First published in 1984, Death, Burial and the Individual in Early Modern England traces how and why the modern reaction to death has come about by examining English attitudes to death since the Middle Ages. In earlier centuries death was very much in the midst of life since it was not, as now, associated mainly with old age. War, plague and infant mortality gave it a very different aspect to its present one. The author shows in detail how modern concern with the individual has gradually alienated death from our society; the greater the emphasis on personal uniqueness, the more intense the anguish when an individual dies. Changes in attitudes to death are traced through alterations in funeral rituals, covering all sections of society from paupers to princes. This gracefully written book is a unique, scholarly and thorough treatment of the subject, providing both a sensitive insight into the feelings of people in early modern England and an explanation of the modern anxiety about death. The range and assurance of this book will commend it to historians and the interested general reader alike.

This volume of essays provides a comprehensive treatment of a very significant component of the societies of late medieval and early modern Europe: the dead. It argues that to contemporaries the 'placing' of the dead, in physical, spiritual and social terms, was a vitally important exercise, and one which often involved conflict and complex negotiation. The contributions range widely geographically, from Scotland to Transylvania, and address a spectrum of themes: attitudes towards the corpse, patterns of burial, forms of commemoration, the treatment of dead infants, the nature of the afterlife and ghosts. Individually the essays help to illuminate several current historiographical concerns: the significance of the Black Death, the impact of the protestant and catholic Reformations, and interactions between 'elite' and 'popular' culture. Collectively, by exploring the social and cultural meanings of attitudes towards the dead, they provide insight into the way these past societies understood themselves.

This companion volume seeks to trace the development of ideas relating to death, burial, and the remembrance of the dead in Europe from ca.1300-1700.

"An innovative study of the emergent Renaissance practice of making epitaphic gestures within other English genres. This book argues that the post-Reformation preoccupation with textual remembrance led to a remarkable proliferation of epitaphs beyond the putative tomb. A poetics of quotation uncovers the ways in which writers have recited these texts within new contexts. This book modifies conventional genre studies by detailing the situatedness of quoted text - a compositional habit that became markedly prevalent with the continued expansion of printing and literacy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries."--BOOK JACKET.

This study explores the female experience of death in early modern England. By tracing attitudes towards gender through the occasion of death, it advances our understanding of the construction of femininity in the period. Becker illustrates how dying could be a positive event for a woman, and for her mourners, in terms of how it allowed her to be defined, enabled and elevated. The first part of the book gives a cultural and historical overview of death in early modern England, examining the means by which human mortality was confronted, and how the fear of death and dying could be used to uphold the mores of society. Becker explores particularly the female experience of death, and how women used the deathbed as a place of power from which to bestow dying maternal blessings, or leave instructions and advice for their survivors. The second part of the study looks at 'good' and 'bad' female deaths. The author discusses the motivation behind the reporting of the deaths and the veracity of such accounts, and highlights the ways in which they could be used for religious, political and patriarchal purposes. The third section of the book considers how death could, paradoxically, liberate a woman. In this section Becker evaluates the opportunity for female involvement in dying and posthumous rituals, including funeral rites and sermons, commemorative and autobiographical writing and literary legacies. While accounts of dying women largely underpinned the existing patriarchy, the experience of dying allowed some women to express themselves by allowing them to utilise an established male discourse. This opportunity for expression, along with the power of the deathbed, are the focus for this study.