„Jetzt und in der Stunde unseres Todes“. Sterben und Tod im Mittelalter

Abstract

This contribution opens with a brief overview of representations of death (for instance The Grim Reaper) as well as of the literary genres and forms concerned with the ideas of dying and death, such as Memento mori, Vado mori, Dance of Death, the Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead. The fear of a sudden death, one that jeopardises the salvation of one’s soul in the afterlife, stimulated the emergence of the ars moriendi, the art of dying, of which widespread evidence is also found in wood engravings – with or without accompanying text. Crucial to this investigation is the German version of ars moriendi by Thomas Peuntner, Kunst des heilsamen Sterbens (1434), whose adhortationes, interrogationes, orationes, and observationes contain a series of considerations and pieces of advice that could demonstrably be useful, if only slightly adapted, even today. Employed from an early stage and used continually since, the ars moriendi thus proves to be the art of living and dying at the same time.