Memento mori is a Latin saying that comes to mind that you die! or quite generally with the remembrance of death! translated. The saying is a Vanitas symbol. Vanitas describes the Christian, Jewish notion that all life on earth is perishable. Such Vanitas motifs show and remind us that man has no power over life. In art there are frequently hourglasses or skulls, which make it clear that all life has somehow passed away. In addition, there are meanings that address this topic, such as Memento mori or Carpe diem. The turn of Memento mori dates back to the Middle Ages, but has been increasingly used since the Renaissance, and has witnessed an absolute climax in the works of the literature and art of the Baroque (see Literaturepochen).
The word sequence Memento mori can already be seen in the Middle Ages and is very likely a disorder and scarcity of the Latin phrase Memento moriendum esse, which means that you must die, the turn probably being made in medieval monasteries.
It is to be assumed that the motto of the Cluniac Reform, a spiritual reform movement of the Catholic Church to be located in the High Middle Ages (about 1050 to 1250), became popular and from then on persisted the centuries. The reform first saw the monastic life and subsequently the papacy. The reason for this was that church life in the Middle Ages had reached its moral depth. For example, popes were increasingly involved in serious crimes and aroused the public with an extravagant lifestyle, which also gave the Catholic power holders the name of the women’s and whores’ regimes or age of the pornocracy between 882 and 1046.
The Cluniac’s reform was intended to remedy this situation. The main ideas of the reform were that monks were persevered to live strictly according to Regula Benedicti (Benedict’s Rule), 2 to show the greatest possible conscientiousness in the daily worship, 3 that the piety of the monks was deepened, and 4) the reminder that life on earth is perishable. It is the last core idea that lasted as a memento mori over the centuries. The essential point is that man should remember that he dies, and in life it is most important to prepare for his own death, that is, the Day of the Last Judgment, in order to ensure his own soulship. This performance has since been taken up in various epochs.
Distribution of memento mori
The basic idea that all earthly beings should pass away and that human life should be a preparation for death is older than the Cluniac reform. However, the main ideas behind it were an absolute consequence and is therefore the reason for the further discussion with the saying Memento mori.
In the course of the Cluniac reform, more than 2,000 reformed monasteries were built across Europe that lived strictly according to these principles. An important aspect is also that from the reform of the Cistercian orders in 1112 hervorging. He undertook to live strictly according to the Order of Benedict of Nursia (ca. 480-547), and he also worked on the motto “Ora et Labora” (Pray and work). This Order grew rapidly and gained an enormous popularity, which is attributed to the monastery leader Bernard of Clairvaux and the advocating of several Popes. Consequently, the reform of the Church in the Middle Ages is responsible for the acceptance and dissemination of the Memento-mori idea, which was consequently firmly anchored in everyday church life.
Furthermore, an early Middle German literature used to speak the simple man for the first time and was therefore written in German and not in Latin. In this case the person who was not a monk, the values of a pious monastic life, were made palatable and represented as desirable. The ascetic way of life was idealized in order to stand before His Creator on the Day of the Last Judgment. This Cluniac literature aimed, above all, on renouncing this, and always to bear in mind that all earthly things would pass away. A popular species here was the so-called reimpredation, which was based on end- or rod rhymes.
Of these re-hunters, a total of six have survived to the present day. One was written by the Swiss monk Notker von Zwiefalten. The title bears the title of Memento mori, and exemplifies the values and contents preached by early Middle German literature. It is about the constant opposition between the hereafter and the other, as well as between God and the world. A world-view is created that seems creepy: the world is full of evil and wickedness, and everything that lives, no matter what kind or state, will die (→ full text: Memento Mori).
Notker notes, however, that man has a free will, the same as that given to him by God. This allows him to decide what he is doing. By means of the self-control, he must assert himself on the other hand, which means that charity, justice, and selflessness should determine his actions, so that he can hope for God’s law. According to the strict interpretation of the idea of Memento mori, man thus directs his whole life to submit to the judgment of God in order to stand before God on the day of the most recent judgment.
After this first high in the Late Middle Ages, which was mainly directed to the Diesseit, the Memento mori thought again flourished in the 14th century. The cause is the plague, that is, the black death that killed Europe and demanded many human lives. In this process, however, the ideas were immediately exhausted and almost exclusively reduced to the indulgence trade. This functioned in the sense that many were afraid of the punishments they would receive in the hereafter.
