Medieval Christianity: Death and Burial

Medieval Death is an absorbing study of the social, theological, and cultural issues involved in death and dying in Europe from the end of the Roman Empire to the early sixteenth century. Drawing on both archaeological and art historical sources, Paul Binski examines pagan and Christian attitudes towards the dead, the aesthetics of death and the body, burial ritual and mortuary practice. The evidence is accumulated from a wide variety of medieval thinkers and images, including the macabre illustrations of the Dance of Death and other popular themes in art and literature, which reflect the medieval obsession with notions of humility, penitence, and the dangers of bodily corruption. The author discusses the impact of the Black Death on late medieval art and examines the development of the medieval tomb, showing the changing attitudes towards the commemoration of the dead between late antiquity and the late Middle Ages. In the final chapter the progress of the soul after death is studied through the powerful descriptions of heaven, hell, and purgatory in Dante and other writers and through portrayals of the Last Judgment and the Apocalypse in sculpture and large-scale painting. Drawing on archaeology, literature, and art history, Binski (history of art, Cambridge U.) examines pagan and Christian attitudes towards the dead, the aesthetics of death and the body, burial ritual, and mortuary practice from the end of the Roman Empire to the early 16th century. He finds an obsession with notions of humility, penitence, and the dangers of bodily corruption. Highly illustrated, including some color.

Geary has brought together for his volume twelve of his most influential essays. They address such topics as the development of saints' cults and of the concept of sacred space; the integration of saints' cults into the lives of ordinary people; patterns of relic circulation; and the role of the dead in negotiating the claims and counterclaims of various interest groups. Also included are two case studies of communities that enlisted new patron saints to solve their problems. Throughout, Geary demonstrates that, by reading actions, artifacts, and rituals on an equal footing with texts, we can better grasp the otherness of past societies.

While attending the Seminar in Archaeology and Problems in Christian Antiquity, conducted by Dr. John Quasten, Professor of Ancient Church History, Patrology and Christian Archaeology, at the Catholic University of America, many questions were proposed dealing with the relation of Christianity to the culture of antiquity. It was suggested there that a work be undertaken dealing with the problem of "Death and Burial in Christian Antiquity." Hence the origin of the present work. That this constituted a problem in Christian Antiquity is self evident. Christianity took its roots in Jewish soil and then spread to the Graeco-Roman world. Hence, Christianity gathered its adherents from peoples who were steeped in the traditions and culture of the past. Consequently, Christianity was in no wise cut off from this culture; on the contrary, it was influenced by it to no little degree. The culture of the past, therefore, is a necessary background for the understanding of the beginnings of Christianity.

Examines early Christian stories about Jesus' burial, showing how they are founded in the social context of Palestinian Judaism. Finally, he explores how, in the 2nd century, Jews and Christians begin to part ways in their funerary practices. These changes were driven not only by theological disputes about death and the afterlife, but also by the steady pressure of larger social and cultural forces.

"This book has, accordingly, three main goals. The primary goal is to explore and interpret the process by which Christian Europeans in the Latin West came to ritualize death, dying, and the commemoration of the dead in a way quite peculiar to themselves, their religion, and their society. My explorations end in the late ninth century because by that time, although the rites continued to develop, their basic structural components were in place both in practice and within the mainstream of book production, so that their transmission to later generations was assured. The second goal is to build a bridge between the specialized study of the liturgy and broader programs of research.In order to do so, I have tried to preserve the careful attention to the construction and transmission of texts, and of the manuscripts that preserve them which is the hallmark of research in liturgical history. I have also tried, however, to situate the texts of social, political, and religious change in order to exhibit the richness of this field for more general understandings of medieval cultural development. Finally, I hope to throw new light on the special qualities and contributions of the Carolingian period to the development of European Christendom in the Middle Ages." -Introduction