Koslofsky examines the human encounter with death in Germany from the eve of the Reformation to the rise of Pietism. The Protestant Reformation transformed the funeral more profoundly than any other ritual of the traditional church. Luther's doctrine of salvation 'by faith alone' made the foundation of the traditional funeral, intercession for the dead in Purgatory, obsolete. By drawing on anthropological interpretations of death ritual, this study explores the changing relationships between the body, the soul, the living and the dead in the daily life of early modern Germany.

List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements Death, Ritual and the Reformation PART ONE: SEPARATING THE LIVING FROM THE DEAD Souls: The Death of Purgatory and the Reformation Bodies: Placing the Dead in the German Reformation PART TWO: THE LUTHERAN FUNERAL RITUAL TO 1700 The Formation of the Lutheran Funeral Ritual Honor and Violence: Funerals in the Confessional Age From Disgrace to Distinction: Nocturnal Burial in Seventeenth Century Germany Death, Ritual and History Index

Craig M. Koslofsky is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.