'Oh Death!': Death, Dying, and the Culture of the Macabre
in the Late Middle Ages
Prepared by
Emily Rebekah Huber
"Oh death!
Won't you spare me over till another year?
Well, what is this that I can't see,
With ice cold hands taking hold of me?"
"Well, I am death, none can excel,
I'll open the door to heaven or hell.
I'll fix your feet till you can't walk.
I'll lock your jaw till you can't talk.
I'll close your eyes so you can't see.
This very hour come and go with me.
In death I come to take the soul,
Leave the body and leave it cold
To drop the flesh off of the frame.
The earth and worms both have a claim."
"Oh death,
Oh death!
Won't you spare me over till another year?"
--Appalachian Folksong
[The image above is a woodcut by Michael Wolgemut from 1493 entitled "The Orchestra of the
Dead." The scene is a fine example of the wild carnivalesque atmosphere emphasized in the
popular motif of the Danse Macabre, or Dance of Death. Binsky points out that the Danse may
have been an ironic commentary on the Church's prohibition against dancing in graveyards.]
Preface
The popular lines at the beginning of this booklet keenly illustrate several of the key concepts
present in a discussion of death-culture in the late Middle Ages. At its essence, the culture of the
macabre represented a kind of dialogue between those mortals who would all, someday, face
death, and that inevitable, undefeatable force that took their life. Medieval culture fixated on
those physical aspects of death that strike modern people as viscerally disturbing: images of
physical deterioration, paralysis, burial, and decay are all things that we sanitize and cloister
away behind the walls of hospitals, hushed and dimly lit funeral homes, and the silence of
graveyards. While our culture, in its increasing secularism, and in its sanitization and silencing of
death, is radically different from that of the European Middle Ages, the survival of such images
as those depicted in the Appalachian song demonstrates the continuity, albeit uncomfortable,
between the macabre culture of the late Middle Ages and our own.
The Black Death
Introduction
The Black Death refers to the period in Europe from approximately 1347 to 1353, when bubonic
plague ravaged the European population and initiated a long-term period of cultural trauma from
which, one could argue, we have not yet completely recovered. Every nightmare of apocalyptic
pandemics, from bird flu to AIDS to Ebola, registers, on some level, with the horrifying
possibility of returning to a world where each and every member of one's family falls victim to a
merciless, fast-acting, insidious, and physically horrifying sickness. Bubonic plague is a disease
that, in its modern form, still kills 15% of patients treated with antibiotics. In the pre-antibiotic
era of fourteenth-century Europe, the mortality rate from plague was between 50% and 90% of
those people who contracted the disease. In crowded areas where black rats and their fleas were
common, or in small rural hamlets where these hosts lived alongside the human population, the
mortality was staggering, and archaeologists have in recent decades uncovered the remains of
small villages that essentially disappeared during the period of the Black Death.
Understanding the macabre spirit of death-culture in late medieval Europe requires a
familiarization with the terror and panic of epidemic disease, and, more generally, with the fear
of catastrophe and sudden death. It is only recently, in the age of mass-media, where
photographs, motion pictures, and, more recently, the internet have exposed us to the devastation
wrought by such natural disasters as the south Asian tsunami of 2004 and Hurricane Katrina, and
to such unnatural disasters as the Holocaust of World War II, that a large portion of the world
population has become exposed to horrific images akin to those presented by the Black Death.
On a cultural or psychological level, then, we can experience second-hand, through images, what
most of the population of the medieval world experienced first-hand: wide-scale death, physical
decay, and the subsequent crumbling of societal infrastructure.
The Disease
Three seemingly harmless members of the natural world -- the black rat, the rat flea, and a
common bacteria that lives in the flea's intestine -- are the host, vector, and agent of one of the
most prolific killers of humankind -- bubonic plague. The bacterium Yersinia pestis and the
vector by which it spreads, xenopsylla cheopis, the oriental rat flea, were discovered
(respectively) in 1894 and 1898, solving the millennia-old question as to what caused the
catastrophic disease. Yersinia pestis can be discerned by its elongated safety-pin appearance
when examined from blood cultures from plague patients. The rat flea commonly carries the
bacteria in its gut and frequently infects rodent populations, which are its common hosts. Plague
can be transmitted to humans that live in close contact with rodents, as the fleas bite humans as
well. The common black rat, rattus rattus, was the host to the oriental rat flea, and the primary
means of plague transmission during the Black Death.
