Why and In What Ways Did Medieval European Attitudes Towards Death Change With the Advancement of the Reformation?

Authors Avatar

Why and In What Ways Did Medieval European Attitudes Towards Death Change With the Advancement of the Reformation?

        Death is the most certain of all universal truths.  It’s shadow can be seen cast over almost all aspects of life. No matter what culture you come from, there is a certain formula that is followed when dealing with death.  For humans within a society, deaths’ affects are recognized on a personal level (person to person), within a family, within the greater society, it’s economy, government, and religion.   Personal grief must be dealt with when a loved one is lost.  The entire family may grieve, even when separated by distance.  The loss of one member of a society can have a heavy impact especially if the person lost is of community importance.  This loss also opens up a gap in the social and family structure of status that must be mended and filled. This in turn affects the economy, which in turn can effect the government which, during medieval times, went hand in hand with religion. It is to be made clear that death affected religion in both large and small (local) circles.   It may sound strange to modern American sensibilities but religion, the economy, and government during the Middle Ages were not strange bedfellows.  The Roman Catholic Church (RCC) made sure of that.  But as humans advanced in technology and freethinking abounded, the doctrines of the RCC were challenged.  These challenges to RC doctrine naturally affected peoples’ attitudes towards the most common of human conditions: death.

 It is no secret that through religion, people attempt to explain and, to a certain extent, control the unknown.  These explanations and attempts to control lead to a set of doctrines or beliefs to be followed.  These doctrines in turn affect group behavior, in a very literal sense controlling it.  Religion is a way of controlling group behavior.  This makes religion a very useful tool to govern the masses with.  It is not a far stretch to include the economy into this power structure.  The RCC of the Middle Ages capitalized on death. Death is of course the “big unknown” of all time…and “ big business”.   For a long time the Holy Roman Empire/RCC was the religion, government, and economy of most of Europe. And, like death, cast it’s shadow over all aspects of laymen’s’ lives.  

In early Roman times, people were buried outside the city walls because of fear of spiritual and physical pollution.  As towns grew, starting in the 5th century, the cemetery churchyards became apart of the urban landscape.  Saints were often buried within the churches.  People then wanted to be buried ad sanctus, near the holy, believing that this closeness in death to a saint would help them on their own way to heaven.  The following centuries saw the establishment of urban churchyards.  These urban churchyards were the centers of the cities.  You could not go about your daily business without coming into contact with one.  Look down the boulevard and you would see it. Open your window and you would smell it. The urban churchyard unavoidably connected the living with the dead.  This connection was integral to support the doctrines of the RCC.  The constant reminder of death was an important way to keep the masses faithful.  It was only through the RCC that one could attain access into heaven.  The average person in the Middle Ages, if they were God fearing at all, believed that salvation could only be achieved through adhering to RC doctrine and doing exactly what the priests told them.  The priests used sermons loaded with terrifying imagery of Hell and Purgatory.  Death for Catholics, save the pope and saints, most certainly meant a trip to Purgatory.

Join now!

Purgatory to the Catholics of the Middle Ages was a place of pain and suffering.  It was the place where one would suffer for the sins that had not been cast off during life.  The soul is often tormented for many years in Purgatory before satisfaction is granted and it can ascend to eternal life.  Living mourners who had prayed for the dying persons’ soul before death continued to pray for the soul after death, believing that their prayers would help the dead souls through Purgatory faster.  This linked the dead to the living spiritually.  Not only could living mourners ...

This is a preview of the whole essay