The Hour of Our Death: The Classic History of Western Attitudes Toward Death over the Last One Thousand Years

826 Pages·2008·5.56 MB·English

by  Philippe Aries

SECOND VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, JUNE 2008
Copyright © 1981 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random
House, Inc., New York. Originally published in France as L’Homme devant la mort by Éditions du
Seuil, Paris. Copyright © 1977 by Éditions du Seuil. This translation originally published in
hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House
of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 1981.
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Assistance for the translation of this book was given by the Franco-American Foundation.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Ariès, Philippe [date]
The hour of our death.
Translation of L’homme devant la mort. Includes index.
1. Death I. Title
BD444.A67313
128′.5 79-2227
Vintage ISBN: 978-0-394-75156-6
eBook ISBN: 978-0-80415200-6
www.vintagebooks.com
v3.1
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Illustrations
Foreword
Preface
B O : Sleepers of Stone
OOK NE
Part I THE TAME DEATH
1 The Tame Death
2 Place of Burial
Part II THE DEATH OF THE SELF
3 The Hour of Death: The Final Reckoning
4 Guarantees of Eternity
5 Tombs and Epitaphs
Photo Insert
B T : Death Untamed
OOK WO
Part III REMOTE AND IMMINENT DEATH
6 The Turning of the Tide
7 The Vanities
8 The Dead Body
9 The Living Dead
Part IV THE DEATH OF THE OTHER
10 The Age of the Beautiful Death
Photo Insert
11 The Visit to the Cemetery
Part V THE INVISIBLE DEATH
12 Death Denied
Conclusion: Five Variations on Four Themes
Notes
Illustrations
T
HIS PAGE
The Appian Way, Rome. In the foreground, the tomb of Sesto Pompeo
Giusto, Consul ( 14). Alinari-Giraudon, Paris.
A.D.
Christian necropolis around the basilica of Saint-Salsa, Tipasa, Algeria.
Robert Harding Associates, London; photograph by F. Jackson.
Saint-Bavon, Haarlem, tomb slabs in the floor. Courtesy of The Courtauld
Institue of Art, London.
Les Innocents in the Time of François I, sixteenth century. Musée
Carnavalet, Paris; Photographie Giraudon, Paris.
The Christ of the Book of Revelation, with the four winged beasts.
Sculpture on the Royal Portal, Chartres, twelfth century. Courtesy of The
Courtauld Institute of Art, London; photograph by George Zarnecki.
The Last Judgment. Sculpture on the south portal, Chartres, thirteenth
century. Courtesy of the Courtauld Institute of Art. Saint Sebastian
Interceding for the Plague-Stricken, 1497–9, Josse Lieferinxe, Walters Art
Gallery, Baltimore.
The tomb of Jean de Lagrange, with representation of decomposing
cadaver, 1402. Musée Calvet, Avignon; photograph copyright James Austin.
Death, the shop of Hans Memling, late fifteenth century. Musée de Beaux
Arts, Strasbourg; Photographie Giraudon, Paris.
Danse Macabre, fifteenth century, la Chaise-Dieu. Photographie Giraudon,
Paris.
The Triumph of Death, Florentine School, fifteenth century. Pinacoteca,
Siena; Anderson-Giraudon, Paris.
Consular diptych of Flavius Petrus Sabbaticus Justinianus, Byzantine,
sixth century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gift of J.
Pierpont Morgan, 1917.
The tomb of Philippe Pot of Burgundy, fifteenth century. The Louvre; The
Mansell Collection, London.
Roman sarcophagus, with portrait of a physician seated in front of his
cabinet of surgical instruments, fourth century. The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York. Gift of Ernest and Beata M. Brummer, 1948, in memory of
Joseph Brummer.
Sarcophagus of Saint Theodechilde, seventh century, Crypt of Jouarre.
Photographie Giraudon, Paris.
Mural tomb of Guillaume Caucelme de Taillet, thirteenth century, Arles-
sur-Tech. Photograph copyright James Austin.
Tomb slab of Abbot Isarnus, eleventh century, from the Abbey of Saint
Victor, Marseilles. Courtesy of The Courtauld Institute of Art, London.
Tomb effigy of Jean d’Alluye, 1248, French. The Metropolitan Museum of
Art, New York. The Cloisters Collection, 1925.
Tomb effigy of a lady, possibly Margaret of Gloucester, late thirteenth
century. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Cloisters
Collection, 1953.
Funerary monument of Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne, sixteenth
century, Jean Juste, Abbey of Saint-Denis, Paris. Photographie Giraudon,
Paris.
Funerary statue of Marie de Barbancon-Cany, attributed to Barthelemy
