Music in Medieval Rituals for the End of Life

Medieval documents reveal that for centuries of European history, singing for a person at the moment of death was considered to be the ideal accompaniment to a life's ending. Through investigations of four manuscripts as case studies, author Elaine Stratton Hild examines and recovers the music sung for the dying during the Middle Ages and considers the functions of the music--a lost art of comforting the dying and the grieving.