Dying Voluntarily in the Middle Ages

Steffen Hope's lecture, "Willingness and Unwillingness in the Death of Holy Kings - Examples from Latin Hagiography," is devoted to holy kings from Northern Europe and their particular relation to violence, both as the use of violence against others and as the experience of violence during martyrdom.

Sara M. Butler, in her lecture "Choosing Peine Forte et Dure: Silent Martyrdom in Late Medieval England," will present us with court cases in which defendants explicitly chose "crushing" as a method of execution in order to die as martyrs rather than as convicted criminals.

Together with Markus Dolinsky from the subproject team, the joint discussion will explore how medieval discourses on voluntary dying relate to voluntarism as an ethical category and the overarching questions of the research group.

We ask for registration by mail to markus.dolinsky@uni-erfurt.de.