The plague's signature symptom was the bubo, a large, painful, red swelling usually located in
the neck, armpit, or groin, the result of a swollen and infected lymph node. Beginning about the
size of an egg, the bubo could swell to the size of an apple before death. In addition to the bubo,
victims of the plague suffered from high fever, chills, exhaustion, occasional pneumonic
symptoms, and eventual septicemia, shock, and death.
Plague Prevention
"Who will been holle and kepe hym from sekenesse
And resiste the strok of pestilence,
Lat hym be glad, and voide al hevynesse,
Flee wikkyd heires, eschew the presence
Off infect placys, causyng the violence;
Drynk good wyn, and holsom meetis take,
Smelle swote thynges and for his deffence
Walk in cleene heir, eschewe mystis blake."
(Lydgate, lines 1-8)
Above are the first eight lines of one of the numerous regimen sanitatis, or rules of healthy
living, circulating widely throughout the period after the Black Death (see Rawcliffe, p. 37). The
author, John Lydgate, (a contemporary of the famous Geoffrey Chaucer) recommends that, in
order to avoid the pestilence (the plague), one should live cheerfully, eat healthily, "walk in
cleene heir," and "eschewe mystis blake." These last two injunctions reflect the popular belief
that plague was spread by infectious air, which, given the likelihood of plague taking on its
deadly pneumonic form, was not as inaccurate a theory as it at first seems.
Public Response to the Plague
Most sufferers during the plague outbreak turned to their religion for solace. Some saw the
plague as God's punishment upon humankind for its manifold sins; others saw it as a test to try
their faith. Many found comfort in the image of Saint Sebastian, a Roman martyr shot to death
by arrows during the time of Emperor Diocletian (r. 284-305). Although Sebastian had no
specific association with plague, the iconography of the saint assisted in linking the two, as
plague was often "visualized as arrows fired by God" (Naphy, p. 45). After the period of the
Black Death, Saint Roche became known as a patron saint of sufferers from the plague; born in
Montpellier around 1350, Roche fell victim to the plague, but was miraculously nursed back to
health by a dog. Afterwards, he cured many plague sufferers.
Others responded to the plague by blaming themselves. Members of the previously obscure
flagellant movement, known in Germany as the "Brethren of the Cross" roamed central and
Eastern Europe, processing through towns and whipping themselves. (This movement is
facetiously portrayed in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.) The self-punishment was significant
on an individual level, as it supposedly brought one closer to Christ's experience at the hands of
the Romans, and on a community level, as self-flagellation forced the social body to publicly
acknowledge the sins of its members and, in turn, look inward to their own sins. Pope Clement
VI quickly condemned the movement as heretical in October of 1349, although the flagellants
continued to exist in pockets throughout Europe and were persecuted well into the fifteenth
century.
Still others responded to the pestilence by blaming not themselves, but others. Most often these
"others" took the form of the Jews, who were accused of fumigating the air and poisoning wells
with plague-infected water. Christian Europeans, terrified by the inexplicable and relentless
advance of the plague, needed a scapegoat, and Jewish communities suffered greatly as a result.
The Afterlife
Here lieth under this marbill ston,
Riche Alane, the ballid man;
Whether he be safe or noght,
I recke never -- for he ne roght!
bald
saved
care/cared
This lyric displays the key reason for thinking about death in the Middle Ages: the salvation of
the soul. An individual who went through life without paying heed to his impending death would
likewise not keep in mind the care of his soul. Death functioned not just as a terrifying adversary
who would inevitably conquer you, but as an agent of God who potentially brought you to union
with Christ. Those who took proper care of their souls would find the utmost reward at the end
and enjoy the bliss Heaven offered. Those who remained careless and sinful would suffer pains
in Purgatory, or, if they neglected to repent, would endure eternal suffering in Hell.
