Suicide in the Middle Ages: Volume 2: The Curse on Self-Murder

A group of men dig a tunnel under the threshold of a house. Then they go and fetch a heavy, sagging object from inside the house, pull it out through the tunnel, and put it on a cow-hide to be dragged off and thrown into the offal-pit. Why should the corpse of a suicide DS for that is what it isDS have earned this unusual treatment? In The Curse on Self-Murder, the second volume of his three-part Suicide in the Middle Ages, Alexander Murray explores the origin ofthe condemnation of suicide, in a quest which leads along the most unexpected byways of medieval theology, law, mythology, and folklore DSand, indeed, in some instances beyond them. At an epoch when there might be plenty of ostensible reasons for not wanting to live, the ways used to block the suicidal escape route give aunique perspective on medieval religion.