Oneʼs Own Death

Western Attitudes Toward Death

We have seen how Western civilization hadadopted a sort of vulgate of death. Today we shallsee that this vulgate was not abandoned or blottedout, but instead was partially altered during thesecond Middle Ages, that is to say beginning with theeleventh and twelfth centuries. I want to stress fromthe outset that this was not a matter of a new attitudewhich took the place of the preceding one,which we have just analyzed; but rather subtle modifications gradually gave a dramatic and personalmeaning to man's traditional familiarity withdeath.

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In order to understand properly these phenomenawe must keep in mind the fact that this traditionalfamiliarity implied a collective notion ofdestiny. Men of that period were profoundly andrapidly socialized. The family did not intervene todelay the socialization of the child. Moreover,socialization did not separate man from nature,with which he could not interfere short of amiracle. Familiarity with death is a form of acceptanceof the order of nature, an acceptance whichcan be both naive, in day-to-day affairs, andlearned, in astrological speculations.In death man encountered one of the great lawsof the species, and he had no thought of escaping itor glorifying it. He merely accepted it with just theproper amount of solemnity due one of the importantthresholds which each generation always hadto cross.This brings us to an analysis of a series of newphenomena which introduced the concern for theindividuality of each person into the old idea ofthe collective destiny 0f the species. The phenom -ena we have selected are (1) the portrayal of theLast Judgment at the end of the world; (2) thedisplacing of this judgment to the end of each life,to the precise moment of death; (3) macabrethemes and the interest shown in portrayals ofphysical decomposition; and (4) the return to fu-

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neral inscriptions and to a certain personalization oftombs.THE PORTRAYAL OF THE LAST JUDGMENTIn about 680 Bishop Agilbert was buried in thefuneral chapel which he had had constructed adjacentto the monastery of Jouarre (Seine-et-Marne),to which he had retired and where he died. Histomb is still standing. What do we find there? On asmall panel is the Christ in Majesty surrounded bythe four Evangelists. This is the image inspired bythe Apocalypse, of Christ returning at the end ofthe world. On the large panel adjoining it we findthe resurrection of the dead on the last day. Theelect, their arms upraised, acclaim the returningChrist, who holds in his hands a scroll, no doubtthe Book Of Life.1 No judgment or condemnationis in evidence. This image is in keeping with thegeneral eschatology of the early centuries of Christendom.The dead who belonged to the Churchand who had entrusted their bodies to its care (thatis to say to the care of the saints), went to sleeplike the seven sleepers of Ephesus (pausantes, in

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1 J. Hubert, Les cryptes de Jouarre (IVe Congrès de Part du hautmoyen-âge) (Melun: Ixnprimerie de la prfecture de Seine-et-Marne,1952).

Tomb of the Venerable Agilbert, bishop of Dorchesterand Paris, in the crypt of St. Paul's Church, Jouarre.Photo Giraudon.

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somno pacis) and were at rest (requiescant) untilthe day of the Second Coming, of the great return,when they would awaken in the heavenly Jerusalem,in other words in Paradise. There was noplace for individual responsibility, for a countingof good and bad deeds. The wicked; that is to saythose who were not members of the Church, woulddoubtlessly not live after their death; they wouldnot awaken and would be abandoned to a state ofnonexistence. An entire quasi-biological population,the saintly population, thus would be granteda glorious afterlife following a long, expectantsleep.But in the twelfth century the scene changed. Inthe sculptured tympana of the romanesquechurches of Beaulieu or Conques the apocalypticvision of the Majesty 0f Christ still predominates.But beneath the portrayal of Christ appears a newiconography, inspired this time by the book ofMatthew: the resurrection of the dead, the separationof the just and the damned, the Last Judgment(at Conques, Christ's halo bears the wordJudex), and the weighing of souls by the archangelMichael.2In the thirteenth century3 the apocalyptic inspirationand the evocation of the Second Coming

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2 Tympana of Beaulieu, Conques, Autun.3 Tympana of the cathedrals of Paris, Bourges, Bordeaux, Amiens,etc.

were almost blotted out. The idea of the judgmentwon out and the scene became a court of justice.Christ is shown seated upon the judgment thronesurrounded by his court (the apostles). Two actshad become increasingly important: the weighingof souls and the intercession of the Virgin and St.John, who kneel, their hands clasped, on eitherside of Christ the Judge. Each man is to be judgedaccording to the balance sheet of his life. Good andbad deeds are scrupulously separated and placed onthe appropriate side of the scales. Moreover, thesedeeds have been inscribed in a book. In the magnificentstrains 0f the Dies irae the Franciscan authorsof the thirteenth century portrayed the book beingbrought before the judge on the last day, a book inwhich everything is inscribed and on the basis ofwhich everyone will be judged.

