thumb|[[Pride of the spirit is one of the five temptations of the dying man, according to . Here, demons tempt the dying man with crowns (a medieval allegory to earthly pride) under the disapproving gaze of Mary, Christ and God. Woodblock seven (4a) of eleven, Netherlands, .]]

The ("The Art of Dying") are two related Latin texts dating from about 1415 and 1450 which offer advice on the protocols and procedures of a good death, explaining how to "die well" according to Christian precepts of the late Middle Ages. It was written within the historical context of the macabre horrors of the Black Death 60 years earlier and consequent social upheavals of the 15th century. The earliest versions were most likely composed in southern Germany. It was very popular, translated into most West European languages, and was the first in a western literary tradition of guides to death and dying. About 50,000 copies were printed in the incunabula period before 1501 and further editions were printed after 1501. Its popularity declined as Erasmus's treatise on preparing for death (de praeparatione ad mortem, 1533) became more popular.

There was originally a "long version" and a later "short version" containing eleven woodcut pictures as instructive images which could be easily explained and memorized. These woodcut images were circulated in both print and individual engravings.

Long version

The original "long version", called Tractatus (or Speculum) artis bene moriendi, was composed in 1415 by an anonymous Dominican friar, probably at the request of the Council of Constance (1414–1418, Germany). This was widely read and translated into most West European languages, and was very popular in England, where a tradition of consolatory death literature survived until the 17th century. Works in the English tradition include The Way of Dying Well and The Sick Mannes Salve. In 1650, Holy Living and Holy Dying became the "artistic climax" of the tradition that had begun with .

was also among the first books printed with movable type and was widely circulated in nearly 100 editions before 1500, in particular in Germany. The long version survives in about 300 manuscript versions, only one illustrated.

consists of six chapters:

Images

thumb|Temptation of lack of Faith; engraving by [[Master E. S., c. 1450]]

As well as the eleven different sets of blockbook woodcuts, there is a set by Master E. S. in engraving. The lengthy controversy over their respective dating and priority is now resolved by the discovery by Fritz Saxl of an earlier illuminated manuscript, of well before 1450, from whose tradition all the images in the printed versions clearly derive. Studies of the watermarks of the blockbooks by Allen Stevenson at the British Museum in the 1960s confirmed that none of them predated the 1460s, so Master E. S.' engravings are the earliest printed versions, dating from around 1450. The images remain largely the same in all media for the rest of the century.

There is the exceptional number of about seventy incunabulum editions, in a variety of languages, from Catalan to Dutch, the earliest from about 1474 from Cologne.

Allegorically the images depicted the contest between angels and demons over the fate of the dying man. In his dying agony his soul emerges from his mouth to be received by one of a band of angels. The soul was often depicted as a miniature person who would either be escorted to heaven by the angels or sent to the fires of hell or years in Purgatory.

Common themes portrayed by illustrators include skeletons, the Last Judgement, corpses, and the forces of good and evil battling over souls.

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Extended tradition

The popularity of the texts developed into a broader tradition of writing on the good death. Jeremy Taylor's books Holy Living and Holy Dying, published in 1650 and 1651, exemplify that tradition. It developed in both Protestant and Catholic veins and continued in various forms through the nineteenth century.

London

In England during the 15th century, the was popular among laymen. Beginning when clerical scholars formulated the into a book, The Book of the Craft of Dying, easily spread the concept of the good death throughout England. More specifically, the Book and the good death concept heavily influenced common Londoners' perceptions and understandings of death. Inspired to achieve and strive for perfection in their everyday life, 15th-century common Londoners flocked to the Book to know how one could achieve a good death. Though the word is used more often as a synonym for power in this source, its inclusion must not be overlooked as certain phrases hint towards a quasi-contractual relationship between the dying human and the divine. For instance, the phrase "but he should take his (the dying person) death gladly and willingly… conforming and submitting his belief to God's will alone." In this instance, the mention of wills between the dying person and God resembles both a power relationship and also a contractual relationship that imagines the dying person surrendering his spirit in a legal fashion to God in effort to help quell the worries of their soul and thus, "die well… gladly and willingly." If the person is asked and does answer these questions truthfully, then "he shall truly be saved." Though, if none were asked upon their death, then "without no doubt no man may be saved everlastingly."[3] Thus, the questioning and response of the dying person is so vital to the accomplishment of the good death that it takes on the importance of a legal matter. Therefore, in a similar vein as the explained double meaning use of the word, "will" in the earlier phrases, it seems again that and thus, The Book as well, are reaffirming and popularizing the legal-like attributes that then construct the good death tradition.

