Death and Dying in the Middle Ages examines medical facts and communal arrangements, as well as religious and popular beliefs and rituals concerning the end of life in Western societies. It studies literary and artistic imaging and the underlying philosophical and theological convictions that shaped medieval attitudes toward death. A collection of eighteen articles by contributors in the Western hemisphere, this new compendium on death and its implications will interest the specialist, the student and teacher of cultural history, religion, folklore, psychology, literature, and art, and also the general public.

Contents: Edelgard E. DuBruck: Introduction - Yves Ferroul: The Doctor and Death in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance - Christine Guidera: The Role of the Beguines in Caring for the Ill, the Dying, and the Dead - Kornelia Imesch: The Altar of the Holy Cross and the Ideal of Adam's Progeny: «ut paradysiace loca possideat regionis» - Franco Mormando: What Happens to Us When We Die? Bernardino of Siena on 'The Four Last Things' - Patrick Quinn: Aquina's Dilemma about Knowledge After Death - Thomas Worcester: In the Face of Death: Jean Delumeau on Late-Medieval Fears and Hopes - Peter M. De Wilde: Between Life and Death: the Journey in the Otherworld - Anca Bratu-Minott: From the Bosom of Abraham to the Beatific Vision: On Some Medieval Images of the Soul's Journey to Heaven - Mathilde Van Dijk: Travelling-Companion in the Journey of Life: Saint Barbara of Nicomedia in a Devotio Moderna Context - Ilse E. Friesen: Saints as Helpers in Dying: the Hairy Holy Women Mary Magdalene, Mary of Egypt, and Wilgefortis in the Iconography of the Late Middle Ages - Franco Mormando: 'Virtual Death' in the Middle Ages: the Apotheosis of Mary Magdalene in Popular Preaching - Martha Rampton: Up from the Dead: Magic and Miracle - Edelgard E. DuBruck: Death: Poetic Perception and Imagination - Barbara I. Gusick: The Ultimate Nothing: Death and the End of Work in Late Medieval English Lyrics - Barbara I. Gusick: Death and Resurrection in the Towneley Lazarus - Edelgard E. DuBruck: The Death of Christ on the Late-Medieval Stage: A Theater of Salvation - Donald F. Duclow: Dying Well: the Ars moriendi and the Dormition of the Virgin - Roger S. Wieck: The Death Desired: Books of Hours and the Medieval Funeral.