Liber scrip tus profereturIn quo totum contineturUnde mundusjudicetur.

This book, the liber vitae, must first have beenconceived of as a cosmic book, the formidablecensus of the universe. But at the end of the MiddleAges it became an individual account book. AtAlbi, in the vast fresco of the Last Judgment datingfrom the end of the fifteenth or the beginning Of

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the sixteenth century,4 the risen wear this bookabout their necks, like a passport, or rather like abank book to be presented at the gates of eternity.A very curious change has occurred. This "balance"(balancia) or balance sheet is closed not atthe moment of death but on the dies illa, the lastday of the world, at the end of time. Here we cansee the deep-rooted refusal to link the end ofphysical being with physical decay. Men of theperiod believed in an existence after death whichdid not necessarily continue for infinite eternity,but which provided an extension between deathand the end of the world.Thus, the idea of the Last judgment is linkedwith that of the individual biography, but thisbiography ends on the last day, and not at the hourof death.

IN THE BEDCHAMBER OF THE DYING

The second phenomenon consisted of suppressingthe eschatological time between death and the endof the world, and of no longer situating the judgmentin space at the Second Coming, but in thebedchamber, around the deathbed.

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4 At the rear of the apse.

This new iconography is to be found in thewoodcuts, spread by the new technique of printing,in books which are treatises on the propermanner of dying: the artes moriendi of the fifteenthand sixteenth centuries.5 Nonetheless, thisiconography brings us back to the traditionalimage of the deathbed which we studied in the firstchapter.The dying man is lying in bed surrounded by hisfriends and relations. He is in the process of carryingout the rituals which are now familiar to us.But something is happening which disturbs the simplicityof the ceremony and which those presentdo not see. It is a spectacle reserved for the dyingman alone and one which he contemplates with abit of anxiety and a great deal of indifference. Supernatural beings have invaded his chamber andcluster about the bed of the recumbent figure, the"gisant." On one side are the Trinity, the Virgin,and the celestial court; on the other, Satan and amonstrous army of demons. Thus the great gatheringwhich in the twelfth and thirteenth centurieshad taken place on the last day, in the fifteenthcentury had moved to the sickroom.How are we to interpret this scene?

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5 5Texts and woodcuts of an Ars moriendi reproduced in A. Tenenti,La vie et la mort a travers le XVe siècle (Paris, 1952), pp. 97-120.

"St. Sebastian Interceding for the Plague-stricken"(1497-99), by Josse Lieferinxe, in the Walters Art Gallery,Baltimore. Reproduced by permission of theWalters Art Gallery.

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Is it still really a judgment? Properly speaking,no. The scales in which good and evil are weighedno longer play a part. The book is still present, andall too frequently the demon has grabbed it with atriumphant gesture, because the account book andthe person's life story are in his favor. But God nolonger appears with the attributes of a judge. In thetwo possible interpretations, interpretations whichprobably can be superimposed, God is rather thearbiter or the observer.The first interpretation is that of a cosmicstruggle between the forces of good and evil whoare fighting for possession of the dying man, andthe dying man himself watches this battle as animpartial witness, though he is the prize.This interpretation is suggested by the graphiccomposition of this scene in the woodcuts of theartes moriendi. But if one reads carefully the inscriptionsthat accompany these woodcuts one willsee that they deal with a different matter, which isthe second interpretation. God and his court arethere to observe how the dying man conducts himselfduring this trial-a trial he must endure beforehe breathes his last and which will determine hisfate in eternity. This test consists of a final temptation.The dying man will see his entire life as it iscontained in the book, and he will be temptedeither by despair over his sins, by the "vainglory"

