From Madrid to Purgatory: The Art and Craft of Dying in Sixteenth-Century Spain

by Carlos M. N. Eire

• ISBN13: 9780521529426
• ISBN10: 0521529425
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-07-25
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book reveals the workings of a culture that cherished death, and invested its resources in the pursuit of heaven. This is the first full-length study of Spanish attitudes toward death and the afterlife in the peak years of the Counter-Reformation. It contains an analysis of the death rituals requested in hundreds of sixteenth-century Madrid testaments, as well as a detailed account of the ways in which the "good" deaths of King Philip II and Saint Teresa of Avila were interpreted by contemporaries.

Table of Contents

Prologue: death and the sun

Part I. Eager for Heaven: Death and Testamentary Discourse in Madrid, 1520-1599: 1. Wills and the history of death in Madrid

2. Approaching the divine tribunal

3. Relinquishing one's body

4. Impressing God and neighbor

5. Planning for the soul's journey

6. Aiding the needy, aiding oneself

7. Conclusion

Part II. The King's Dissolving Body: Philip II and the Royal Paradigm of Death: 1. King Philip and his palace of death

2. The king's many requiems

3. Drawing lessons from the king's death

4. Defending the faith through ritual

5. Death, the Spanish monarchy, and the myth of sacredness

6. Conclusion

Part III. The Saint's Heavenly Corpse: Teresa of Avila and the Ultimate Paradigm of Death: 1. From Alba to Heaven

2. Come sweet death, come swift dying

3. Imperishable flesh, incomparable wonder

4. Earthbound no longer

5. Saint Teresa's apparitions

6. Conclusion

Epilogue: in death as in life: from the daily rounds of Hell to the vestibule of Heaven.