medieval bodies life and death in the middle ages

2Įqually comprehensive images of the Last Judgment can be found in the mosaics and frescoes of religious houses. Indeed, Church laws addressed such fringe concerns as second-hand cannibalism by prohibiting the eating of certain kinds of animals such as carrion birds that might have consumed human flesh, a restriction that applied even to their eggs. At the time of the Last Judgment, what exactly constituted the essential material of an individual, and could it be lost or gained? If a person unknowingly consumed what had been the essential matter of another person, for instance by eating a fish that had eaten a human, was that person a cannibal (Bynum 1991, 242-244)? While such questions might seem to us today to possess the flavor of academic absurdity, they were nonetheless serious matters.

The idea of material continuity especially captivated medieval scholastics who concerned themselves with elaborate models to account for the physical and spiritual union of the body by reverse engineering its ramifications based on the Last Judgment (Bynum 1991, 253-264 Brown 1981, 239-244). The selfsame physical body inhabited during life would be resurrected for judgment and subsequently glorified for Heaven or condemned to Hell (Bynum 1991, 240 1995, 157-185).

The contrasting view saw material continuity as vital. From this viewpoint, the body’s purpose was complete upon death and it was thereafter of no further consequence. On the one hand, there was the belief that the body was a mere vessel for the soul. Yet, a point of theological debate equally as old was the nature of the physical body and its significance for a spiritual afterlife. The Body in the Theology of the Last Judgmentĭrawn from Scripture, 1 the resurrection of the dead at the time of the Last Judgment was an accepted feature of Christian eschatological doctrine from the days of the early Church. Sean Lawing, Assistant Professor of History at Bryn Athyn College, considers the ways in which the human body held significance for medieval Christians in the theological framework of the Last Judgment, with special reference to art in Glencairn’s medieval collection. In this essay for Glencairn Museum News, Dr. The consequence of this apocalyptic vision was evident in the medieval Church’s religious rites and observances. At that time, the dead would rise from their graves to be consigned either to salvation in Heaven or eternal damnation in Hell. Based on the final book of the New Testament, the Book of Revelation, the Last Judgment would occur at the time of Christ’s Second Coming-an event which signaled angelic triumph over infernal forces, but which conversely also heralded earthly devastation. The Last Judgment was arguably the most important theological concept for medieval Christians.

Medieval bodies life and death in the middle ages