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of his good deeds, or by the passionate love forthings and persons. His attitude during this fleetingmoment will erase at once all the sins of his life ifhe wards off tempation or, on the contrary, willcancel out all his good deeds if he gives way. Thefinal test has replaced the Last Judgment.Here we must make two important observations.The first concerns the juxtaposition of the traditionalportrayal of death in bed and that of theindividual judgment of each life. Death in bed, aswe have seen, was a calming rite which solemnizedthe necessary passing, the "trépas," and leveled thedifferences between individuals. No one worriedabout the fate of one particular dying man. Deathwould come to him as it did to all men, or ratherto all Christians at peace with the Church. It wasan essentially collective rite.On the other hand, the judgment-even thoughit took place in a great cosmic activity at the endof the world-was peculiar to each individual, andno one knew his fate until the judge had weighedthe souls, heard the pleas of intercessors, and madehis decision.Thus the iconography of the artes moriendi joinsin a single scene the security of a collective rite andthe anxiety of a personal interrogation.My second observation concerns the increasinglyclose relationship established between death and

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the biography of each individual life. It took timefor this relationship to gain ascendency. In thefourteenth and fifteenth centuries it became firmlyfixed, no doubt under the influence of the mendicantorders. From then on it was thought that eachperson's entire life flashed before his eyes at themoment of death. It was also believed that his attitudeat that moment would give his biography itsfinal meaning, its conclusion.Thus we understand how the ritual solemnity ofthe deathbed, which persisted into the nineteenthcentury, by the end of the Middle Ages had assumedamong the educated classes a dramatic character,an emotional burden which it had previouslylacked.We must, however, note that this evolutionstrengthened the role played by the dying manhimself in the ceremonies surrounding his owndeath. He was still at the center 0f activity, presidingover the event as in the past, and determiningthe ritual as he saw fit.These ideas were bound to change in the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries. Under the influence0f the Counter Reformation, spiritual writersstruggled against the popular belief that it was notnecessary to take such pains to live virtuously,since a good death redeemed everything. However,

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they continued to acknowledge that there was amoral importance in the way the dying man behavedand in the circumstances surrounding hisdeath. It was not until the twentieth century thatthis deeply rooted belief was cast off, at least inindustrialized societies.

THE "TRANSI," OR WORM-RIDDEN CORPSE

The third phenomenon appears during the sameperiod as the artes moriendi: this is the appearancein art and literature of the cadaver, called the"transi" (the perished one) or the "charogne" (thecarrion).6

We must point out that in the art of the fourteenthto sixteenth centuries the portrayal of deathin the form of a mummy, 0f a partly decomposedcadaver, was less widespread than is thought. It isfound chiefly in the fifteenth-century illuminatedmanuscripts of the Service for the Dead, and in thedecoration of churches and cemeteries (the Danceof Death). It is much rarer in funeral art. The sub-

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6 Ibid.; A. Tenenti, Ii senso delta morte et l'amore delta vita netRinascimento (Turin, 1957), pp. 139-84; and J. Huizinga, TheWaning of the Middle Ages (London, 1924), chap. XI, "The Visionof Death," pp. 138-50.

stitution of a cadaver or transi for the recumbentfigure or gisant was limited to certain regions suchas eastern France and western Germany, and israrely found in Italy and Spain. It was never reallyaccepted as a common theme for funeral art. Later,in the seventeenth century, the skeleton or bones,and not the decomposing cadaver, were to befound on nearly every tomb and even found theirway into houses, on fireplaces and furniture. Butthe vulgarization after the late sixteenth century ofmacabre objects, in the form of a skull or bones,has a meaning different from that of the putrifiedcadaver.Historians have been struck by the appearanceof the cadaver and the mummy in iconography.The great Huizinga saw it as a proof of his thesisabout the moral crisis during the "waning of theMiddle Ages." Today Tenenti sees instead in thishorror of death the sign of the love of life ("la viepleine") and of the overthrow of the Christianscheme of life. My interpretation would be in thedirection of Tenenti's.Before proceeding further, we must point out asignificant omission in last wills and testaments ofthis period. Testators of the fifteenth century referredto their charogne, their "carrion," but theword disappeared in the sixteenth century. Never-

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theless, in general the death portrayed in wills wasrelated to the peaceful conception of death in bed.The horror of physical death, of which the cadavercould be considered a sign, was completely absent,which leads us to assume that it was also absentfrom the-common mentality.On the other hand, and this is a very importantobservation, the horror of physical death and ofdecomposition is a familiar theme in fifteenth- andsixteenth-century poetry. "Sac a fiens" (fientes),"bag of droppings," said P. de Nesson (1383-1442).

