This work is astronomically presumptuous. The author (an Oxford don) wanes philosophical in the preface, confidently informing us that this is a "mere introduction" to medieval suicide in England, France, Germany and Italy, "mainly from the millennium to 1500" in three volumes. He makes a Virgil out of Dante by using the Divine Comedy as his model for the tripartite division. The preface closes with two warnings: first, with a requisite T.S. Eliot quip, Murray baldly tells us he will employ male personal pronouns, brazenly offending politically correctness. Then, more solemnly, he prescribes an ancient antidote to persons suffering side-effects of depression from reading the book--put it down and read another. He isn't joking.
The introduction shifts into a higher gear. Murray, a self- professed necromancer, will revive the maverick spirit of sleepless souls to recherchez l'anomalie, i.e. he suggests that suicide marks a delineating extremity of human experience. Volume one is dedicated exclusively to individual suicides and attempts. We proceed from a micro-historic case to a history of suicide research from the nineteenth century to 1945, identifying three strains: 1. studies of belief, 2. an antiquary tradition of local history and, 3. the role of polemicists. Chapter two discusses methodological problems of secrecy, reticence, shame and euphemism inherent in the medieval discourse on suicide. The subsequent chapters are organized around three different genres of sources with a final section on the limitations of statistics. As Murray consistently points out, the history of suicide is perforated by black holes. He hopes to explore their edges bounded by the limitations of each source. After nearly fifty pages of introductory cautions, he rolls up his sleeves, leaves philosophy behind and dives headfirst into the river of material.
In three chapters, part one examines medieval chronicles from the top down. Starting with 'Great Men', high chronicles whisper of suicides at the courts of the mighty. Most involve disgrace at court or defeat in battle, leaving unceremonious hara-kiri as an option to save face, escape shame, or avoid the wrath of a discontented or suspicious overlord; some mention the deaths of virtuous ladies traumatized as well. All indicate how the wording of texts can render an absolute verdict of suicide extremely difficult, since the deed is nearly always cloaked in euphemism. This chapter raises the theoretical question of the relationship between suicide and other forms of violence (in this case, war; homicide is mentioned in the statistical section), broaching issues of valor and self-sacrifice. Next he considers accounts of fallen arrivistes, sections of Dante's Inferno, and the reputation of Florence as the peninsular capital of self- murder, ending with an extended analysis of accusations against Joan of Arc for suicidal utterances. The final chapter of part one consults less known local chronicles prepared by gossipy law clerks and members of religious orders. Murray's interpretation of the corpus of German Stadtchronicke as 'in-the-know' legalistic accounts is superb. It verifies their close association with town councils, which gave their authors easy access to the day-to-day workings of government--and us easy access to suicide at a more common level (e.g. he intuitively notes the same connection between suicides and bad weather). The same willingness to describe suicides is true of some monastic chronicles, though for less prurient reasons. As he later demonstrates, abbeys needed to record suicides to register their legal and property rights over their subjects and possessions.
Legal records represent the most substantial portion of documentary evidence on suicide available from the Middle Ages. Part two consists of six chapters on this genre. Chapter six raises the problem of source creation in their political context. His most excellent dissection of the body of the judiciary in post-Conquest England cuts through records of coroners and the eyre rolls, as well as King's Bench in Westminster. For example, Murray notes a marked increase in suicides during the thirteenth century. However, this does not prove a low rate before 1170, but instead is explained by the creation of the custos placitum corone, whose initial job it was to generate revenues and pay the ransom for King Richard after 1194 (suicides faced confiscation of property). If suicide rates fluctuated at a different pace in the legal records of France and Germany, then this has more to do with a varied legal evolution than an absolute measure of underlying cultural proclivities--although Murray does not disregard them as indicators. The early disintegration of central authority in France coupled with the rise of autonomous seigniorial courts and the influence of Roman law colored the judicial response toward suicide. Again, some records, such as those from the monasteries around Paris, were produced largely in the attempt to protect seigniorial privilege against the incursions of the Provost of Paris. On the other hand, appeals and especially the letters of remission issued by the Court of Requests (a subdivision of the Parlement of Paris) reflect a dialectical evolution in French law. Legal records may be terse, but reveal the first unromantic and bone-chilling images of actual suicides; even the initiated researcher must pause at Simon of Cheldrincton's gruesome self-disembowelment in 1249 (150). It gets tougher from here on in and the details (voluminous as they are) are best left to the potential readers. Suffice to say, his explication of legal records is nothing less than brilliant.
Fortunately for the faint-of-heart, Hope is the sub-theme of part three, which consists of a three-chapter discussion of miracula and exempla. As the author puts it, "Miracles told, in general, of people who had had grim experiences but had survived" (251). This section is a highly refined critical analysis of literary symmetry, anomaly and verisimilitude operating under the axiom "good story/bad history" and vice-versa. Murray wisely chooses to take hagiographies and morally proscriptive tales seriously. First, he deals with the sensitive family issues of post-natal depression, incest, abortion, infanticide, and loss of spouse. In the case of the Santiago pilgrim, he demonstrates an outrageous tenacity in hot pursuit of a story and its transmission through several medieval paragons--from Hugh of St. Victor to Hugh of Cluny to Guaferius of Monte Casino to Guibert of Nogent, et al. A chapter on deviant and criminal suicides is followed by an important contribution on physical and mental health as a contributing factor in self-killing.
The book closes with two chapters of tentative, yet compelling hypotheses based on the statistical analyses of 560 cases. Thus, the analysis is raised to the strategic level of comparative analysis. Murray situates himself squarely within a Durkheimian/ Halbwachsian discourse on the nature of modernity. Fascination with the history of suicide has been mounting recently, because (perhaps more than most subjects) it lends itself to an objective (and healthy) distance. However, this book is really only partially a study of suicide. Often, suicide is simply employed as a methodological vehicle to test medieval sources and their limitations, not to mention more general heuristic issues of context and interpretation. Murray also takes some oh-so subtle shots at historical icons (among them Natalie Davis' work on pardon tales and Michael Macdonald's poaching into medieval domain) from his Oxford tower. This is truly a history book for historians; without the slightest hint of depression (albeit with a shiver at the description of volume three on pg. 345). I devoured it with a good strong claret before the fireplace. It is infinitesimal (at times obsessive) in its concern for detail and its three- volume size is in part explained by the stubborn insistence of the author to include every scrap of information relevant to his inquiry, leaving few stones unturned. What other English- language publisher indulges historians to that extent these days? Further, anyone who doubts Murray's initial promise of three volumes is quickly dissuaded by specific references to subsequent volumes in the footnotes. In a recent conversation, the author revealed that volume two is on the way (scheduled to be at press in May) and volume three is nearly complete. While the verdict of compos mentis is pending on the remaining two, if they are of the quality of the first, then this three volume study will represent a landmark in medieval history, as well as the sub-field of suicide history. I am indeed convinced: Murray is a necromancer.