To What Extent were Responses to Death Characterised by Fear in Medieval Religious Culture?
This investigation will analyse responses to death in medieval religious culture. Relationships with death arguably varied between social classes, making it difficult to assert a generalised response to death. Death was commonplace amongst peasants and therefore few sources document it. Responses to death can be inferred by sermons, which were influential to the beliefs of lower classes. The nobility on the other hand, provided accounts of deaths and from these sources responses can be asserted. Similarly, it is difficult to assert a general definition of death as in the medieval period the concept of death was multidimensional. Death was both physical and spiritual to medieval religious culture. Additionally, medieval religious culture was diverse. This investigation will approach these problems by utilising specific religious sources, for both lower and upper classes and analysing their content to decipher whether responses to death were characterised by fear.
The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were plagued by devastating events including; The Great Famine (1315-1322), The Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453), the Wars of the Roses (1455-1487) and the Black Death (1348-1350). Society adapted to cope with the abundance of the death and this is evident in the numerous primary sources commenting on death in this period. Death was approached by medieval society from varying social and religious angles. For example, the Danse Macabre can be presented as either a social satire or a comment on religious culture. For the purpose of this essay, it is important to be selective of the abundant sources available, referring to sources with specific re...
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With the Renaissance going on in full swing in the late 1500’s, people were enjoying their newfound lifestyle. But they were just getting fully recovered from the Black Death, which consequently killed off over half of Europe. One of the biggest reasons for the...
In the Second Essay of On the Genealogy of Morals (titled ““Guilt,” “Bad Conscience,” and the Like”), Nietzsche formulates an interesting conception of the origin and function of guilt feelings and “bad conscience.” Nietzsche’s discussion of this topic is rather sophisticated and includes sub-arguments for the ancient equivalence of the concepts of debt and guilt and the existence of an instinctive joy in cruelty in human beings, as well as a hypothesis concerning the origin of civilization, a critique of Christianity, and a comparison of Christianity to ancient Greek religion. In this essay, I will attempt to distill these arguments to their essential points.
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“Everyman” in this late English 15th century morality play, several ideas have been given a personal discussion since they appear to have natural application in the states of goodness among people. However, the topic of perception of the death and the treatment of death is paramount in the play. Death has formed a essential part of the play in that the absence of death would mean that there is no play at all. Everyman tries to defy death for the rest of the play. Death enables Everyman to be instructive and illuminative. The author has explored and adored death with certain specialties as being a cruel judge, a messenger of God, and a rescuer of humanity. The treatment and perception of death are paramount in that it is enormously incubated
The 14th century is ranked as one of the most distressing epochs in the history of Western culture. With the transformation of the Holy Roman Empire into a greatly destabilized elective monarchy, the transfer in political power from Germany to France and the escalation of England's power comes the end of the High Middle Ages in which Europe sank into a time of despair. Many events were responsible for this decline and loss of hope. Among them, three deserve special attention: the Great Schism, the Hundred Years War, and the Black Plague.
The concept of human mortality and how it is dealt with is dependent upon one’s society or culture. For it is the society that has great impact on the individual’s beliefs. Hence, it is also possible for other cultures to influence the people of a different culture on such comprehensions. The primary and traditional way men and women have made dying a less depressing and disturbing idea is though religion. Various religions offer the comforting conception of death as a begining for another life or perhaps a continuation for the former.
In her book Death, Burial, and the Individual in Early Modern England, Clare Gittings observes that, “it has often been suggested that people of the late Middle Ages seem to have been obsessed with death” (34). Gittings notes that, unlike today when people easily cast death’s threat aside, it would have been impos...
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