Lunchtime Lecture - Sweet and Sorrowful Death: Representations of the

Lunchtime Lecture - Sweet and Sorrowful Death: Representations of the ars moriendi of Eighteenth-Century Children

Speaker(s): Cindy Aalders
Date: Winter 2018
Length: 50m
Product ID: RGDL4802F

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Description

During the early modern period the ars moriendi, or 'art of dying well,' emerged as a new subgenre of spiritual biography. The original fifteenth-century ars moriendi offered advice on the protocols and procedures of a good death, explaining how to 'die well' according to Christian precepts. The hope and expectation was a joyful, triumphant death. Dr. Cindy Aalders traces the ars moriendi tradition into the eighteenth century and into children's lives, asking how children's death accounts can be used to access 'real' historical children, exploring the range of emotions felt by children as they lay dying, and analyzing the roles dying children played in their families and religious communities.

See All Audio by Cindy Aalders

Cindy Aalders recently completed doctoral studies at the University of Oxford, where her research focused on the spiritual lives and manuscript cultures of eighteenth-century British women. Her doctoral thesis is now under revision for Oxford University Press. In additional to numerous journal articles and book chapters, she is also the author of To Express the Ineffable: The Hymns and Spirituality of Anne Steele. Her current research explores the religious lives of eighteenth-century children. She also serves as Acting Library Director of the John Richard Allison Library at Regent College.