ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author looks at the origin of rites for the dying and the dead in Latin Christianity. The students were interested in the Cluniac death ritual as a historical precedent for their work, but found it hard to assess it in the form in which he had originally presented it. Parts of the Cluniac death ritual according to both Ulrich and Bernard, and from other sources based on their customaries, appeared among Martene's sections on rites for the sick, the penitent and the dying. While the prayers, chants, gestures and movements of the Cluniac death ritual are nearly identical in the various accounts, Bernard's has the greater claim on the attention of scholars who want to understand Cluny from the inside out, which was his ultimate goal. The reconstruction also revealed the place of death, dying and the dead in the hierarchy of the sacred at Cluny.