Finally, the indulgence trade is based on the fact that the faithful have been issued with penalties by applying a monetary sum. Whoever was afraid of the punishment of God, willingly to save himself. For example, the Dominican monk Johann Tetzel, like a barker, would have opened the outlet trade, and as soon as the money in the box sounds, the soul will jump into the sky! have called. This move, on the other hand, led the Reformation of Martin Luther, who criticized such indulgences sharply, but on the other hand financed the St. Peter’s in Rome.
The late Middle Ages and the emergence of the plague in Europe therefore mark important points in time at which the slogan Memento mori was particularly widespread and can be found in many representations. Another high, if rather entertaining, one finds itself in the Baroque, an epoch of the European art history, which can be dated approximately between the years between 1575 and 1770 and was replaced by the Enlightenment. However, the concept of thought changed.
Memento mori in the baroque
In the Baroque, the Thirty Years’ War shook Europe and left its mark, especially in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. In the war years 1618 to 1648 it was mainly an argument between Catholics and Protestants as well as the pre-eminence in Europe. The duration and the extent of the war shaped the whole family and generations.
The experience of a war, which never wanted to end, and which for decades had been expressed in unimagined brutality, also created a lyric that was urgent and spoke of death, suffering, and transience. It is also this lyric that takes up the core ideas of Memento mori again. However, it is not so much the matter of directing one’s life to the other side, but of realizing that everything is transient. In this context, the well-known phrase Carpe diem, which is also regarded as the central theme of the Baroque, must be considered.
It’s all vain
You see where you see, only vanity on earth.
What he is building today, the latter will break tomorrow:
Where there are now cities, there will be a meadow,
On which a shepherd’s child will play with the herds.
The above example is the first strophe of the sonnet It is all vain by Andreas Gryphius. In the second and third verses there are two opposing interpretations which impress upon the impermanence of the earthly (cf. Antithesis, p ).
Memento mori in the art
In the different epochs of the history of art Vanitas motifs were repeatedly processed, to which the meaning-phrase is finally counted. An increasing number of symbols have been found that illustrate the transience of the earth. The most famous are probably the hourglass, the skull, partly also a whole skeleton, as well as the extinguished candle.
These symbols were mainly used in the so-called Vanitas still life, which is also characteristic of the Baroque. In this case, various objects are shown which either directly or indirectly indicate the transience. Directly, for example, are signs and motifs that show decay or immediate death symbols, such as a death skull. Indirect, for example, are objects that are more of a luxury and an abundance of life in the other, but which in the final analysis appear void in the context shown, inviting the viewer to reflect.
The above still life shows a work by Pieter Claesz, a Dutch painter, who is regarded as an essential representative of the baroque still life. The skull exemplifies the transience of the human, the books stand for science, which is considered earthly, the candlestick no longer holds a candle, the flame stands for the human soul, its extinction for death. The keys bear witness to earthly possessions. The (potted) wine also stands for a transient luxury property and also reminds of the Last Supper between Jesus and his disciples, the tobacco can (?) Embodies worldly pleasure. The image thus bundles the Memento mori thoughts.
In the Baroque, numerous other objects were taken up in such works. The viewer mostly recognizes the context only in the overall picture and can open up further meanings. There is, however, the danger of interpreting more in a work than it actually shows. Nevertheless, the symbolic character of such baroque still life is usually not to be denied and is obviously worked out and used. Another example: Another example showing a Vanitas still life.
Image: Vanitas (circa 1650) by Hendrick Andriessen
Short overview: The most important overview
Memento mori is a Latin saying that comes to mind that you die! or quite generally with the remembrance of death! translated. The saying is a Vanitas symbol. Vanitas describes the Christian, Jewish notion that all life on earth is perishable. This view was often used in art.
The reason for the great spread of the saying is probably the Cluniac reform, a spiritual reform movement of the Catholic Church to be found in the High Middle Ages. It aimed to change the monastic life as well as the papacy in principle and oriented on rules and principles: one of them was the saying Memento mori, which was aimed mainly at the fact that one should put all the switches in earthly life to the death ( The Last Judgment).
The meaning was once again gaining an enormous popularity in the baroque period. During this time an immense lyric poetry emerged which referred to the aspect of the transience of the earthly. This motif was also taken up in numerous works of art, mainly the still life, which symbolically reminded of this circumstance.
Note: The Memento mori idea is also to be found later in numerous representations as well as expressions of the and also in the postmodern. However, the Vanitas motif in the strict sense is considered to be overcome and the assumption that not everything that man creates is void, has gained the upper hand no later than the 18th century.