Dear Laura,
In regard to evidence for women being responsible for preparing the dead
in medieval society, this was a function sometimes associated with
beguines. They often offered prayers for the dead and they also
participated in funerary rites. There is an interesting manuscript
illumination which depicts the office of the dead with female mourners:
The Hague, Koninklijke Bibliotheek MS 76 G.17, fol. 187v. This
illumination and discussion of beguine involvement in funerary rites can
be found in Judith Oliver, "Devotional Psalters and the Study of Beguine
Spirituality," in *On Pilgrimage: The Best Ten Years of Vox
Benedictina,* edited by Margot King, (Toronto, 1994), pp.
211-234. (The focus of the article is a general overview of beguinal
spirituality and book ownership, nevertheless you might find
the references to the funerary rites on p. 223 of some use.)
Yours,
Carolyn
Dr Carolyn Muessig
Department of Theology and Religious Studies
University of Bristol
Bristol BS8 1TB
UK
phone: +44(0)117-928-8168
fax: +44(0)117-929-7850
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
> > Can anyone tell me of any evidence that women were
> > responsible for preparing the dead for burial in medieval
> > societies. It seems to be the case that women are the
> > ones who lay out corpses in traditional Indian and Irish
> > communities (or maybe I'm wrong about this) and I'd like to
> > know if they did so in the middle ages, especially in Italy
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