Image and the Office of the Dead in Late Medieval Europe

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.

Sarah Schell is Lecturer in Art History at American University of Beirut. She received her PhD in Art History at the University of St Andrews (Scotland), and has held research and teaching positions in Canada, the UAE, Lebanon, and the United States.

Introduction, The Office of the Dead in Christian Liturgy, The Office of the Dead in Devotional Books, Regular Death: Reading the Funeral and Imaginative Practice, Seeing into the Office: Imagining, Reader as Body, Hearing Community: Image and Liturgy, 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, 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, Bibliography: Manuscripts.