Image and the Office of the Dead in Late Medieval Europe

Image and the Office of the Dead in Late Medieval Europe

Regular, Repellant, and Redemptive Death

Image and the Office of the Dead in Late Medieval Europe explores the Office of the Dead as a site of interaction between text, image, and experience in the culture of commemoration that thrived in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The Office of the Dead was a familiar liturgical ritual, and its perceived importance and utility are evident in its regular inclusion in devotional compilations, which crossed the boundaries between lay and religious readers. The Office was present in all medieval deaths: as a focus for private contemplation, a site of public performance, a reassuring ritual, and a voice for the bereaved. Examining the images at the Office of the Dead and related written, visual, and material evidence, this book explores the relationship of these images to the text in which they are embedded and to the broader experiences of and aspirations for death.
  • Cover
  • Table of Contents
  • Introduction
  • 1. The Office of the Dead in Christian Liturgy
    • The Office of the Dead in Devotional Books
  • 2. Regular Death: Reading the Funeral and Imaginative Practice
    • Seeing into the Office: Imagining
    • Reader as Body
    • Hearing Community: Image and Liturgy
  • 3. Repellent Death: Time, Rot, and the Death of the Body
    • Death-Tide: Time and Decay of the Body
    • ‘Nothing more base and abominable’: The Corpse
    • Disruption: The Lively Corpse
    • Dry Bones: Death in Life
  • 4. The Redemptive Death: Job, Lazarus, and Death Undone
    • Living Death: Job as the Social Body
    • The Undead: Lazarus and the Promise of Resurrection
  • Conclusions
  • Bibliography
  • Index of Manuscripts
  • General Index
  • List of Illustrations
    • Fig. 1-1. Royal MS 2 A XVIII ‘The Beauchamp Hours’, Hours, England (London), c. 1430, fol. 34. London: British Library. © The British Library Board.
    • Fig. 2-1. Detail, Egerton MS 1151, Hours, England (Oxford), 1260–70, fol. 118. London: British Library. © The British Library Board.
    • Fig. 2-2. Detail, Egerton MS 3277 ‘Bohun Psalter-Hours’, Psalter/Hours, England, c. 1361–73, fol. 142. London: British Library. © The British Library Board.
    • Fig. 2-3. Detail, Additional MS 50001 ‘The Hours of Elizabeth the Queen’, Hours, England (London), c. 1425, fol. 55v. London: British Library. © The British Library Board.
    • Fig. 2-4. MS 39, Hours, England, c. 1420–40, fol. 70. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Library, Heritage Collections. © The University of Edinburgh. CC-BY licence.
    • Fig. 2-5. MS Richardson 34, Hours, England, c. 1470, fol. 88v. Cambridge, MA: Houghton Library, Harvard University.
    • Fig. 3-1. MS BP.96, Hours, France (Paris), 1475–1500, fol. 133. New York: Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University Libraries.
    • Fig. 3-2. MS M.453, Hours, French, c. 1425–30, fol. 133v. New York: The Morgan Library and Museum. Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913) in 1911. Photographic credit: The Morgan Library & Museum, New York.
    • Fig. 3-3. Sloane MS 2468, Hours, France (Paris), c. 1420, fol. 163. London: British Library. © The British Library Board.
    • Fig. 3-4. Harley MS 2934, Hours, France (Troyes), c. 1410, fol. 106. London: British Library. © The British Library Board.
    • Fig. 3-5. MS 507, Hours, France (Paris), c. 1500, fol. 113. Paris: Bibliothèque Mazarine.
    • Fig. 3-6. Yates Thompson MS 7, ‘The Hours of Dionora of Urbino’, Hours, Italy (Florence or Mantua), c. 1480, historiated initials added c. 1510–15, fol. 174. London: British Library. © The British Library Board.
    • Fig. 3-7. Additional MS 25695, Hours, France, late 15th century, fol. 165. London: British Library. © The British Library Board.
    • Fig. 3-8. MS Lewis E 92, Hours, France (Paris?), 1440–60, fol. 90v. Philadelphia: Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia. Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department.
    • Fig. 3-9. MS Lewis E 212, Hours, France, c. 1475–1500, fol. 151r. Philadelphia: Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia. Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department
    • Fig. 3-10. Yates Thompson MS 13 ‘The Taymouth Hours’, Hours, England, c. 1325–40, fols. 179v–180. London: British Library. © The British Library Board.
    • Fig. 3-11. MS Lewis E 108, Hours, Flanders (Bruges), 1485–1500, fols. 109v–110, Belgium, Bruges, 1485–1500. Philadelphia: Rare Book Department, Free Library of Philadelphia. Courtesy of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Rare Book Department.
    • Fig. 3-12. MS Typ 180, Hours (frag.), Italy (Venice), early 15th century, fol. 1. Cambridge, MA: Houghton Library, Harvard University.
    • Fig. 3-13. MS Q Med. 88, Hours, Flanders, late 15th century, fol. 110. Boston: Boston Public Library.
    • Fig. 4-1, 2. MS Auct D. 4.4. ‘The Bohun Psalter and Hours’, Psalter/Hours, England, c. 1370–80, fols. 244, 248v. Oxford: Bodleian Library. CC-BY-NC 4.0 licence.
    • Fig. 4-3a–c. Detail, Egerton MS 2019, Hours, France (Paris), c. 1440–50, fols. 167v, 175, 176. London: British Library. © The British Library Board.
    • Fig. 4-4. MS Buchanan E. 3, Hours, France (Rouen), late 15th century, fol. 55. Oxford: Bodleian Library. CC-BY-NC 4.0 licence.
    • Fig. 4-5. Detail, MS KB 71 A 23, Bible, France (Paris), c. 1320–40, fol. 203v. The Hague: Nationale bibliotheek van Nederland.
    • Fig. 4-6. MS Auct D. 4.4. ‘The Bohun Psalter and Hours’, Psalter/Hours, England, c. 1370–80, fol. 243v. Oxford: Bodleian Library. CC-BY-NC 4.0 licence.
    • Fig. 4-7. Additional MS 35314, Hours, Netherlands, late 15th/early 16th century, fol. 53v. London: British Library. © The British Library Board.
    • Fig. 4-8. Detail, MS M. 179, Hours, France, 1480–1500, fol. 132v. New York: The Morgan Library and Museum. Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913). Photographic credit: The Morgan Library & Museum, New York.
    • Fig. 4-9. MS M. 1003, Hours, France, c. 1465, fol. 153v. New York: The Morgan Library and Museum. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Landon K. Thorne, Jr., 1979. Photographic credit: The Morgan Library & Museum, New York.
    • Fig. 4-10. MS 21, ‘The Castle Hours’, Hours, France, late 15th century, fol. 69v. Bryn Mawr: Bryn Mawr Special Collections Library.
    • Fig. 4-11. MS M.1001, Hours, France, c. 1475, fol. 114. New York, The Morgan Library and Museum. Purchased on the Fellows Fund, 1979. Photographic credit: The Morgan Library & Museum, New York.