Class distinctions

Though the and works that pushed the good death concept such as The Book of the Craft of Dying remained the dominant understanding of death throughout the 14th and 15th centuries in western Europe, class distinctions continued to add variety to this conclusion. Laymen and commoners in western Europe heavily understood death through the good death concept and tradition, but at the clerical and noble level of society, there were distinctions that did not totally agree with and the good death tradition. At the clerical level, the emerging rise of scholasticism inspired a review of past Christian theology and traditions touching all parts of Christian life - death, was one of these battlegrounds between scholasticism and traditional Christian thought. Here, clerical officials and students hotly debated the importance of sin in relation to one's death. For the traditionalists, one's personal sin determined their coming death, thus explaining that when striving to achieve the good death, one must be right with God. This concept is founded back to old Church law Canon 22 of Lateran IV (1215). Canon 22 states, "so that after spiritual health (through practices of the good death) has been restored to them (the dying person), the application of bodily medicine may be of greater benefit, for the cause being removed the effect will pass away." For those who embraced the scholasticism approach, one's personal sin mattered little. Rather, because of Adam and Eve's original sin, we were all destined to die thus, naturalizing death and somewhat shattered the established narrative that the good death tradition promoted. One scholar who embraced scholasticism writes of death, "On the causes of disease, that is, why people become ill, I reply, there are three [sic] reasons: the first is spiritual, that is, sin [...] The reason for all this is that the first man was created by God, was placed in terrestrial paradise in a state of innocence […] so that he [God] took care of the active and passive qualities of the elements that were in the human body lest they act against each other […] But because Adam was disobedient to God […] God permitted the elemental qualities to act against each other and consequently the body becomes ill and dies." Though this division in thought would challenge the previously established and good death tradition, the popularity of such works as The Book of the Craft of Dying indicate that this concept continued to thrive under pressure.

----[1] Liber de introduction loquendi in Ziegler, "Fourteenth-Century Instructions for Bedside Pastoral Care," in Medieval Practice, 103-104.

----[1] The Book of the Craft of Dying, Swanson, Catholic England, 134.

[2] The Book of the Craft of Dying, Swanson, Catholic England, 136.

[3] The Book of the Craft of Dying, Swanson, Catholic England, 136.

----[1] Binski, Medieval Death, 33-35.

[2] The Book of the Craft of Dying, Swanson, Catholic England, 127.

[3] The Book of the Craft of Dying, Swanson, Catholic England, 127.

See also

  • Bardo Thodol, Tibetan Book of the Dead
  • Book of the Dead (Egyptian)
  • Consolatio
  • Danse Macabre
  • Memento mori
  • Speculum Humanae Salvationis
  • Vanitas

References

Notes

Bibliography

  • Anonymous. "The Art of Dying Well", in Medieval Popular Religion, 1000–1500, a Reader. Ed. John Shinners, London: Broadview Press, 1997: 525-535. , English translation.
  • Campbell, Jeffrey (1995) "The Ars Moriendi": An examination, translation, and collation of the manuscripts of the shorter Latin version, Thesis (M.A.), University of Ottawa, 1995,
  • Caxton, William. Early English translation on Wikisource: The book of the craft of dying (London, 1917).
  • Caxton, William, c. 1422-1491; Seuse, Heinrich, 1295-1366; Comper, Frances M. M; Congreve, George, 1836-, The book of the craft of dying, and other early English tracts concerning death. London, 1917.
  • Dugdale, Lydia. Dying in the Twenty-First Century: Toward a New Ethical Framework for the Art of Dying Well (MIT Press, 2015).
  • Forcen, F. E., & Espi Forcen, C. (2016). "Ars Moriendi: Coping with death in the Late Middle Ages". Palliative & Supportive Care. 14(5), 553–560.
  • Digitized images of a photographic reprint the first printed edition (in Latin)
  • Eleven woodblock pictures presented in framed pairs. German language.
  • Ars Moriendi page by page {Rosenwald 424} - L'art de Bien Vivre et de Bien Mourir, etcet – at the Library of Congress, circa 1493
  • Ars moriendi in Castilian, with an introduction by E. Michael Gerli of Georgetown University.
  • Ars Moriendi, by Donald F. Duclow.
  • Danemunro.com , an article on memento mori and ars moriendi appearing in the publication of Dane Munro, Memento Mori, a companion to the most beautiful floor in the world (Malta, 2005) , 2 vols. The ars moriendi eulogies of the Knights of the Order of St John.
  • Ars moriendi. Germany, c. 1466 24 leaves. 11 illus. 28.7&nbsp;cm. From the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress
  • Ars moriendi. Germany, c. 1470? 14 leaves. illus. 35&nbsp;cm. From the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress
  • Ars moriendi. Germany, c. 1475? 14 leaves (the first blank, wanting). woodcuts: 11 illus. 13.9&nbsp;cm. From the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress