| Abstract: | Realistic images of death and burial appear in unprecedented numbers as illustrations for the Office of the Dead in late medieval prayerbooks. Taking issue with the traditional, generalized interpretations of these images as expressions of the late medieval preoccupation with death, the author argues that the iconography of death ritual that emerged after 1375 was actually a manifestation of the popular need to assert the restoration of social and religious traditions that had been suspended during the period when the Black Death ravaged western Europe. Viewed against the background of pre-plague catholic death rituals and the literary evidence of the disruption and suspension of those rituals resulting from the onslaught of bubonic plague, the new iconography of death and burial assumes social significance that sets it apart from more eschatologically oriented visual and literary themes associated with death and dying during the late middle ages. |
