Recent German Research on Good and Bad Deaths in Medieval Narrative Sources

„What is a Good Death and What is a Bad Death?“

In the „Dialogus Miraculorum“, written by Caesarius of Heisterbach between 1219 and 1223, a novice poses this question to a monk. The inquiry is preceded by some examples at the beginning of the eleventh distinctio of the work, which is called „About the Dying“ (De morientibus). The monk responds by telling several allegories, whereupon the novice remarks, „I confess that I am satisfied with your expositions; now I am asking you to add (more) exempla.“^[1]

In 1980, the historian Arno Borst also demanded more examples of death and dying in the Middle Ages. He criticized Philippe Ariès for not considering any of the numerous medieval accounts of the deaths of specific individuals in his book „L’homme devant la mort“.^[2] Since (and before) Borst’s criticism, a lot of case studies on such accounts have been published, more and more highlighting that the respective authors attributed circumstances of death to an individual that they deemed appropriate, using narrative strategies and topoi.^[3] As Augustine put it, „one cannot die badly if he has lived well“ („non potest male mori, qui bene vixerit“).^[4] Accounts describing death in medieval narrative sources thus do not describe what actually happened but present a moral assessment of the deceased by the text’s author – a good person’s death was good, a bad person’s death was bad.^[5] Therefore, in most cases it is impossible to identify the actual cause of death based on these sources. A so-called retrospective diagnosis is not something that can be deduced from the material available today.^[6]

As Borst, and several centuries before him the novice, had demanded, more examples were discussed, but the fundamental issue – what constituted a good death, what constituted a bad death – was not systematically tackled. In the last few years, however, German scholars have published a number of studies on the use of narrative strategies in medieval historiography and hagiography that ascribed a good or bad death to individuals. This research report provides an overview of these recent developments.^[7]

In order to mark a death as good or bad, medieval chroniclers had a wide range of indicators at their disposal. These can be divided into different categories. Regarding time, for example, a sudden death was considered to be bad, while reporting prophecies or signs beforehand presented an individual’s demise as part of the divine plan of salvation. Concerning the depiction of dying itself, negative connotations, such as diarrhoea, could denote a bad death, whereas the evoking of saintly role models indicated a good death. Providing further information on the dead body and its burial constitutes yet another category – the aftermath.^[8]

In 2014, Romedio Schmitz-Esser published a groundbreaking monograph on the cultural construction of the corpse in the Middle Ages. An English translation was released in 2020.^[9] The wide array of sources Schmitz-Esser assessed is impressive. Among many other results, he shows that corpses were classified into groups ranging from valde boni, non valde boni and non valde mali to valde mali. The group to which a corpse belonged could be deduced from characteristics such as fragrance or foul odour. The respective classification provided information about the fate of the deceased in the afterlife.^[10] These characteristics are also indicators of good or bad deaths when mentioned in narrative sources.

In 2020, I published my own book,^[11] in which I examined the accounts and notes^[12] on the deaths of the Holy Roman Kings and Emperors from Henry (VI) († 1150) to Günther of Schwarzburg († 1349) in contemporary narrative and other sources. In addition, I also analysed funerals as well as burial sites, and scientific examinations of mortal remains.^[13] It is the first book to focus on narrative strategies of good and bad deaths in medieval narrative sources.^[14]

Fortunately, it is no longer the only one. In 2021 and 2023, two monographs were published by Mike Janßen and Matthias Weber which also focus on the topic.^[15] While Janßen studies royal deaths, Weber deals with the deaths of bishops. Both books focus on the Holy Roman Empire and examine sources from the 6th to the 12th centuries, but do so in a different way: Janßen confines his work to a selection of sources, whereas Weber takes a wide range of documents into consideration.^[16] Unfortunately, given the close publishing dates of the two books, the two authors could not correlate their individual findings.^[17] While it is not possible to fully make up for this here, it is important to highlight one observation: Even a cursory reading of the two monographs shows that the medieval authors analysed paid less attention to the deaths of bishops than to those of secular rulers.^[18]

Both monographs employ a third category besides good and bad deaths. Janßen uses the term ‚Silent Death‘ („Der ‚stille‘ Tod“) to refer to royal demises that are rarely mentioned in the sources.^[19] Weber characterises the same phenomenon as ‚neutral death‘ („Der neutrale Tod“), drawing the term from his work on Gregory of Tours’ „Decem libri historiarum“.^[20] Both concepts address cases in which medieval contemporaries simply recorded an individual’s death without classifying it as either good or bad.

A peculiarity of Janßen’s study that is in large parts due to the centuries he focuses on, is the relatively high number of rulers who died through violent means.^[21] It has been observed that during the high and late Middle Ages the narrative strategies employed to describe deaths caused by murder or in a military context differ significantly from those used with regard to other causes.^[22] While Janßen understands deaths caused by violence as a separate category, he does not build on earlier studies that made this distinction before him.^[23]

In their conclusions, Janßen and Weber both emphasize the importance of an apocryphal account of the death of the Virgin Mary (Transitus Mariae) and the account Sulpicius Severus provides for the death of Martin of Tours in the respective sources they examined.^[24] Of particular relevance for future research are Weber’s observations on the significance of the so-called Investiture Controversy. He points out that from the 8th to the 10th centuries the death of bishops was hardly ever mentioned in chronicles,^[25] with the topic being „rediscovered“ in the 11th century.^[26] This rediscovery came with a re-orientation: It was not until the late 11th century that attributions of bad deaths to bishops can be found in significant numbers.^[27] There is potential to explore this topic further. A certain limitation becomes evident when contrasting these reports of bad deaths with those attributed to secular leaders: bad deaths caused by diarrhoea or by worms consuming the afflicted from the inside as divine punishment, both ascribed several times to secular rulers,^[28] are hardly mentioned when members of the clergy are concerned. This observation has already been confirmed in a case study on the death of Pope Innocent IV.^[29] Future research will show whether this assumption is generally true and what the potential reasons for this could be.

In addition to these extensive book-length studies, good and bad deaths in medieval narrative sources have also recently received attention as part of research with a wider scope: In his book „God rewards, God punishes“ („Gott belohnt, Gott straft“), published in 2022, Gerd Althoff studies the role of divine influence in early and high medieval historiography.^[30] Besides military victories and defeats, rescue from distress and pleas for divine help he also examines cases of sudden or premature deaths and thus demonstrates in which category of reported events medieval deaths fall.^[31]

The monographs and papers presented in this research report represent a selection of the most extensive recent studies in German on the concepts of good and bad death in medieval narrative sources. Some of these works are available online, and one of them has even been translated into English. In a recent review, it was suggested that the approaches used to examine the medieval Holy Roman Empire could also be used to examine sources from other regions (in this case Poland).^[32] Considering the abundance of sources and of existing research on England,^[33] to give another example, it would certainly be desirable to apply this perspective to other regions. However, this is just one of the numerous potential starting points for further studies.^[34] Other research which did not focus on good and bad deaths but examined the deaths and burials of certain princely families, demonstrate that secular princes could also be analysed systematically in the way this has been done for kings and bishops.^[35] The same holds true for the deaths of popes.^[36] Furthermore, it is necessary to ask about the deaths of outstanding women and gender-specific differences in representation. No matter what the focus of future research will be, the more studies are published, the more precise a picture will emerge and the closer we will come to a comprehensive answer to the question of the novice in the „Dialogus Miraculorum“ cited at the beginning of this text.