Judgment Day
Judgment Day represented not the end of time as the end of the relevance of time. Eternity was
not so much far in the future, as constantly the present. The bodies of the dead were each
resurrected, and would be judged by God according to their deeds in life, then consigned to bliss
in Heaven or damnation in Hell. An illustration from the Grandes Heures de Rohan shows the
resurrection of the dead, who are assisted in climbing out of their graves by angels. To the left,
Eve greets Adam. God sits enthroned as Judge, a conflation of Christ the redeemer, with crown
of thorns and bleeding side, and God the Father, the orb in his hand representing his dominion
over created things. The fully clad man at the bottom right contrasts with the naked figures of the
resurrected dead; his despairing expression and downward gaze are juxtaposed with the
heavenward glances of the more hopeful figures. Harthan (p. 84), supposes that this figure could
represent those people still alive at the time of the Last Judgment.
Purgatory
What of those souls who had confessed their sins before death but not yet done penance? A
widely debated idea in the Middle Ages was the doctrine of Purgatory, a between place where
souls were relegated to be "purified" by fire, ice, or other means, before achieving the ultimate
reward of Paradise. The evolution of the idea of Purgatory has a long and complex history (see
The Birth of Purgatory by Jacques le Goff), and was not clearly condoned by the Catholic
Church until the Second Council of Lyons in 1274. Thomas Aquinas, a thirteenth-century
theologian, most clearly articulated the church's thinking on Purgatory by asserting that "the
priest could absolve the 'culpa' [blame] of mortal sin but the 'poena' (pain or punishment) still
had to be satisfied by repentance" (Foster, p. 9). Thus, Purgatory existed as a place where
punishment was exacted by means of physical suffering before the soul was taken into Heaven.
The prayers of those still living could alleviate the pains of Purgatory to an extent; while not
relieving the departed of their obligation to visit Purgatory, the time they spent there could be
shortened.
Hell
For those misguided souls who neither did penance nor repented their sins, the afterlife consisted
of eternal suffering in Hell. As Boase points out, "The human mind has a morbid thirst for
horrors," and thus the torments of the inferno "lent themselves to more lurid and haunting
concepts" than did the bliss of Heaven (p. 21). We could compare this fascination to a modern
cinematic audience's enduring obsession with horror films, where the terrifying and bloody
images are at once repulsive and yet compelling. While medieval people certainly enjoyed a kind
of morbid thrill from reading about and viewing images of Hell, the didactic purpose of such
material was to warn them of the dangers of not taking proper care of their souls.
The Très Riches Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry illustrates the torments of Hell. Satan is stretched
out on a grill in the middle, apparently undergoing the worst torment but resolutely grasping the
souls of the damned by his side. On either side of the grill, demons pump bellows to keep the
fires going. The souls around the grill, roasting in the coals, are marked by numerous tonsures,
apparently the result of monastic corruption. See fol. 108r from Longnon and Cazelles.
One of the most chilling visions of Hell comes from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales,
where, in the prologue to the Summoner's Tale, an angel carries a friar to Hell for a vision of the
afterlife. When the friar inquires of the angel whether there are any friars in Hell, the angel
responds:
'Yis,' quod this angel, 'many a millioun!'
And unto Sathanas he ladde hym doun.
Satan
'And now hath Sathanas,' seith he, 'a tayl
Brodder than of a carryk is the sayl.
boat
Hold up thy tayl, thou Sathanas!' quod he;
'Shewe forth thyn ers, and lat the frere se
ass/friar see
Where is the nest of freres in this place!'
And er that half a furlong wey of space,
i.e., in a few minutes
Right so as bees out swarmen from an hyve,
Out of the develes ers ther gonne dryve
Twenty thousand freres on a route,
And thurghout helle swarmed al aboute,
And comen agayn as faste as they may gon,
And in his ers they crepten everychon.
each one
He clapte his tayl agayn and lay ful stille.
[Fragment III (D), lines 1685-1699 of the Canterbury Tales.]
Such a horrific vision of the afterlife would certainly persuade any corrupt friar to mend his
ways!