This monograph continues the work of the author in her research into images of death, especially the Office of the Dead, in psalters and Books of Hours from the Late Medieval period across Europe. For this volume over fifty Books of Hours have been used and listed (231-2), and while they are currently found in both Europe and the US, their production was predominantly in England or France, with a few other examples from Castile, the Low Countries, and Italy. The author is an art historian and therefore this book needs to be viewed in this context. While it might be suggested from the title that this work concentrates heavily on images, this wide ranging study, in fact, contextualises these images alongside many other forms of evidence, including wills, contemporary texts, physical tombs, chapels, and theological treatises of the period.
The introduction places the Books of Hours in the context of a wider study of death and its perceptions in the late medieval period. It differentiates itself from the research of others that also uses material culture to study this important aspect of medieval life, that is death. As such, the works of Binski on corpses, discussions on chapels, brasses and other artworks, including the Legend of Three Living and the Three Dead and Ars Moriendi are noted. The specific studies of imagery in Books of Hours by Meiss, Bartz, and Konig are also discussed and the justification for this monograph developed, noting that previous studies on this source have always been of a shorter length.
Given that Books of Hours were an elite possession in this period, the author does mention the images of death that could also be found on walls in churches as an example of accessibility to a wider range of the population. The discussion then moves to the three types of death seen in the book’s title: regular, repellent, and redemptive, with each theme taking a whole chapter in the book.
Chapter One, however, considers the context of the both the Office of the Dead and the Books of Hours in Christian liturgy. This goes back to the Early Church and the development of funeral rites in the subsequent centuries. The divergence of the Christian rites from both Roman and Jewish traditions is discussed along with emergence of the Ordo Defunctorum. This chapter is a succinct but clear identification of these developments and is useful summary for students of this topic. Added to this summary is another based on the development of literacy and books. This is a large area of discussion and debate, and again the author provides a summary that is both succinct as well as informative. The imagery of the Virgin Mary, often depicted in the later medieval period with books, alongside an increasing literacy at all levels in society, led to the popularity and increase in the production and ownership of Books of Hours. But for all this discussion of literacy, in the following chapters the focus is on the imagery they contain, over their textual content. Therefore, this chapter serves as a useful contextual introduction to these images.
Chapter Two considers the “regular” death of the period. The imagery here is often devoid of a corpse, concerned more with the conventional and community trappings of the rituals around death, such as a pall, coffin, the religious, and mourners. The discussion of these images is often in the higher register, and it states clearly what the viewer would see based on different interpretative texts, such as Peter of Limoges (thirteenth century) and theMeditationes vitae Christi. These works were often texts that encouraged viewers to read images in a certain way, and this discussion is therefore somewhat at odds with a previous statement about the level of Latin literacy of the period. But in such a comprehensive discussion this is not a major issue.
This chapter provides another clear interpretation when the images themselves are discussed, and in these later sections the idea of a visual “welcome mat” is developed well, especially when images diverge from the text on the same page. In addition, these images are contextualised with extracts from wills, highlighting their social aspect and the impact of death, which provides a useful explanation for many of the images, especially those that depict funeral scenes from a variety of the Books in the bibliography.
The use of sound as a counterpoint and aid to the texts and images is also considered here. The use of the Books to enable a secular owner to follow a service, especially through this aural aspect, also encouraged them to remembrance at a later date. The author contends that the drawing together of all these aspects in their use in secular society, as opposed to their original monastic intention, enabled the viewer to comprehend human mortality.
Chapter Three deals with “repellent” death, especially imagery of the corpse and skeletons outside of the rituals surrounding death explored in the previous chapter. The images discussed here contain those of the deathbed, shrouds, and burial itself. The use of contemporary verses that detail the bodily process of death to burial and the physical changes wrought by death are an excellent textual reminder of the process, especially when discussed alongside the images. The grave as a temporary resting place, as many were disinterred after defleshing when bones were placed in a charnel house, is linked here with the idea of remembrance, especially in the year this process was believed to take. The use of bones in imagery of interment is seen to represent this process.
This chapter does not ignore the imagery of life seen as transitory in images of the Danse Macabre, Three Living and Three Dead, and the variations on this theme. The use of mirrors in the Books of Hours as a method of transmitting this idea is explored in this context, alongside a comparison with the transi tombs of the period. Many of these images, both in the Books and in other genres, depict a “lively” corpse, at odds with other aspects of the teachings of the Church. These were popular ideas, often used as a warning about sudden death, and appear in secular sources quite frequently as well as being highlighted in the Books under study.
Chapter Four considers “redemptive death,” and the idea of an expression of the Christian hope of resurrection. The Book of Job, which discusses Job’s redemption after his steadfast adherence to God, is depicted here as an account of “social death” and resurrection. It is actually a surprise to this reviewer that the story of Job was so widely disseminated in this form and so often in great detail. Its popularity in the later medieval period was used in a saintly context, at odds with the original Biblical story, as his patience and faith under trial was used by commentators to extol suffering, faith, and belief in the resurrection (especially by Saint Gregory the Great in Moralia in Job).
The lengthy section on Job, his torments by demons, and his suffering, is followed by a discussion on Lazarus, also a common feature of Books in this period. Lazarus is depicted as representing the Resurrection and is seen as a way of translating the idea of death through a visual representation. Lazarus is variously depicted as hale and muscley or frail. These are discussed in the context of the Christian hope of redemption and resurrection after death and seen by the author as an example of redemptive death.
The three chapters that deal with these three versions of death are followed by conclusions. Here the author concludes that this three-way split allows a study of death in both imagery and context. Regular death as a community activity thought rituals, all seen in these Books, repellent death in terms of the effect on the body, and redemptive death in the Christian hope of resurrection. This is a tidy and helpful summary accompanied by the evidence from the Books of Hours. The evidence used is wide-ranging and clear, and themes flow throughout the text.
As noted above, this is an art history book, and those from other fields will find some aspects of it difficult to access and perhaps accept. And yet, while it is from this genre of history, it is not purely descriptive but contextual, to its credit. While the language might at times be divisive for some readers, its research and thoughtful approach is to be commended. It is in fact a wider study than just imagery, and the author is correct that this deserved a full monograph, over a shorter article in an edited collection or journal.
A note must also be made on the illustrations. These are plentiful and both in colour and black and white. Of course, in an ideal world these would all be in the colour of the originals, but those not in colour are still clear, and the representations are easy to understand.