ABSTRACT
The subject of the separation even of deceased humans from animal contact fits nicely into the broader context of early modern authorities' efforts to separate people from lower creatures. Robert Jutte, in a chapter on daily life in late medieval and early modern Germany, notes that the era was characterized by repeated efforts to clean up towns. The animals associated with women accused of witchcraft are well known to us all. By the 1430s the exemplary ants of the bestiary had been converted into Johann Nider's tireless agents of the Devil. The performance of rituals and the maintenance of ritual spaces set humans and animals apart. That human beings, according to clerical ideals, married before engaging in sex and were, ideally, faithful to their spouse, set them apart from most animals. We could perceive in the phrase, 'not like the unreasoning beasts', support for Norbert Elias's famous theory concerning increased civility, especially that imposed from outside the individual.
