’Fro Paris to Inglond’? The danse macabre in text and image in late-medieval England

Description

This thesis examines the character, spread, development and influence of the Dance of Death or danse macabre theme in late-medieval England within its literary, socio- and art-historical context. It traces the origins of the theme and, following the deaths in 1422 of the English king Henry V and Charles VI of France, its adaptation to the political circumstances in English-occupied Paris by means of a famous (lost) mural in the cemetery of Les Saints Innocents painted in 1424-25. The French poem in this mural was translated into English by John Lydgate and incorporated into a (lost) painted scheme at Old St Paul's Cathedral, London. The theme subsequently spread to other parts of Europe. Two murals in Basel were to influence the artist Hans Holbein the Younger, who designed a famous series of danse macabre woodcuts (published in 1538). The thesis explores the likelihood of cryptoportraits within the P aris mural and other schemes. The loss of the majority of English medieval art means that the true importance of the danse macabre has hitherto been underestimated. However, influences of the danse macabre can be identified in English late-medieval and renaissance poetry and drama, tomb iconography, misericords, prints and other forms of art.