Abstract
ObjectivesBetween 1400 and 1800, Dances of Death were a popular art form depicting a metaphorical encounter between Death and representatives of a stratified human society. We review the thematic development of Dances of Death and study the development of social critique.MethodsWe first assembled a full catalogue of all Dances of Death created between 1400 and 1800. We then analyzed patterns of spatiotemporal diffusion and made an in-depth hermeneutic study of the combined texts and images of a carefully selected set of 20 Dances of Death, comparing four distinct periods (1425–1525, 1525–1600, 1600–1650, and 1650–1800).ResultsWe identified more than 500 Dances of Death. It was only in its first stage of development, coinciding with the Pre-Reformation (1425–1525), that social critique was very prominent. This was represented in four forms: explicit references to social (in) equality, to failures of the authorities, and to emancipated farmers, and a general social realism. In later phases social critique largely disappeared and was replaced by religious themes.ConclusionsDances of Death provide historical context to current analyses and debates of social inequalities in health. They remind us of the stubbornness of these inequalities, which despite progress in material well-being are still very much with us today.
Highlights
We live in an unequal world, with large variations between rich and poor in the likelihood of a long life
Objectives Between 1400 and 1800, Dances of Death were a popular art form depicting a metaphorical encounter between Death and representatives of a stratified human society
There are very few Dances of Death east of the imaginary line running from Stockholm to Zagreb, which indicates that this art motive belongs to the Roman-Christian cultural space, as opposed to the Orthodox cultural space
Summary
We live in an unequal world, with large variations between rich and poor in the likelihood of a long life. In Western Europe, inequalities in life expectancy at birth between those with a low and a high socioeconomic position amount to between 5 and 10 years (Commission on Social Determinants of Health 2008; Mackenbach et al 2008) It is not exactly known when these inequalities in mortality originated, but parish registers from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries show that substantial differences in mortality rates between persons with higher and lower social ranks were already present (Perrenoud 1975; Schultz 1991). Dances of Death were artistic expressions of human mortality, executed either monumentally (mainly as a wall painting) or graphically (in the form of prints or books). They depict a metaphorical encounter between Death and representatives of human
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