ABSTRACT
Death, and ways of dying, provide a stimulating focus for historical research since, although the experience is universal, ways of dealing with it vary enormously. Every society possesses deeply rooted attitudes about death, preferences for some deaths over others, and ways of approaching this most inevitable of experiences. Before embarking upon discussion of the good death in seventeenth-century England, a few general observations about death in the period are in order. As a medical historian, the chapter is concerned with dying, rather than death – with death-beds, rather than funerals. Equally commonplace is the observation that seventeenth-century healers were relatively powerless against the disorders they treated. In addition, seventeenth-century medicine-taking, illnesses, births, and deaths were very social, in contrast to the privacy required by twentieth-century conventions. All of these events took place at home, witnessed by crowds of family members, friends, and neighbours, as well as healers.
