The Art of Good Dying in the Medieval Wills of the Cathedral of Sigüenza (Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries)

Abstract

This article contributes to the knowledge of Castilian medieval religious belief and to explain the attitudes of medieval man towards death. It aims at shedding light on the mentality of the privileged members of late medieval Sigüenza, both lay and clergymen, by studying a collection of wills preserved in the Sigüenza Cathedral Archive from the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Through these official documents we can begin to discern the ideas regarding life and death that prevailed in this context. These wills establish models of rites and attitudes that people adopted in order to go from earthly life to the afterlife and to reach the much-coveted eternal salvation.