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172
One's Own Death
The second utlitude IOwards death prolongs the first rather than replaces it. As its
paradigm suggests, it introduces "subtle modifications which suddenly give dramatic and
personal meaning to man's traditional familiarity with death."1 This growing
consciousness of the self, first traced in the late Middle Ages, brought fonh Ihe feeling of
death's "insolence."2 Along came anxiety and revulsion against the corpse, which would
lead to the rcmoval of cemeteries away from the towns in the eighteenth century.)
This new mentality took away much of Ihe serenity and peace of mind of the dying
person, inSIC,td dmmatizillg the circumstance, and particularly the moment of demh. llis
first concern was for Ihe destiny of his soul, no longer the social group which he left
behind. The arIes morielldi at the time renects this new anxiety in the face of death
through its recurrent motives of the weighing of souls, the separation of the just and the
damned, and the intercession of the Virgin and 51. John. The prayers for the souls in
purgatory and devotions for a good death also date from that time: