Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: The Material and Spiritual Conditions of the Culture of Death ed. by Albrecht Classen

Abstract

Reviewed by: Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: The Material and Spiritual Conditions of the Culture of Death ed. by Albrecht Classen Stephen Gordon KEY WORDS Stephen Gordon, Albrecht Classen, end of life studies, death, early modern magic, early modern religion, Medieval religion, religion in the Middle Ages albrecht classen, ed. Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times: The Material and Spiritual Conditions of the Culture of Death. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016. Pp. vi + 545. The cultural conception of death is a topic that bears strong resonance for researchers on the supernatural. With contributions from scholars working in the fields of art history, history, literary studies, and drama, the nineteen chapters comprising Death in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times provide a truly multidisciplinary framework for understanding how premodern populaces perceived and managed the physical/spiritual issues surrounding death. Beginning with an introductory chapter by the editor, Albrecht Classen, the essays themselves are arranged in a roughly chronological rather than disciplinary or thematic order, ranging from the early Middle Ages to the late eighteenth-century. Chapter 2 by John M. Hill begins with an analysis of heroic death in Old English poetry and prose, focusing on how texts such as Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon memorialize fallen heroes. Acting as an obverse to these self-consciously literary representations, the following chapter by Mary Louise Fellows explores how the evidence from wills can tell us a great deal about how death was understood and ritualized in the rhythms of daily Anglo-Saxon life. The Liber Eliensis—a twelfth-century chronicle that contains an account of the will-making rituals of a certain “Siferth” (c. 975)—is the main case study under discussion. Taking leave of Anglo-Saxon England (and, indeed, written sources), Rosemarie Danziger (Chapter 4) re-evaluates the false, painted arch incorporated into the vault of Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe in Poitou, France (c. 1151). As well as serving to mask a serious design flaw, Danziger argues that the arch’s ornamentations—busts of anonymous saints—act as exemplars of martyrdom and how to die well. Moving from “good” death to “bad” death, the following chapter by Katharina Baier and Warner Schäfke examines the Icelandic belief in the walking corpse, discussing how “revenant” stories can be grouped into four distinct typological units: Christian revenants that walk after death until receiving proper burial; unsocial/heathen revenants whose defeat promotes Christian values; revenants whose [End Page 125] destruction functions as a test of heroic/politic power; and revenants that foreshadow the death of other characters. The next series of essays concerns material from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Nurit Golan (Chapter 6) explores the use of cosmological iconography on the north portal of Freiburg Minster, specifically how the synthesis of scientific theory and theological thought advertised the erudition of the local lay populace. Whereas Golan focuses on a single case study, Jean E. Jost (Chapter 7), embarks on a micro-historical survey of the ways in which the traumas of the Black Death (c. 1348) were made manifest in religion, literature, and art. This, indeed, acts as a useful jumping off point for Dominique DeLuca’s essay (Chapter 8) on the didactic meanings attached to “double macabre” portraits, where viewers are invited to ruminate on the transient nature of mortality though the juxtaposition of images of the living and the rotting, worm-filled dead. Similarly, Jost’s essay provides context for Daniel F. Pigg’s explorations into the use of Eucharistic parody in Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale (Chapter 9), where, famously taking place during a time of plague, Pigg notes that the protagonists kill each other after performing a series of “mock masses.” Chaucer was not the only medieval author to use death as a vehicle for satire. Albrecht Classen’s essay (Chapter 10) examines a previously unheralded German debate poem, Des Teufels Netz (“The Devil’s Net,” c. 1414–1418). Operating in a similar vein to the near-contemporary danse macabre motif (281), Des Teufels Netz details the types of sins committed by each social class, gender, and age group—a comprehensive form of estates satire—and warns the reader about the...