Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation

Binski, Paul

ISBN 10: 0801433150 / ISBN 13: 9780801433153

Published by NCROL, 1996

About this Item

Binding is tight, text block is sturdy and clean, boards straight, no highlights or underlining. Dust wrapper shows some minor chipping/rubbing to edges. Well packaged and promptly shipped from California. US veteran operated.

Seller Inventory # BAY_09_SH_020038

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Medieval Death: Ritual and Representation
• Publisher: NCROL
• Publication Date: 1996
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801433150
• ISBN 13: 9780801433153
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

About this title

Synopsis

Medieval Death is an absorbing study of the social, theological, and cultural issues involved in death and dying in Europe from the end of the Roman Empire to the early sixteenth century.
Drawing on both archaeological and art historical sources, Paul Binski examines pagan and Christian attitudes towards the dead, the aesthetics of death and the body, burial ritual and mortuary practice. The evidence is accumulated from a wide variety of medieval thinkers and images, including the macabre illustrations of the Dance of Death and other popular themes in art and literature, which reflect the medieval obsession with notions of humility, penitence, and the dangers of bodily corruption.
The author discusses the impact of the Black Death on late medieval art and examines the development of the medieval tomb, showing the changing attitudes towards the commemoration of the dead between late antiquity and the late Middle Ages. In the final chapter the progress of the soul after death is studied through the powerful descriptions of Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory in Dante and other writers and through portrayals of the Last Judgment and the Apocalypse in sculpture and large-scale painting.

About the Author

Paul Binski now lectures in the Department of History of Art at Cambridge University.