Christianizing death: the creation of a ritual process in early medieval Europe (review)

174 Reviews lefttocreate their own debate. Given that Ousterhout has provided introductions to each paper, perhaps a litde more editorial intervention could have been used to expand this argument and forward the analysis of the role of pilgrimage in late antique society. Of the remaining papers in the second section, Cynthia Hann in 'Loca Sancta souvenirs: sealing the pilgrim's experience' emphasises the spiritual symbolism of the decoration on ampuUae and tokens. Gary Vikan in 'Pilgrims in Magi's clothing: the impact of mimesis on early Christian pilgrimage art' demonstrates how appropriate it is that those archetypal travellers, the Magi, are the figures most frequendy represented on pdgrim tokens. Robert Ousterhout in 'Loca Sancta and the architectural response to pdgrimage' discusses the motives and varying symbolism behind the construction elsewhere in Europe of architectural copies of the Anastasis Rotunda of Jerusalem that culminated in the numerous 'round churches' of the Templars and HospitaUars. There are useful points raised in aU these papers, though some, for example, Wilkinson's, Holum's and Vikan's read like footnotes to their authors' more substantial pubhcations elsewhere on similartopics.Others, especially Sivan's, cry out for more extensive treatment All reveal the constraints of their original twenty-minute format usual in the annual meetings of the American Byzantine Studies Conference. Despite one or two places where the computer has devoured lines, the book is nicely produced and well illustrated. Elizabeth M . Jeffreys Department of M o d e m Greek University of Sydney Paxton, Frederick S., Christianizing death: the creation of a ritual process in early medieval Europe, Ithaca & London, C o m e U University Press, 1990; cloth; pp. xiv, 229; R. R. P. US$31.50. The encounter with death is so fundamental to human society that it is perhaps surprising how little effort medievaUsts have made to understand the emergence in the early Middle Ages of elaborateritualsintended to cope with this moment offinalrupture. Paxton's book remedies this deficiency admirably. Liturgical texts present daunting problems of identification and interpretation to the nonspeciaUst and tend as a result to be ignored by aU except the assiduous liturgical scholar. Combining the great progress made in the last twenty years by liturgists in the identification and classification of sacramentaries with anthropological insights into the nature ofritual,Paxton documents and analyses the profound shifts that took place in the Church's attitude to sickness and death in the early medieval period. Only in relatively recent years have 'the lastrites'been re-named by Roman CathoUc authorities 'the sacrament of the sick'. A profound change in attitude Reviews 175 to sickness and death is involved. Paxton's book unfolds with great precision the process by which praying for and anointing the sick, a practice originaUy quite distinct in the early R o m a n Church from prayers for the dead, became fused together into a singleritualfor the dying by the ninth century. His chapter on the Mediterranean background to these subsequent changes, demonstrates how, in the R o m a n liturgy, prayers for the sick were intended to restore people to health. The central act of preparation for death was reception of the Eucharist. Only in the fifth century, above all with Caesarius of Aries in the early sixth, does Paxton see a shift away towards an emphasis on deathbed penance and the welfare of the soul. The Irish liturgy in particular, a strong influence on that of the Frankish Church in the seventh and eighth centuries, seems to have been responsible for combining prayers for the sick with prayers for the dying. In the more violent and less secure environment of the barbarian kingdoms, the Church was more concerned with devisingritualstoincorporate the dead into a wider community of saints than to restore the sick to life. The subject matter of Paxton's book is dense. H e does not skip over delicate and vital questions about the dating of individual manuscripts. Valuable tables Ust the contents of individual sacramentaries. As is inevitable in such a study as this, there is more one would like to know. What documentation do we have of actual ministry to the sick and the dying in the early...