medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
As far as I can gather from my reading it is commonplace for saints and
other holy people to know the time of their impending death and so be able
to prepare for it thoroughly. This certainly occurs in Anglo-Saxon
literature (for example St Cuthbert) though the foreknowledge does not give
a precise time, rather along the lines of 'he knew he was about to die ...'
A variation on this something happens just before death (having been in a
coma the saint speaks just before death etc). This is of course different
from your average person knowing when they were going to die.
The alternative to this is that sudden death (without preparation) is seen
as very bad.
Foreknowledge and sudden death occur very frequently in literature (I have
written about this is 'Death and Burial in Medieval England 1066-1550). One
aside is that from a literary perspective some deaths (virtually all
sudden) denote an evil person (drowning, being struck by lightning ...)
whilst good people have foreknowledge and preparation time.
Chris Daniell
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