Abstract
The following thesis is an interdisciplinary analysis which follows the process of death and dying in Norway during the High Middle Ages post quem c. 1150 and terminus ante quem c. 1350; or roughly between the establishment of the archbishopric of Niðaróss and the onset of the pandemic Black Plague. The extant law texts from the four Norwegian law things are used as my primary sources in comparison with the regulations accorning to canon law. I also use examples from archaeology and the contemporary sagas. Medieval death was not defined by a terminating biological moment. This thesis follows the rites of spiritual and material preparations which often began with the onset of physical illness or even the occassional fortuitous visionary premonition warned of death s proximity. The first of such preparations was baptism. To die well was to die prepared. When death struck, the funerary rite proper began and continued until the body was incorporated into consecrated space. And finally, with the body interred, rituals extended from the grave in the form of commemoration. Arguably, the living were in the service of the dead during the Middle Ages. The funeral proper didn t even come to an end until the one-year anniversary of death, even though annual masses and other such yearly vigils held open the doors of the ritualised commemoration.