Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages

 

​According to the introduction of Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages, Patrick J. Geary sets out to examine the similarities between how the people of the Middle Ages dealt with the dying and death and how our modern-day society manages the same. Geary somehow mostly misses this mark, and instead through a collection of essays, provides an in-depth appraisal of the reverence of the lives of saints, their burials, and the subsequent respect given to the relics of saints.

​Geary’s essays are divided into the following sections: Reading, Representing, Negotiating, and Living. These chapters highlight the challenges that have been faced by early medieval specialists in terms of the sources available to them. Reading the sources is perhaps the most challenging task as seen by Geary. Geary advocates for a triple process of evaluation: a traditional interpretation of written sources; an examination of how objects and actions are read in texts; and a consultation with the growing literature on these issues.

​Geary is quick to point out that we must not forget that hagiography is consciously propaganda. It is not to be taken as a transparent window into everyday Medieval life or that of the saints. According to Geary, historically researchers have forgotten what a hagiographic text really is, what an author is, and what the society was. Geary observes four recent trends in the interpretation of hagiographic texts: a tendency to move from the study of saints to that of the society as a whole; shifting the focus of hagiography from one saint to several saints and their respective dossiers; a movement beyond sacred biographies to include evaluation of other texts; and a recognition that these texts are not transparent windows into the saints’ lives, their society, or even the spirituality of the age. Geary goes on to list several problems with the collaboration methods by previous researchers, including separating the texts from the contexts that they were written in, and a broad examination of the texts during the periods they are not normally associated with. One of the most significant problems Geary has uncovered is the copying, excerpting, and rearranging of old texts by contemporary Medieval authors and biographers. Geary asserts that these methods of authorship are the same as composing a completely new hagiography.

​More than just pointing out the problems associated with hagiography, Geary provides solutions for extending our research. He advocates for an analysis of hagiographic texts extending beyond the internal life of religious communities and an examination of the relationships among communities and lay society. “By concentrating on a specific locale, by examining the codicological tradition, by going beyond classic hagiographic texts to look at liturgy, miracle collections, devotional literature, and even the evidence of archives, they avoid artificial constructs of author and ideal.” Geary asserts that we need dozens of micro studies of the lives of individual saints, that we need to be informed of the relationships between ordinary laity and their local saints, and that we need models of comportment and ideals of human existence that saints seemed to offer. In short, researchers should further cultivate the study of texts, objects, and gestures to examine the underlying structures uniting them, to bring us an understanding of their place in early Medieval society.

​In the essays grouped as “Representing,” Geary explains what good the dead saints were to the living. The dead saints during the Middle Ages formed an important category in the representation of reality in the construction of a world in which the living and the dead were still a community. Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages pays particular attention to the relationships between this world and the next, especially between the living and relics in the eighth and ninth centuries.

​Swords enjoyed a unique place in Medieval society. In the early Middle Ages, swords occasioned a symbolic importance as a symbol of legitimacy. The swords of relics and other dead were coveted, and it was common for swords to be stolen from tombs.  

​Geary goes on to explain the relationship of gift-giving between relics and the living. The most fundamental object of exchange was wealth. When land was gifted, three generations were united: the living, the dead, and the future. Another element of gift-giving was the preservation of personal identity through names. By using certain name elements or entire names from generation to generation, families or individuals were consciously preserving their own names and those of their ancestors. A name is a form of immaterial inheritance, and might possibly indicate the possibility of or likelihood of aninheritance. The act of giving continued into death and articulated bonds created during life, reaffirmed relationships beyond death, and made those relationships more explicit.

​Moving on to the chapters associated with“Negotiating,” Geary answers the question as to why the living would have ever wanted to humiliate, punish, and coerce the dead, especially saints. Geary shows how the clamor and humiliation of saints were an important aspect of the spiritual arsenal that people and communities commanded. In Medieval society, it was the saints jobs to protect citizens and society. Humiliation and the clamor were used as a means of dispute settlement within the community. The clamor was usually a cry to the Lord for help. As a public act, humiliation represented an injustice done to the community. Unlike damnation, which had no degrees of severity, clamor and humiliation were not final.Geary lists several reasons why humiliation was successful: it restored the proper hierarchic relationship between humans and the divine, it helped shape public opinion, it was helpful in gaining support or sympathy, and it would elicit concern from third parties who could pressure an offender to negotiate. Humiliation also served as excellent propaganda for the ecclesiastics’ cause because it created a work stoppage for monks or canons.

​At times, humiliation continued beyond the liturgy. Geary describes how this form of humiliation became an act of coercion and of punishment directed against the saint himself for allowing the offense to happen. Humiliation could be seen as a justifiable representation of the saint joining the monks or canons in the cry to the Lord for help. Most interestingly, Geary states that humiliation was a form of self-help to the monks and canons: they could go straight to the supernatural powers to beg or bully for help in their communities.

​Relics constituted coveted property in Medieval society. Living with the Dead in the Middles Ages explains why relics were such hot commodities in the earlyMedieval period. Despite having no obvious value apart from a very specific set of shared beliefs, relics had no practical use when removed from their elaborate reliquaries or containers. Relics were not able to be used as decorative pieces. Relics were understood to be important sources of personal supernatural power and formed the primary focus of religious devotion. Relics were bought, stolen, and divided like other commodities.

​The most eagerly sought after relics were the bodies or parts of bodies of the most revered saints. Superficially, relics were similar to other corpses and skeletons readily available anywhere in Medieval society. Relics, however, held a distinct meaning from average corpses. In order to establish the esteem of relics, Geary asserts that there was a requirement of communal acceptance of three beliefs: the saint should have been during their life and especially in death, a special friend of God; the remains of the saint were to be prized and treated in a special way (so much so that it was not unheard of for an aging holy man to be murdered for someone to acquire his relics); and most importantly that the corpse or portion thereof were of the actual saint being honored.

​For many centuries relics were prized for their thaumaturgic power and ability to substitute for public authority. Relics protected and secured the community, determined the relative status of individuals and churches, and provided for the community’s economic prosperity.However, over time the comparable significance of relics’services lessened. As reasons behind this change, Geary points to political, social, religious, and economic changes.Astutely, Geary elaborates on the alternative solutions to Medieval peoples’ dependance upon relics. With changes in politics, churches attacked by laymen could appeal to the king for protection. Religious and social changes allowed monasteries to be able to rationalize budgets and exploit agricultural holdings. This exploitation allowed monasteries to be less dependent on pilgrims’ income. Far from being forgotten, relics continued to be a valuable source of supernatural power. Simply put, relics were supplanted by new and more effective forms of power and authority.

​One would be unable to examine death, burial practices, and the reverence for relics in the Middle Ages without giving a nod to the Church. Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages answers important questions about the Church’s role during this time period. Did the Church bully its way into the picture, or did the Church have a more benign disposition?

​Geary depicts the Church as playing a strong role in the affairs of early medieval death and burial practices. With respect to gift-giving, Geary shows how the Church was able to play the part of middle-man. The act of giving continued and articulated bonds created during life, reaffirmed relationships beyond death, and made them more explicit afterwards. With most gifts, the Church oversaw the affairs of the community, not as a disinterested third party, but as an element of the giving that had a serious stake in each gift. Geary describes several situations in which citizens bequeathed gifts straight to the Church itself in order to have a higher acclaim and more prayers after death.

​Overall, the title, Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages, does not accurately depict the book’s contents. Geary does depict the relationships between the living and dead, but the relationships are specifically between the living and saints. This collection of essays is mostly a veneration of saints, their related burial practices, and the relationships of the people with relics.