O carrion, who art no longer man,Who will hence keep thee company?Whatever issues from thy liquors,Worms engendered by the stenchOf thy vile carrion flesh.7

But this horror was not restricted to postmortemdecomposition; it was in tra vitem, in illness,in old age:

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7 o charoigne, qui n'es mais hon,/Qui te tenra lors corn paignée?/Cequi istra [sortira] de ta liqueur,/Vers engendrés de la pueur/De tavile chair encharoignée."Pierre de Nesson, "Vigiles des morts: Paraphrase sur job," quoted inAnthologie potique française, Moyen-Age, ed. Gamier (Paris,1967), VoL II, p. 184.

I am nothing but bones, I seem a skeleton,Fleshless, muscleless, pulplessMy body is diminishing to the point whereeverything becomes disjointed.8

Here we are not dealing with moralizing intentions,with the arguments of preachers. These poetsare aware of the universal presence of corruption.It is present in cadavers but also in the midst oflife, in "les oeuvres naturelles," the operations ofnature. The worms which devour cadavers do notcome from the earth but from within the body,from its natural "liquors."

Each conduit [of the body]Constantly produces putrid matterOut of the body.9

Decomposition is the sign of man's failure, andthat is undoubtedly the underlying meaning of the

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8 "Je n'ay plus que les os, un squelette je semblefdécharné,démusclé, dépoulpé... /Mon corps s'en va descendre ois tout sedésassemble."P. de Ronsard, "Derniers vets," Sonnet I, Oeuvres cornplétes, ed. P.Laumonier (rev. ed.; Paris: Silver and Le Bgue, 1967), Vol. XVIII,Part 1, pp. 176-77.9 "Chascun conduit [du corps] /Puante matière produit/Hors ducorps continuellement."Pierre de Nesson, quoted in A. Tenenti, Ii senso della morte, p. 147.

Detail from "St. George Fighting the Dragon," by VittoreCarpaccio, in Scuola de S. Giorgio degli Schiavoniin Venice. Photo Anderson-Giraudon, Rome.

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macabre, which turns this failure into a new andoriginal phenomenon.In order better to understand this phenomenon,we must cast aside the contemporary notion offailure which is, alas, very familiar to us in today'sindustrialized societies.Today the adult experiences sooner or later -andincreasingly it is sooner-the feeling that he hasfailed, that his adult life has failed to achieve any0f the promises 0f his adolescence. This feeling isat the basis 0f the climate of depression which isspreading throughout the leisured classes of industrializedsocieties.This feeling was completely foreign to the mentalities0f traditional societies, those in which onedied like Roland or Tolstoy's peasants. But it wasno longer foreign to the rich, powerful, or learnedman 0f the late Middle Ages. Nevertheless there is avery interesting difference between our contemporaryfeeling 0f personal failure and that found inthe late Middle Ages. The certainty of death andthe fragility of life are foreign to our existentialpessimism.On the contrary the man 0f the late Middle Ageswas very acutely conscious that he had merelybeen granted a stay 0f execution, that this delaywould be a brief one, and that death was alwayspresent within him, shattering his ambitions and

