Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe

by Frederick S. Paxton

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Research, Death, Medieval

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[Mir]

Carolinigian missions extended beyond the area of Papal missions and created a powerful Christian center around the Carolingian court. Carolinigian monarchs made a conscious committment to the creation of a uniform Christian society. They wanted to standardize texts and rites (which T Klausen argues up till that time had been local and individual) and extirpate paganism.

Death is important in this context because older rituals and traditions surrounding dying, death, and funerals tended to persist despite Christianization and reforms. Carolinigian interference included forbidding cremation funerals, mortuary sacrifices, and divination. These were to be replaced by penance before death, and prayers and masses for the deceased.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very thorough analysis on the history of 'creating a ritual process' surrounding death in regards to the cross-influence of various cultures and interpretations of Christianity and the afterlife.

[Geof Sage · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.8; it reads like a monograph which is fine, though additional notes and sources beyond the Latin text of translated texts would have been useful to bolster the argument. Literally, all one needs is page 202 from the conclusion - it is the most lucid part of the book and the rest of the 'evidentiary' portion of the book is just a very long statement of this page; it is a summation rather than a conclusion.