Prieur (d. 1611), Palace of Versailles. Photographie Giraudon, Paris.
The tomb of Nicolas Aubry, 1621, cemetary chapel, Saint-Hilaire,
Marville. Inventaire Général Lorraine; photograph by H. Simon.
T
HIS PAGE
A row of Hapsburg sarcophagi in the Kaisergruft, the Church of the
Capuchins, Vienna: Ferdinand III (d. 1657), Mattias (d. 1619), and Marie
Magdalena (d. 1743). Kunsthistorisches Institut, University of Vienna.
The Pantheon in the Monastery of San Lorenzo, the Escorial. Engraving
by P. de Villafranca, 1654, from Description del real monasterio de San
Lorenzo, Madrid, 1681. Arts, Prints, and Photographs Division, The New
York Public Library. Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
New England burial ground, Wakefield, Massachusetts. Photograph
copyright © 1980 Allan I. Ludwig, all rights reserved.
New England headstones: Joseph Hickox (detail), 1725, Durham,
Connecticut; Jacob Strong (detail), 1749, South Windsor, Connecticut;
Sarah Skiner (detail), 1753, South Windsor, Connecticut; William
Wolcott (detail), 1749, South Windsor, Connecticut. Photographs
copyright © 1980 Allan I. Ludwig, all rights reserved.
Brunhilde Watching Watching Gunther Suspended from the Ceiling, 1807,
Henry Fuseli. Castle Museum, Nottingham Castle, Nottingham.
The Ecstacy of the Blessed Ludovica Albertoni, 1671–4, Gianlorenzo
Bernini, Church of San Francesco, Ripa. Alinari/Editorial Photocolor
Archives.
The Martyrdom of Saint Daniel, 1592, Tiziano Aspetti, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York. Purchase, 1970, The Edith Perry Chapman Fund
and The Fletcher Fund.
Catacombs of the Capuchin Convent, Palermo. The Mansell Collection,
London.
The Tomb of Spurzheim, Mount Auburn Cemetery. Engraving after a
drawing by James Smillie, 1847, from Rural Cemeteries of America
(Nehemiah Cleveland, Greenwood Illustrated, 1847, and Cornelia M.
Walter, Mount Auburn Illustrated, 1850), New York, 1847, 1850. Local
History and Genealogy Division, The New York Public Library. Astor, Lenox
and Tilden Foundations. Alley, Pére-Lachaise, Paris. Photograph by Anne de
Brunhoff.
Diederich M. Havemeyer monument, Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn,
New York. Photograph by Edmund V. Gillon, Jr. The Little Margaret,
funerary portrait sculpted after a photograph, ca. 1900, Green Mount
Cemetery, Montpelier, Vermont. Photograph by Edmund V. Gillon, Jr.
Pierrette, Woodlawn Cemetery, The Bronx, New York. Photograph by
Edmund V. Gillon, Jr.
The Tomb of Raffaele Pienovi, 1879, G. B. Villa, Genoa. Photograph by
Anne de Brunhoff.
Jane My Wife, Griffith family monument, Greenwood Cemetery,
Brooklyn, New York. Photograph by Edmund V. Gillion, Jr.
Foreword
This is not an introduction. The real introduction to this book was
published in 1975 in my Essais sur l’histoire de la mort. In that little essay
I explained why I had chosen this subject, what was my original point of
departure, how I was later drawn to expand my area of investigation
both backward and forward in time, and some of the problems that
attended an undertaking of such magnitude. I need not repeat those
remarks here, for they have been reprinted as the preface to this edition.
I entitled this premature introduction “The Story of a Book That Never
Ends,” and it was the present volume to which I referred. At that time—
1974—the end was so far from sight that I had decided to publish the
preliminary outline without further delay. Little did I realize that a
stroke of good fortune would soon permit me to accelerate my pace and
finish the book sooner than I had hoped. In January 1976, thanks to the
good offices of my friend Orest Ranum, I received a six-month grant to
work at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. During
this period I was able to devote all my time and energy to my subject
and thus finish, at last, a book that I had been working on for almost
fifteen years.
This book owes a great debt to friends and colleagues who became
interested in my research and sent me documentation (information
about sites, monuments, inscriptions, and texts), references, and
newspaper clippings. I would like to express my gratitude to the director
of the Smithsonian Institution, James Billington; to Mlles, or Mmes. N.
de La Blanchardière, N. Bowker, N. Castan, L. Collodi, M. Czapska, A.
Fleury, H. Haberman, C. Hannaway, J.-B. Holt, D. Schnaper, S.
Strazewska, and M. Wolff-Terpoine.
Also, to Messrs. G. Adelman, J. Adhemar, S. Bonnet, P.-H. Butler, Y.