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poisoning his pleasures. And that man felt a love oflife which we today can scarcely understand, perhapsbecause of our increased longevity."We must leave behind our house, our orchards,and our gardens, dishes and vessels which the artisanengraved," wrote Ronsard, reflecting upondeath.10 Which of us faced with death would weepover a house in Florida or a farm in Virginia? Inproto-capitalist eras-in other words, in periodswhen the capitalist and technological mentalitywas being developed, the process would not becompleted until the eighteenth century -man hadan unreasoning, visceral love for temporalia, whichwas a blanket word including things, men, andanimals.We now reach a point in our analysis where wecan reach a general conclusion about these first fewphenomena we have observed: the Last judgment,the final trial of the artes moriendi, and the love oflife evidenced in macabre themes. During thesecond half of the Middle Ages, from the twelfthto the fifteenth centuries, three categories of mentalimages were brought together: the image ofdeath, that of the individual's knowledge of his

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10 “Il faut laisser maisons, et vergers, et jardins/Vaisselles et vaisseauxque l'artisan burine ..........Ronsard, 'Derniers vers," Sonnet XI, Oeuvres completes, Vol.XVIII, Part 1, p. 180.

own biography, and that 0f the passionate attachmentfor things and creatures possessed duringone's lifetime. Death became the occasion whenman was most able to reach an awareness Of himself.

TOMBS

The last phenomenon remaining to be studied confirmsthis general trend. It concerns the tombs, orto be more exact, the individualization of sepulchers.11

We cannot be very much in error in saying that,in Ancient Rome, everyone, even the slaves, had aburial place, a loculus, and that this place wasmarked by an inscription. Countless funeral inscriptionshave been uncovered. They were still numerousat the beginning of the Christian era, indicatingthe desire to preserve the identity of the tomb.Beginning with the fifth century such inscriptionsbecame rare and disappeared more or lessrapidly according to the locality. In addition to thename of the deceased, stone sarcophagi had oftenincluded his portrait. The portraits disappeared intheir turn so that the sepulchers became corn-

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11 E. Panofski, Tomb Sculpture (London, 1964).

pletely anonymous. This evolution should not surpriseus after my earlier discussion 0f burial adsanctos: the dead person was given over to theChurch, which took care of him until the ResurrectionDay. The cemeteries of the first half of theMiddle Ages, and even cemeteries of later timeswhere older customs persisted, are accumulationsof stone, sometimes sculptured, almost alwaysanonymous, so that, unless funeral furnishings areto be found, it is difficult to date them.However, beginning with the thirteenth century-and perhaps slightly earlier-we again findthe funeral inscriptions which had all but disappearedduring the previous eight or nine hundredyears.They reappeared first on the tombs of illustriouspersonages-that is to say of saints or those associatedwith the saints. These tombs, at first veryrare, became more frequent as the thirteenth centuryprogressed. The funeral slab of QueenMathilda, the first queen of Norman England, bearsa brief inscription.With the inscription the effigy also reappeared,without being a true portrait. It evoked the beatifiedor elected person awaiting Paradise. However,during the reign 0f Louis IX of France it becameincreasingly realistic and attempted to reproducethe features of the living person. Finally, in the

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fourteenth century, realism was carried to thepoint of reproducing a death mask. For a certaincategory of illustrious personages, both clergy andlay-the only persons to have great sculptedtombs-there was thus a development from completeanonymity, to a short inscription, and finallyto a realistic portrait. The evolution in funeral artforms continued on the way to increased personalizationuntil the early seventeenth century, and thedead person might be portrayed twice on the sametomb, both alive and dead.These monumental tombs are very familiar tous, because they belong to the history of art and ofsculpture. In reality they are not numerous enoughto constitute a basic element of our civilization.But they provide us with a few indications that thegeneral evolution followed the same direction.Alongside the great monumental tombs we seein the thirteenth century an increase in littleplaques about 30 to 40 centimeters wide whichwere affixed to interior or exterior walls of thechurch or to a pillar. These plaques are relativelyunknown because they have been neglected by arthistorians. Most of them have disappeared. Theyare, however, very interesting to the historian ofmentalities, for they were the most common formof funeral monuments until the eighteenth century.Some were simple inscriptions in Latin or

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French: "Here lies John Doe, who died on suchand such a day," and then his occupation. Others,which were somewhat larger, included in additionto the inscription a scene in which the deceasedperson was portrayed either alone or most commonlybefore Christ or beside a religious scene.These wall plaques were very common in the sixteenth,seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries.They reveal the desire to render the burial placeindividual and to perpetuate the memory of thedeceased in that spot.12

