a look at death in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century bruges culture soetkin Vanhauwaert
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On 24 March 1487, a man called Boudin, residing near Vrijdagmarkt, was killed in a fight with a certain Lauwereins, while on 8 July 1488 Cornelis, the bell ringer at Sint-Salvatorkerk, fell from the church tower and died instantly. These are just two of many similar anecdotes contained in the manuscript Tghuene dat geschied es binner stede van Brugghe (‘What Happened in the City of Bruges’), showing that death was part of everyday medieval life. While plague and other epidemics raised mortality rates during certain periods, the high level of child mortality also meant that overall life expectancy was lower than it is today. Frequent wars and outbreaks of disease meant that medieval people were confronted by death in their communities. However, the tradition in which patients were cared for and died at home also made death a part of everyday life.
personal examination at the Last Judgement. According to the Church, however, its destiny was still very much in the individual’s own hands, making it important to prepare carefully for the transition to another world.
But death was not seen as the end: believers hoped for a new beginning in heaven, with the less fortunate going to hell. The notion of purgatory arose around 1200, where the soul would go temporarily after death to be purified of sin before being admitted to heaven. The soul’s ultimate destination would be decided during a
memento mori
Although death rates declined, this belief remained prominent in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. People were still concerned about the fate of their souls after death, for which they prepared by simultaneously pursuing a good life – charity, prayer, confession, pilgrimages and donations – and a ‘good death’ – in the presence of a priest or relatives, and consoled by the last rites. It was important never to lose sight of that goal, and so a tendency arose in material culture to remind people of their mortality. This article discusses a number of Bruges art works in that context.
The idea of the transience of earthly existence was a powerful theme in painting from the fifteenth century onwards, but especially during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Donor Portrait of Margareta van Metteneye (c. 1525–30) shows the Bruges woman knee-
ling on a prayer stool, accompanied by a boy and by St Margaret in an imposing architectural setting. The rear of the panel, meanwhile, features a skull with worms, together with the stark message: Dat ghy zyt hebbe ic ghewest en dat ic ben dat zult ghy worden (‘What you are, I was, and what I am, you will be’) (Fig. 33). The fact that death is inevitable for everyone is here made explicit. The exhortation to pray for their own salvation and that of Margareta van Metteneye, thereby reducing the burden of everyone’s sin, is made plain in the words Bid God door my (‘pray God through me’) on the painting’s frame. Similar ‘memento mori’ iconography can be found on tombstones from the same period. A skull and an hourglass can still be made out in a fragment from the tomb of P. Tristram (OnzeLieve-Vrouwekerk, Bruges), the former referring to man’s mortality and the latter to the fleeting nature of earthly life. The message is ‘Reflect on the fate of your soul and turn to God! Live well now, while it’s still possible.’ Skulls also feature in the iconography of several tombstones of nurses at Sint-Janshospitaal (Bruges, Hospital Museum).
