Dying, Death, Burial and Commemoration in Reformation Europe ed. by Elizabeth C. Tingle and Jonathan Willis

Abstract

Dying, Death, Burial and Commemoration Reformation Europe. Edited by Elizabeth C. Tingle and Jonathan Willis. [St Andrews Studies Reformation History.] (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company. 2015. Pp. xi, 219. $124.95. ISBN 978-1-472-43014-4.)During the past few years, cultural practices and beliefs associated with the passing of life, and the ways which they have been accepted, adapted, or rejected have been identified as being of importance assessing the impact of the Reformation. Scholarly research on death and dying, particularly the Reformation period, has seen a number of new studies published as edited collections. Readers of the recently published Preparingfor Death, Remembering the Dead (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015) will also be interested this volume entitled Dying, Death, Burial and Commemoration Reformation Europe. It provides the reader with a series of another ten in-depth studies on this broad theme characterized by a multidisciplinary approach, with contributions from different research perspectives, such as history, literature, musicology, and theology.The collection opens with a profound overview of the key areas of the topic (e.g., dying well, funeral and burial, memorials and commemoration) reflecting the current state of the research this area. The editors justifiably give weight to the fact that investigations these fields reveal a series of important insights terms of the ways in which the Reformation itself was negotiated by individuals and communities (p. 2). While the introduction states the intention to follow a broad geographical perspective within a European context, readers will notice that the contributions are dominated by the (Post-) Reformation period England.The first case study examines church orders of the Palatinate to show how the process of dying, death, burial, and commemoration was accompanied not only with pastoral care and consolation for the sick and dying, but also an opportunity to offer instruction (some inaccuracies the footnotes, e.g., Eike Wolgast as Eika or Wolfgast, do not diminish the relevance of this contribution). Subsequently, the following chapter emphasizes the importance of being well prepared for a godly deathbed post-Reformation England. Godly deaths provided useful exemplars for the edification of audiences, whose prayers could no longer traverse the gulf between living and dead. By investigating death-related pieces of music Reformation England, the third contribution describes how these compositions became a vehicle for delivering subjective feelings associated with death and burial by means of the modes and tunes that were thought to correspond to feelings. …