Introduction
Contemporary Approaches to Medieval
Rituals for the Dying
“We study the past for the ways it can shock us.”1 Caroline Walker Bynum’s
words resonate as I remember the beginnings of this research project.
Shock—even disbelief—formed my first reaction when I learned of the
medieval practice of singing for a person at the moment of death. The contrast with our contemporary end-of-life care, with its focus on technology,
medications, and medical professionals, amazed me.
Yet extant manuscripts reveal clearly that for centuries of European history, a sung liturgy was considered the exemplary accompaniment to a life’s
ending.2 Rituals for the dying were well developed, practiced widely, and
thoroughly integrated with music. Indeed, through these rituals, music held
a privileged position at the time of death. Melody was, ideally, the final sensation of a human life. It is this music—the chants intended to accompany
the final agony and the final breath—that forms the subject of the following
study. Through detailed investigations of liturgical manuscripts, this book
examines and recovers, to the extent possible, the music sung at the end of an
individual’s life during the Middle Ages.