Death In Medieval Europe: Death Scripted And Death Choreographed

257 Pages·2017·7.431 MB·English

by  Joëlle Rollo-Koster

DEATH IN MEDIEVAL EUROPE
“This is an excellent collection of essays which will significantly increase our
knowledge and understanding of medieval views on and experiences of death. Of
particular value is the breadth and scope of the essays presented, ranging from dis-
cussions of commemoration and ritualistic aspects of death and capital punishment
over to differing cultural perceptions of death beyond Christian to Jewish and
Muslim communities. As such this volume will be welcome by anyone interested
in medieval daily life and culture, academics and students alike.”
Miriam Muller, University of Birmingham, UK
DeathinMedievalEurope:DeathScriptedandDeathChoreographedexploresnewcultural
research into death and funeral practices in medieval Europe and demonstrates the
importantrelationshipbetweendeathandtheworldofthelivingintheMiddleAges.
Across ten chapters, the articles in this volume survey the cultural effects of
death. This volume explores overarching topics such as burials, commemorations,
revenants, mourning practices and funerals, capital punishment, suspicious death,
and death registrations, using case studies from across Europe including England,
Iceland, and Spain. Together these chapters discuss how death was ritualized and
choreographed, but also how it was expressed in writing throughout various doc-
umentary sources including wills and death registries. In each instance, records are
analyzed through a cultural framework to better understand the importance of the
authors of death and their audience.
Drawing together and building upon the latest scholarship, this book is essential
reading for all students and academics of death in the medieval period.
Joëlle Rollo-Koster is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Rhode
Island.SheistheauthorofRaidingSaintPeter:EmptySees,Violence,andtheInitiation
of the Great Schism (1378) (2008), and Avignon and its Papacy (1309–1417): Popes,
Institutions, and Society (2015).

DEATH IN MEDIEVAL
EUROPE
Death Scripted and Death
Choreographed
Edited by Joëlle Rollo-Koster
Firstpublished2017
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CONTENTS
List of illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
List of contributors xii
Introduction 1
Joëlle Rollo-Koster
1 Writing and commemoration in Anglo-Saxon England 9
Jill Hamilton Clements
2 From powerful agents to subordinate objects? The restless dead
in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Iceland 40
Kirsi Kanerva
3 Animated corpses and bodies with power in the scholastic age 71
Winston Black
4 Women, dance, death, and lament in medieval Spain and the
Mediterranean: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim examples 93
Cia Sautter
5 Wills and testaments 114
Francine Michaud
6 Spectacular death: capital punishment in medieval
English towns 130
James Davis
viii Contents
7 Ghostly knights: kings’ funerals in fourteenth-century Europe
and the emergence of an international style 149
Mikhail A. Boytsov
8 Death of clergymen: popes and cardinals’ death rituals 164
Joëlle Rollo-Koster
9 A dead zone in the historiography of death in the Middle Ages:
the sentiment of suspicious death 186
Franck Collard
10 Registering deaths and causes of death in late medieval Milan 209
Ann G. Carmichael
Index 237
ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
1.1 Face A, Hartlepool 1 (CASSS 1: County Durham and
Northumberland), alpha, omega above; “Hildeþryþ” below in
runes. © The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture,
Durham University (UK), photographer T. Middlemass 24
1.2 Face A, Lindisfarne 24 (CASSS 1: County Durham and
Northumberland), “Osgyð” written out in both runes (above)
and roman script. © The Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone
Sculpture, Durham University (UK), photographer
T. Middlemass 24
1.3 Face C, Newent Memorial Tablet (Newent 2, CASSS 10: The
Western Midlands): a large figure of Christ surrounded by
figures at the Last Judgment; the name “EDRED” here labels
one of these figures in the upper-left corner. Photograph ©
Richard Bryant; used with permission. 28
1.4 Face A, Monkwearmouth 5 (CASSS 1: County Durham and
Northumberland), epitaph of Priest Herebericht. © The Corpus
of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, Durham University (UK),
photographer T. Middlemass 31
Tables
10.1 Deaths registered July 21, 1452, in the Milanese Necrologi 218
10.2 Deaths registered July 22, 1452, in the Milanese Necrologi 219