On Old Age
Approaching Death in Antiquity and the Middle Ages
Edited by Christian Krotzl Edited by Katariina Mustakallio
Recent research into old age and dying in the premodern world has examined not only the demographic aspects of ageing populations but also the social role of aged people. Nonetheless, there has usually been a neglect of the end of life and attitudes towards death and memory. These topics have seldom been discussed in the same volume. The end of life evokes questions. What does it mean to grow old? What happens when one dies? How does one cope with old age and death? These questions were as relevant for individuals and societies in earlier periods as they are in the present. The aim of this collection of articles is to cross the boundaries that have traditionally isolated different time periods and scholarly disciplines from each other. The volume focuses on aging, old age, and death from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages. The purpose of this book is to approach these themes from an interdisciplinary point of view in the longue duree. Instead of concentrating solely on demographic issues it takes a much broader view, considering attitudes towards ageing, dying, death, and memory. The volume, with its diverse topics, cuts across traditional scholarly barriers and will provide valuable analytical tools for further studies on the subject.
Recent research into old age and dying in the premodern world has examined not only the demographic aspects of ageing populations but also the social role of aged people. Nonetheless, there has usually been a neglect of the end of life and attitudes towards death and memory. These topics have seldom been discussed in the same volume. The end of life evokes questions. What does it mean to grow old? What happens when one dies? How does one cope with old age and death? These questions were as relevant for individuals and societies in earlier periods as they are in the present. The aim of this collection of articles is to cross the boundaries that have traditionally isolated different time periods and scholarly disciplines from each other. The volume focuses on aging, old age, and death from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages. The purpose of this book is to approach these themes from an interdisciplinary point of view in the longue duree. Instead of concentrating solely on demographic issues it takes a much broader view, considering attitudes towards ageing, dying, death, and memory. The volume, with its diverse topics, cuts across traditional scholarly barriers and will provide valuable analytical tools for further studies on the subject.
Preface List of Illustrations Part I: Coping with Old Age and Death: Views and Values Viewing the Old: Recording and Respecting the Elderly at Rome and in the Empire MARY HARLOW AND RAY LAURENCE The Elderly Children of Greece and Rome TIM PARKIN Representing Older Women: Hersilia, Veturia, VirgoVestalis Maxima KATARIINA MUSTAKALLIO The Changing Face of Death: The Iconography of the Personification of Death in the Early Middle Ages JILL BRADLEY I wish my body to hallowed ground: Testamentary Orders of the Burghers of Late Medieval Pressburg about their Own Burial JUDIT MAJOROSSY Part II: Social Meaning of Old Age and Death Old Age as a Principle of Social Organization: Gerousiai in the Poleis of Hellenistic and Roman Southern Asia Minor ENNIO BAUER The Massacre of Old Men by the Gauls in 390 BC and the Social Meaning of Old Age in Early Rome ALEKSANDR KOPTEV What Happened to Aged Priests in the Late Middle Ages? KIRSI SALONEN Coping with Old Age in Medieval Hungarian Towns KATALIN SZENDE Burials and Politics of the Living and the Dead in Scotland and Pomerania in the High Middle Ages: The Case of Two Cistercian Monasteries EMILIA JAMROZIAK Part III: Coping with Death: Remembrance and Oblivion No Place for the Dead: Ludi Saeculares of 17 BC and the Purificationary Cults of May as Part of the Roman Ritual Year JUSSI RANTALA Disease, Death, Destiny: The Healer as Soter in Miraculous Cures ILDIKO CSEPREGI Medical Perspectives on Death in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe IONA MCCLEERY Who Deserves the Crown of Martyrdom? Martyrs in the Crusade Ideology of Jacques de Vitry (1160/701240) MIIKKA TAMMINEN Rituals and Reputation: Immature Death in the Fourteenth-Century Canonization Processes SARI KATAJALA-PELTOMAA Pulpits and Tombs in Renaissance Florence NIRIT BEN-ARYEH DEBBY
- Edited by Christian Krotzl
- Edited by Katariina Mustakallio
Other Titles in this Series
Cultivating the Earth, Nurturing the Body and Soul
Daily Life in Early Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Debby Banham
Volume 12
The Rural World in the Sixteenth Century
Exploring the Archaeology of Innovation in Europe
Volume 11
Childhood Disability and Social Integration in the Middle Ages
Constructions of Impairments in Thirteenth- and Fourteenth-Century Canonization Processes
Volume 4
Similar Books
A Collaborative Tapestry in Honour of Shirley Ann Brown / Une fresque brodée en l’honneur de Shirley Ann Brown
The Bayeux Tapestry Seen by her Colleagues and Friends / La Tapisserie de Bayeux vue par ses collègues et amis
Behind the Scenes of Medieval Roofs
An Overview of the Roofing Systems of Italian Churches
Volume 90
Drunk the Potion, No Whit Charmed
The Doctrine of Pure and Perfect Souls from Iamblichus to Damascius
Epiphanies of the Divine in the Septuagint and the New Testament
Fifth International Symposium of the Corpus Judaeo-Hellenisticum Novi Testamenti (CJHNT), 14-17 May 2015, Nottingham
Innovation and Medieval Communities
The Circulation of Ideas and Practices in and out of the Town (1200-1500)
Volume 63
John Dunstaple Reading Boethius
John Dunstaple’s Annotations to Boethius’s “De institutione musica” in the Manuscript Oxford, Corpus Christi College Library, MS 118
Language and Power in the Roman Empire and Early India
Hierarchy, Ambiguity, and the Art of Reading the Signs in Cosmopolitan Cultures
Late Antique villae in the Balkans (3rd–7th c. AD): Current Research Questions and Perspectives
HAEMUS Companion to the Late Antique Balkans 1
Volume 4
Linguistic and Cultural Dynamics in a Frontier Society
New Perspectives on Northeastern Bavaria and Western Bohemia in the Early Middle Ages
Volume 9
Medieval Debates on Foreknowledge: Future Contingents, Prophecy, and Divination
Acts of the XXVII Annual Colloquium of the SIEPM, Trento 12-15 September 2023
Volume 31
Medieval Yeghegis, Armenia
History, Archaeology, Society. Local Multiplicities and Global Connections of a Rural Centre on the Silk Road(s)
Nurturing the Elite
Representations of Drinking, Eating, and Religious Vessels in Palmyrene Funerary Iconography
Volume 13
