ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book discusses boundaries, geographic and cultural, and has ended with a discussion on mythic boundaries, from where we can confront the human condition. This is one boundary we must all cross, and traditional ideas on the crossing of this final boundary, and what may lie on the other side. These traditional rituals and beliefs have informed and influenced later attitudes towards death and commemoration, even to the present day. The chapter explains the funeral monument served to promote Sarmatian ideology, which the nobility used to justify their pre-eminence and reinforce their group identity. It establishes what features of the Polish context differentiated this society and contributed towards an environment whereby Polish parents came to commemorate their deceased children. Child commemoration in Renaissance Poland represents a new and challenging field of enquiry, with a great deal of potential for further research.
