HIST216: Death from the Fall of Rome to the Reformation

Topic 1: Burials, Topic 3: Pandemic, Topic 4: restless dead, Topic 6: afterlife, Topic 8: Good death

Topic 1: Why Was Burial Important?

• preserved the bodies of the dead so they were ready for resurrection at day of judgement

• reminded the living that death was to come for all

  • encouraged focus on the state of the soul for the living

• encouraged exchange between the living and the dead

  • tombs of the ‘special dead’, sites of pilgrimage

  • communities included both living and dead - prays, position of cemeteries

• project images of wealth and power

  • maintain political legitimacy, lineage

Topic 1: What Was the Importance of the Cult of Saints?

• men and women who had lead exemplary lives and could immediately enter heaven

• largely martyrs

  • sanctity associated with martyrdom so saintly feasts happened on the day of death

  • persecution in antiquity, later missionaries and deaths caused by invaders

• belief they can perform miracles

  • healing, protection for travellers, times of war

• holy relics

  • attracted pilgrims

  • often visited as a form of penance

  • were also used in different ways than was intended (Geary, Uses of archaeological sources for religious and cultural history)

    • humiliation of relics to punish local saints for not protecting a parish

Topic 1: How Did Burial Practices Change Over the Period?

• burial practices most resistant to change with conversion of western Europe to Christianity in Late Antiquity

  • Roman dead buried outside of cities in necropolises - boundary between living and dead

    • Early Christians buried their dead in catacombs outside the city walls

    • churches built after legalisation of Christianity held relics and remains of saints so nobility began wanting to be buried near them

      • burial of dead in churches or cemeteries around the church

    • so entrance of dead into spaces of the living - break with pagan practices

  • sarcophagi richly decorated - similar to pagan practices

    • feasting in cemeteries to commemorate the dead

• Germanic peoples buried their dead with grave goods

  • grave goods signifying social status suggest a continuation of cultural traditions in burial (Geary, Uses of Archaeological sources for religious and cultural history)

  • Sutton Hoo, an elite - buried with ship, weapons and armour

  • grave goods practise ended

    • not because of arrival of Christianity as St Cuthbert buried with clothes

    • monarchs continued to be buried with items of significance

• after 1000 AD churchyard cemeteries emerged and consecration of burial ground

  • burial outside of this space became a punishment

  • greater care for protecting the corpse

  • new desire for exclusivity - used specific burial sites e.g. English elites at Westminster

  • elaborate graves

    • effigies of the dead depicting rank

    • cadaver tombs depicted dead in stages of decomposition

      • memento mori shows mortality despite status

Topic 1: Were later Medieval burials homogenous? (Gilchrist, Voices from the cemetery)

• previous treatment of archaeological sites focussed on belief of medieval burials as homogenous due to strict religious control

  • most consistent patterns of burial found in the graves of religious people - stricter rites and norms than ordinary people?

• countries who had forcibly been converted to Christianity continued pagan practices long after Christianisation e.g. Estonia

• burials of children show greater likelihood of holding grave goods

  • often buried in different areas of the cemetery

  • more common as multiple burials with children buried together or with an adult

• idea of deviant burials can be problematic: refers to burials that don’t conform to rites outlined by religious doctrine, different practices of burial need to be separated from attempts to humiliate the dead

Topic 3: How are historical pandemics studied?