In the eighteenth century, tombs with a simpleinscription became increasingly numerous, at leastin the cities, where artisans-the middle class ofthat period-were eager in their turn to leaveanonymity behind and preserve their identity afterdeath.13

Nevertheless, these tombstone plaques were notthe only way nor perhaps the most widespread wayof perpetuating the memory of the deceased. Intheir wills the deceased themselves provided forperpetual religious services for the salvation oftheir soul. Beginning with the thirteenth centuryand continuing until the eighteenth century, the

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12 Numerous "tableaux" or plaques exist in the chapel of St. Hilaireat Marvile in the French Ardennes.13 For example, at Toulouse in the cloister of the Jacobins: thetomb of X, master cooper, and his family.

testators or their heirs would have the terms oftheir donation and the obligations of the curé andthe parish engraved on a stone plaque. These donationplaques were at least as important as thosebearing a "Here lies." Sometimes both elementswere present. Sometimes the donation plaque wasconsidered sufficient and the "Here lies" was omitted.The important element was the calling to mindof the deceased's identity, and not the remembranceof the exact place where the body had beenplaced.14

* * *The study of tombs confirms what we havelearned from the Last Judgments, the artes

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14 For example, a "tableau" serving as a reminder of a bequest in thechurch of Andrésy, near Pontoise. At the top are the donor's arms,followed by the inscription:"A la gloire de Dieu, la mémoire des cinq playes de N[ostre]S[eigneur] J[ésus] C[hrist]."Claude Le Page, escuyer, sieur de la Chapelle, ancien conducteur dela Haquenée, chef du gobelet du Roi, ancien valet de chambre garderobe de feu Monsieur, frre unique de S[a] M[ajesté] Louis 14,lequel il a servi quatre huit années, jusqu' son deceds et a depuiscontinue le même service près monsaigneur le Duc d'Orléans son fils,a fondé a perpétuité pour le repos de son ame, de ses parens et amis,tous les mois de l'annCe une messe le 6 de chaque mois en lachapelle de Saint Jean dont l'une sera haute, lejour de S[t.j Claude,auxquelles assisteront 5 pauvres et un garcon pour répondre auxdites messes, qui les Marguilliers donneront chacun des six 5liards dont ils en porteront un l'offrande.

moriendi, and the macabre themes: Beginning withthe eleventh century a formerly unknown relationshipdeveloped between the death of each individualand his awareness of being an individual. Todayit is agreed that between the year 1000 and themiddle of the thirteenth century "a very importanthistorical mutation occurred," as a contemporarymedievalist, Pacault, expressed it. "The manner inwhich men applied their thoughts to their surroundingsand to their concerns underwent a profoundtransformation, while the mental processes-the manner of reasoning, of perceiving concreteor abstract realities, and of conceiving ideas evolvedradically."15

Here we can grasp this change in the mirror ofdeath or, in the words of the old authors, in thespeculum mortis. In the mirror of his own deatheach man would discover the secret of his indi-

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15 Le tout accordé par Messieurs les cures, marguilliers en charge etanciens de la paroisse S[t.] Germain d'AndrCsy, cc qui est plusamplement expliqué par le contrat passé le 27 janvier 1703 pardevant Me [maitres] Bailly et Desfforges, notaires au Chtelet deParis."Cette Cpitaphe a esté placée par le soin du fondateur, aagé desoixante dix-neufans Ic 24 janvier 1704."A different hand subsequently engraved: "et dCcCdC le 24 dCcembrede la mime ann6e."M. Pacault, "Dc l'aberration ix logique: cssai sur les mutationsde quelques structures ecclésiastiques," Revue historique, Vol.CCXXXXII (1972), p. 313.

viduality. And this relationship-which Greco-Roman Antiquity, and especially Epicurianism, hadglimpsed briefly and had then lost -has from thattime on never ceased to make an impression on ourWestern civilization. With little difficulty the manof traditional societies, the man of the first MiddleAges which we studied in our preceding lecture,became resigned to the idea that we are all mortal.Since the Early Middle Ages Western man has cometo see himself in his own death: he has discoveredla mort de soi, one's own death.

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