of a fully-searchable digital library. The digital product is available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access via www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com. Individual volumes for academics and researchers interested in specific historical periods are also available in print or digitally via www.bloomsburycollections.com.
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A comprehensive exploration of the history of death during the Middle Ages.
Introduction
1. Dead and Dying Bodies, Danielle Westerhoff, (Durham University, UK)
2. The Sensory Aesthetics of Death, Elina Gertsman and Sam Truman, (Western
Reserve University, USA)
3. Emotions, Mortality and Vitality, Jill Bradley, (Independent scholar)
4. Deaths Ritual-Symbolic Performance, Amy Appleford, (Boston University,
USA)
5. Sites, Power and Politics of Death, Victoria Whitworth, (Independent
scholar, UK)
6. Gender, Age and Identity, Belle Tuten, (Juniata College, USA)
7. Explaining Death: Belief, Law and Ethics, Bruce Gordon, (Yale University
and Divinity School, USA)
8. The Undead and Eternal, Carl Watkins, (Cambridge University, UK)
Bibliography
Notes
Index
Ashby Kinch is Professor of English Literature at the University of Montana, USA. He is the author of Imago Mortis: The Mediating Image of Death in late Middle English Culture (2013).
