Witnesses of death: on late-mediaeval testaments from Prague

Abstract

Who could have been in contact with the dying in a mediaeval town? Apart from the relatives mostly those whose job was to organize funerary ceremonies. The author differentiates two aspects of commemorating the dead: the physical one (tombstones, pictures) and the spiritual one (masses, indulgences, prayers). It is also possible to differentiate real and illusory witnesses of death. A very peculiar form of commemorating was ars moriendi, whose examples in the Bohemian culture of the 14th century were authored by Jan of Jenštejn and Jan of Stříbro. A later specimen originating in urban  context was Liber de arte moriendi, by an outstanding intellectual, Master Prokop, written in 1460, a collection of lectures delivered at a faculty of arts, surviving in two manuscripts. The oldest image of death in Bohemia comes from the 14th century; it is a picture of two skulls on the vault of the vestibule of the seat of the Knights of St John of Jerusalem in Strakonice (1320–1330). In Liber viatiku by Jan of Středa there is a P initial ornamented with a still life including a skull (1360). In the church of Our Lady in Karlštejn one of the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse is shown naked, holding a scythe in his hand (c. 1357). Vivid descriptions of dying can also be found in dances of death (danse macabre), in which the Death is often presented as a dancer, sometimes also playing a musical instrument. This type of depiction uses images in combination with language. In early-sixteenth-century Bohemian art there are several examples of sculptures showing corpses in decay: the tombstone of Jan Hasištejnsky of Lobkovice in the former church in Kadaň (1515–1516), a low relief of the Zlíchovsky altar, authored by an artist using the monogram IP, and a statue showing a skeleton in St George’s church in the Prague castle (1520–1530).