• interdisciplinary: need to interpret a range of sources including quantitative and scientific sources

• global history: need similar source basis to allow for comparison

• on a large scale with large population data

• quantitative epidemiological evidence

  • need data clusters to for population estimates

    • only cluster until late 13th century was from Domesday: estimation that population was 1.7 million

      • doesn’t cover areas not conquered at the time e.g. Cumbria

    • from 1200 a Europe-wide boom in record keeping with increased number of financial accounts, correspondence (Clanchy)

    • control of Islamic paper industry made record keeping cheaper

    • Eurasian population estimated around 329 million by 1300: but growth varied, was higher in North Sea region than Southern Europe

Topic 3: What was the Great Transition? (Campbell)

• Great Transition of 13th-15th centuries comprised ‘global climate change and re-emergence of deadly plagues’

• first phase 1260s-1330s

  • subsistence crisis: growing population put pressure on rural land, inability of small land units to support households

  • emergence of Yersinia pestis along the silk road

• second phase 1340s-1370s

  • global cooling reduced northern hemisphere temperatures to lowest level in 8 centuries - harvest failures

  • warfare

  • 1346 plague reached Crimea: boarded ships bound for Constantinople and Genoese colonies

• seven year crisis 1315-22

  • worst agricultural food crisis in northern and central Europe - 10-15% population died of hunger

  • manorial records allow deep dive into prices, wages etc

    • 1319 cattle plague kills over half of England’s oxen and ¾ of cows

Topic 3: What was the black death?

• comparison to Justinian plague 541-750

• bacteria discovered 1894

• bioarchaeology not good for studying plague

  • kills too quickly to leave markers on skeletons

• Sarris discusses how Yersinia pestis arrived in England a century before mentioned in written sources - new evidence refutes this

• idea of a ‘big bang’ describes when a single strain burst out of a plague reservoir

Topic 4: What some examples of ghost stories and their characteristics?

• stories from theological works, fiction, histories, canonisation records

  • problem with sources - focus on the attitudes of the wealthy and religious giving a sense of universality (Caciola, Wraiths, Revenants and Ritual in Medieval Culture)

    • accounts with alternate traditions preserved by religious people who reinterpreted the sources

• central to all stories are the evidence of life after death, fear of death and fate of the soul

  • sought to teach important beliefs e.g. purgatory

• popularity of the genre suggests many enjoyed such stories

• stories from William of Newburgh from late 12th century

  • The Hounds’ Priest: chaplain who lived an irreligious life came back to haunt his monastery and former mistress, watch party attacked the corpse so it returned to its grave

  • The Berwick Ghost: dead man haunts the town, described as being aided by Satan, townsmen dismember his body

  • main features: dead not being settled as had committed some crime or immoral action, body is settled by being cut up, seen my many townspeople

Topic 4: What are revenants?

• resurrection of the dead was seen as a good thing as it meant the soul was reunited with its body to defeat death - but this was meant to take place on judgement day

• revenants: not just spirits but corporeal beings, animated corpses that emerge from the grave to interact with the living

  • ecclesiastics often specified the devil animating corpses rather than the corpse coming to life (Caciola, Wraiths, Revenants and Ritual in Medieval Culture)

  • other European tales don’t include the idea of possession, just as coming back to life

• spike in these stories from 12th-13th centuries - time of heightened concern about the soul, period of medical advancements

  • written about in a matter of fact way suggests they were not seen as uncommon (Caciola, Wraiths, Revenants and Ritual in Medieval Culture)

• revenants often lead a bad life with a bad death (Caciola)

  • criminals, sinners, clergy who were unreligious, people who were murdered or died without confession

Topic 4: How was the macabre represented?

• pre-black death iconography - three living and three dead

  • usually young aristocrats who meet the dead versions of themselves

  • rarely depicted as skeletons but as corpses in some state of decay (Caciola, Wraiths, Revenants and Ritual in Medieval Culture)

    • links to idea of revenants as their reanimation occurred soon after burial so in a state of deacy

• danse macabre - skeletons taking powerful people to the grave

  • was the rise of the macabre a consequence of the black death?

    • growing obsession and physical suffering before the black death - reflection of the suffering of Christ

Topic 6: How did the afterlife develop throughout the Middle Ages?

