medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Hi,
A friend of mine, who is on this list, alerted me to this query re the dead
body's 'personality'. I am a PhD working on divided and dismembered bodies
in executions and burials in 13th and 14th C England (so I guess I am
working on 'death'...) Anyway, I seem to recall Elizabeth Brown stating
something similar about the spirit/ soul leaving the body after all the
flesh has disappeared in two articles on Boniface VIII's Bull _Detestande
feritatis_. She refers to an essay written by Robert Hertz (anthropologist)
in c. 1912 on the attitudes towards the dead body in primitive societies.
The articles are:
'Death and the Human Body in the Later Middle Ages: the Legislation of
Boniface VIII on the Division of the Corpse' in _Viator_ 12 (1981)
'Authority, the Family, and the Dead in Late Medieval France' in _French
Historical Studies_ 16:4 (1990)
For the _ubi sunt_ motif I would say that Latin elegiac literature might be
a good starting point, or (closer to home) Old English poetry
(pre-Conquest).
Hope this is of any help!
Danielle Westerhof
Centre for Medieval Studies
University of York
UK
On Mon, 1 Jul 2002 23:42:26 -0700, Stacy Kerr <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
>I am a graduate student in Southern California who is currently working on
>death in the later medieval period. From what I have read and seen this
>statement of Camille's is not supported. Although there was an obsession
>about the state of the body after death that was well represented in the
art
>and literature of the day, the soul was believed to leave the body at the
>instant of death. There is a ton of surviving artwork that depicts the
soul
>leaving the body in the shape of a small person, usually through the mouth.
>A couple of helpful books are Paul Binski's 'Medieval Death' and 'The Place
>of the Dead' ed. Bruce Gordon and Peter Marshall.
>
>Unfortunately I know nothing about 'ubi sunt'.
>
>Stacy Kerr
>
>
>> medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>>
>> Dear List Members,
>>
>> I'm working on Siôn Cent, a 15th century Welsh poet whose poetry
frequently
>> includes (among other things ...) extended references to the *ubi sunt*
>> topos and detailed descriptions of the condition of the body after death.
In
>> `The image and the self', *Framing Medieval Bodies*, edd. Sarah Kay and
Miri
>> Rubin (Manchester and New York, 1994) pp. 84–5, Michael Camille states
>> `[...] the body was not thought to be truly dead, its spirit separated
from
>> the body, until a year after burial. Only when all the flesh had left it
>> and it was nothing, nobody, was it `Death''.
>>
>> He does not give a source for this belief - can anyone help? Who is doing
>> Death at the moment?! And can anyone suggest a good summary of the
>> development of the *ubi sunt* thing in medieval literature?
>>
>> Ever in your debt,
>>
>> Paul
>>
>>
>>
>> M.P. Bryant-Quinn
>> Canolfan Uwchefrydiau Cymreig a Cheltaidd
>> Aberystwyth
>>
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>
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