Medieval Thedas

The Coroner

In the late twelfth century, the office of the coroner was established in England. Each county was to elect several upper-class men to act as coroners who would investigate any accidental or suspicious death.

Kings were interested in keeping track of murders and suicides because these were criminal actions; they were interested in accidental deaths because after the twelfth century the item that killed the person was sold, with the proceeds going to the royal treasury. (This item was called the deodand, the gift to God, because earlier it had been sold to pay for prayers for the dead person’s soul.)

Unfortunately, other countries in Europe did not establish an office of the coroner until much later.

DiCaprio and Wiesner, Lives and Voices, p. 112.

Widowhood

Many women in early modern Europe, like those of earlier (and later) eras, spent part of their lives as widows. The death of a spouse brought a more significant change in a woman’s life than it did in a man’s, a situation reflected in the fact that the word for widower in most European languages derives from the word for widow, rather than the more common reverse pattern. Widows’ situation varied widely; widowhood generally brought a decline in economic status — similar to that experienced by divorced women today — and the households of widows were usually among the poorest in the city. On the other hand, widows had a wider range of action than married women, and, if they owned property, could handle it as they wished. This freedom was disturbing to many authorities, who…advocated quick remarriage to bring widows under male control again… . .[W]idows remarried at a lower rate than widowers.

Dicaprio and Wiesner, Lives and Voices, p. 183.

The Legend of The Three Living and the Three Dead

The legend of the three living and the three dead most probably comes from France. The oldest manuscripts go back to the 13th century: they contain poems of Baudoin de Condé, of Nicolas de Margival and of two unknown writers. The plot of “the legend” is rather simple: three corpses (representing ecclesiastics) meet with three living (a duke, a count, and a prince). The latter are terrified by this encounter. The dead speak to the three rich men, urging them to repent: “Such as I was you are, and such as I am you will be. Wealth, honor and power are of no value at the hour of your death.”

From Dance of Death

The Dance of Death

The dances od death were mostly painted (or more rarely carved) on the outside walls of cloisters, of family vaults, of ossuaries or inside some churches. These frescoes represent an emaciated corpse or a skeleton coupled with a representative of a certain social class. The number of characters and the composition of the dance vary. The dance of death often takes the form of a farandole. Below or above the picture are painted verses by which death adresses its victim. He often talks in a threatening and accusing tone, sometimes also cynic and sarcastic. Then comes the argument of the Man, full of remorse and despair, crying for mercy. But death leads everyone into the dance: from the whole clerical hierarchy (pope, cardinals, bishops, abbots, canons, priests), to every single representative of the laic world (emperors, kings, dukes, counts, knights, doctors, merchants, usurers, robbers, peasants, and even innocent children). Death does not care for the social position, nor for the richness, sex, or age of the people it leads into its dance. It is often represented with a musical instrument. This characteristic has a symbolic significance and appears already at the beginning of the dance of death. The instrument evokes the tempting, a little diabolic enchanting power of music. Think of the sirens’ song, of the flute player of Hameln, etc. Like them, death charms mankind with its music.

In the Middle-Ages, the dance of death was though as a warning for powerful men, a comfort to the poor, and ultimately an invitation to lead a responsible and christian life. But its basic idea is even more simpler, more timeless: to recall the shortness of life. It makes men remember that they all will die, without exception. It is also not astonishing that every century since the Middle-Ages has had its own dances of death.

From Dance of Death

Death and Medieval Art

Death was a recurring theme in medieval culture: not just mortality and the process of dying itself, but also the aspect of commemoration and Christian beliefs about what awaited mankind in the hereafter.

Ideas about sin and the duality of the corruptible body and the immortal soul permeated the art and literature of the period. Depictions of the Last Judgement warned viewers about the physical torments that would be inflicted upon sinners in Hell, for souls would be reunited with their bodies at the general resurrection. While Heaven was envisaged as a spiritual place where the blessed would be awarded the Beatific Vision, Hell was the place that artists such as Hieronymus Bosch appear to have found more inspiring for its sheer shock value. The temptations of the body – and especially the allure of female beauty for the male viewer – were frequently presented as lethal traps for the soul, as were other forms of earthly enjoyment: eating, drinking, hunting, and other vain pursuits. Exempla and moral stories such as the Tale of the Three Living and the Three Dead, or the Danse Macabre, became familiar motifs in medieval art with the intention of inducing viewers to repent and reform.

Whereas death was inescapable, it did not immediately lead to Heaven or Hell, for souls were initially to be purged while awaiting the Last Judgement. The belief in Purgatory made its impact felt in various forms of forms of art. Deathbed scenes emphasised the need to die a good death, while burial in hallowed ground was another vital requirement. Tomb monuments not only served to preserve the memory of those happy few who could afford them, but were also meant to attract prayers that would benefit the souls of the deceased. Many tomb effigies show the deceased in attitudes of prayer, although such piety could take the more extreme form of cadaver effigies that visualised the humility of those commemorated thus and also their belief in the resurrection of the body. Cadaver effigies also illustrated the inevitable putrefaction of the body and thus the eradication of likeness and physical appearance that makes each individual recognisable – despite the costly monuments that some patrons chose to commission, the dead themselves are all alike in their putrid horror.

The ubiquity of textual and visual references to mortality and sin does not mean that medieval man was wholly obsessed with death, however. In fact, many texts and images were propagated by the church, which indicates the very opposite, viz that the clergy deplored the frivolity of mankind and believed a salutary warning to be necessary. The increasingly explicit character of late-medieval imagery, eg in depictions of putrefying cadavers, illustrates how the aim of inducing more sober lifestyle necessitated an ever greater ability to shock the viewer. Yet these graphic depictions had an unexpected side effect. By the time of the Renaissance some artists had discovered how the combination of death and eros had the power not just to inspire horror, but also to titillate.

From a University of Cambridge course description.

Memento Mori

A memento mori is a form of image that urged a European person of the late Middle Ages to “remember thy death.” To do this, a memento mori might represent death as a human skeleton—perhaps as the Grim Reaper gathering his harvest—or it might depict human bodies in an advanced state of decay.1 Its purpose is to remind the viewer that death is an unavoidable part of life, something to be prepared for at all times. Memento mori images are graphic demonstrations of the fact that death was not only a more frequent, but a far more familiar occurrence in medieval Europe than it is today. They express a concept of death that is characteristic of a specific time and place.

From a much longer article that largely focuses on Victorian memento moris. Warning — there are photographs of deceased individuals. These photos aren’t gory, but can still be disturbing.

Dan Meinwald, Memento Mori: Death and Photography in Nineteenth Century America