• bible left unclear instructions about what happens after death

  • describes hell as the dwelling place of Satan and a place of punishment

  • heaven is the house of God - initial belief that kingdom of God would come to Earth and so become paradise

    • idea in Revelation that heaven is a city of God which appealed to those in urban societies

• afterlife was systemised after the high Middle Ages

  • society became more stratified and art that featured the last judgement appeared and became highly standardised

  • Jacques Le Goff Birth of Purgatory said that purgatory was an invention of this period

    • term Purgatorio first appeared around 1170

    • the social stratification with the middle class was adopted into religious belief

    • many historians say he disregarded earlier beliefs that didn’t use the term purgatory but still had a middle place

• the history of purgatory

  • Augustine of Hippo discussed the idea that the souls of the dead could be helped through prayers

  • 7th century a turning point - greater preoccupation with sinfulness and fate of the soul occurred alongside the rise of monastic communities

  • at the 4th Lateran council Pope Innocent IV introduced purgatory as part of the doctrine

  • Vision of Drythelm recorded by Bede - recorded at a time of monasticism and focus on faith, describes a place where souls are tormented between flames and freezing cold and another place that appeared heavenly for those who were not completely good

    • described as not being heaven or hell

  • Purgatory of St Patrick - a knight travels through purgatory to absolve himself of his sins, faces different trials such as a freezing cold and being stretched by iron nails

  • importance of purgatory in Dante

Topic 6: What is the significance of the Divine Comedy?

• the comedy is a cautionary tale with political meaning by denouncing the system of the cities

• Dante is guided through the underworld by Virgil

• hell highly structured reflecting the structure of Medieval Europe, especially in Italy

  • first 5 circles are souls of those who couldn’t govern their passions

  • 6-7 contained souls of the violent against others, themselves and God

  • 8-9 was the pit of hell containing fraudsters and betrayers - symbolised the importance of community

  • contains people personal to Dante and historical or mythological figures

  • Canto XI Dante explained the lower levels of hell

• purgatory a mountain of 7 circles each dedicated to the expiration of sins

  • place of redemption with hope of salvation by climbing the mountain

  • in Canto III meet the excommunicated

  • Canto V souls who have repented just before violent deaths e.g. Buonconte

  • cantos focus on importance of prayer for the souls in purgatory

• paradise a metaphysical place

Topic 8: How would someone prepare for a good death?

• to die a good death meant to be prepared by making provisions to focus on the fate of the soul

• idea of how to prepare for death developed over the period

  • pre-1000 salvation through withdrawal from worldly occupations - monasticism and hermitages

  • high and late medieval period shifted to the salvation of ordinary people via lay devotional activities e.g. Book of Hours to access prayers for ordinary people

• penance to seek atonement via confession, a preventative action

  • origins in late antiquity but a rise in private penance and confession 12/13th centuries

    • before in the Carolingian period public penance practised

    • changed emerged as it became impractical for ordinary people to undergo full penance (Watkins, Sin, Penance and Purgatory)

  • Fourth Lateran council stresses need to confess at least annually

  • idea of a final repentance immediately before death - but some disagreed with the idea as the dying deprived of reason and so can’t properly repent

• importance of charitable activities

  • confraternities - groups of people often from same region or same profession who mutually supported each other

    • importance of communities

Topic 8: How was a good death represented?

• Ars Moriendi

  • showed attempts on the soul of the dying: lack of faith, despair, impatience, pride, greed

    • printed editions feature woodcuts that illustrate the battle the dying face with the temptations of demons (Binski, Medieval death)

  • final focus on the cross - participation in his sacrifice through their own death

  • introduced idea that the final actions and thoughts upon death were vital and could be detached from the actions of their life (Binski, Medieval Death)

• caring for the dead

  • monasteries had been the main place for the care of the dead in early middle ages

    • obligations became too much to founding of private chantries for more people to become involved

• frescos depict images of people experiencing grief

  • knights and men of honour depicted as portraying grief - mark of respect

  • laws eventually passed to limit expressions of grief - how many people can attend a funeral

    • concerns for political violence