www.historyhit.com
The Wealth and Humility of Memento Mori
In 16th and 17th century Europe, death was an inescapable, intimate reality. Before antibiotics, amidst regular warfare and perennial plagues like typhoid and syphilis, life was bewilderingly fragile. It is no surprise then that people of the early modern era cultivated a far more pragmatic – and visible – relationship with mortality than most of us do today.
This confrontation with the inevitable was captured in a unique artistic tradition: Memento Mori, Latin for “Keep death in your thoughts.” These were not objects of grief, but stark, often beautiful, reminders of life’s impermanence.
In The Ashmolean Up Close: Memento Mori – the fourth film in History Hit’s partnership with the University of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum – Professor Suzannah Lipscomb goes behind the scenes to investigate this morbid side to life in early modern Europe. Guided by Matthew Winterbottom, Assistant Keeper of Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Suzannah explores the surprising significance of these items, uncovering what they reveal about faith, wealth, and the honest acceptance of death.
Sign up to watch
The morbid motif: luxury and humility
Given that death was ubiquitous in early modern life, why did people need constant reminders of it? Matthew Winterbottom explains that Memento Mori were a continuous call to spiritual readiness, but they were also objects of conspicuous display.
These were not modest artefacts. Made of expensive silver, gold, diamonds, and ivory by the finest craftsmen, they were designed to be worn as jewellery. As Suzannah notes, this creates a strange contradiction: people were proclaiming their humility and commitment to a good Christian life by literally showing off their immense wealth. The skull or the decaying body became a highly fashionable motif, used ubiquitously across the arts.
The documentary examines one of the Ashmolean’s earliest objects: a large carved ivory bead from the early 16th century, thought to have hung at the end of a rosary used in a monastery or cathedral. Carved into a double-sided head, one side depicts a skull, and the other shows a horrifying process of decay, covered in writhing worms, toads, and snakes. This brutal imagery, Matthew explains, was a direct link to the medieval world’s understanding of “dust to dust,” an age before refrigeration and when people frequently saw dead bodies and charnel houses where bones were stacked.
For the believer, this was an honest reminder of their fate before the eventual resurrection on Judgment Day – a shared belief among Protestants and Catholics in 16th and 17th century Europe that death was not final, and one day the dead would rise to face God’s judgement.
Double-sided ivory skull bead, one side showing a recently deceased head, the other showing a head in the process of putrefying.Image Credit: History Hit / Ashmolean Museum
Time ticking away
The concept of Memento Mori was inextricably linked to the idea of fleeting time. Suzannah and Matthew explore three small silver skull watches from the mid-17th century. Opening the jaw of the skull reveals the ticking clock beneath. This remarkable object is a perfect metaphor: life is constantly ticking away, and death is not far behind.
The watches, possibly made in England or France, were a highly conspicuous way of carrying this philosophy. They often bore powerful Latin inscriptions, urging the wearer to live life to the fullest while simultaneously preparing for a “good death” to ensure passage to heaven.
From self-reflection to commemoration
Some Memento Mori objects were crafted not only for self-reflection but also to send a clear message to others. In the documentary, Suzannah and Matthew explore some rings, including one highly ornate piece of enamelled gold and diamonds featuring a skull and crossbones. This extravagant display of wealth – an object a modern mind might consider “spooky” – was, in the 17th century, a serious statement. The wearer wasn’t just reminding himself of mortality; he was showcasing his commitment to Christian duty, demonstrating that his wealth also translated into support for charities and the less fortunate.
Ring featuring enamelled gold and diamond skull and crossbonesImage Credit: History Hit / Ashmolean Museum
The meaning of these objects began to shift in the early 18th century. Suzannah and Matthew examine a mourning ring commemorating Queen Anne, the last of the Stuart monarchs. The ring features a tiny, coffin-shaped vessel with a skull and crossbones. Inside the coffin is Queen Anne’s cypher and, chillingly, woven strands of her hair. This practice, where quantities of hair were cut from the deceased and turned into mementos for distribution across the court, was the beginning of the mourning jewellery trend that would become widespread in the Georgian and Victorian eras.
These eras also saw mourning practices became standardised and spread across social classes, notably shifting the traditional colour for mourning from the cheaper white to black, which had previously been reserved for the wealthy elite.
The unsanitised truth
The Ashmolean’s collection also holds unique, ephemeral objects designed for public ritual, such as a rare early 18th century funerary shield, shown to Suzannah by Anne van Camp, assistant keeper of northern European art. Anne explains that for her, “it’s the ultimate Memento Mori’.
This wooden print, adorned with a skull, cross, and crossbones, was never meant to survive. Bearing traces of candle wax, it was likely carried in a funeral procession, and would have looked spectacular and eerie ritual in a darkened church – giving us a glimpse into the world of ornamentation and ritual around funerals we otherwise would have lost.
Early 18th century funerary shieldImage Credit: History Hit / Ashmolean Museum
Perhaps the most curious object is an ivory figure carved inside a tortoiseshell lantern. When the object is turned, the figure of a beautiful naked woman instantly transforms into a shrouded skeleton. This was a tactile, immediate message: life is fleeting, and beauty is transient. Matthew further explains how life would have been quite brutal, especially for poorer people, back then, and so for some, death might have been seen as a form of sweet release, on to a better afterlife.
The most profound takeaway from the documentary, however, is the contrast between the past and the present. When Suzannah asks Matthew if the early modern approach to mortality was healthier than our modern taboo around death, he offers a powerful answer. He suggests the honesty of the Memento Mori tradition – the willingness to confront the ugly, messy process of rotting – was a far healthier way of living. Death was ubiquitous; they couldn’t avoid it, so they embraced it.
This collection of Memento Mori – symbols of mourning, faith, hope, and contemplation – invites us to reflect on our own transience and recognise that the minds of those who lived centuries ago, though profoundly different, were grappling with the same ultimate reality as our own.
Join Professor Suzannah Lipscomb and Matthew Winterbottom as they delve into the beautiful, morbid art of the past in The Ashmolean Up Close: Memento Mori.
Sign up to watch
New Posts (Home)
ChatBox
Popular Posts 
Game Zone
Top PodCasts
