Suicide In The Middle Ages

In The Curse on Self-Murder, the second volume of Suicide in the Middle Ages, Alexander Murray explores the origin of the condemnation of suicide, in a quest which leads along the most unexpected byways of medieval theology, law, mythology, and folklore. A group of men dig a tunnel under the threshold of a house. Then they go and fetch a heavy, sagging object from inside the house, pull it out through the tunnel, and put it on a cow-hide to be dragged off and thrown into the offal-pit. Why should the corpse of a suicide - for that is what it is - have earned this unusual treatment? In The Curse on Self-Murder, Alexander Murray explores the origin of the condemnation of suicide, in a quest which leads along the most unexpected byways of medieval theology, law, mythology, and folklore -and, indeed, in some instances beyond them. At an epoch when there might be plenty of ostensible reasons for not wanting to live, the ways used to block the suicidal escape route give a unique perspective on medieval religion.

The phrase "Suicide and the Middle Ages" sounds like a contradiction. Was life too short anyway, and the Church too disapproving, to admit suicide? And how is the historian supposed to find out? In addressing these questions Alexander Murray takes the reader on a remarkable odyssey through medieval law, social life, literature, and religion. He examines a wide range of suicides and explores how the living reacted to them--a topic that will be examined in more detail in Volumes II and III of this masterly trilogy.