How to Live in order to Die to Salvation? the Judgement Scene and Early Modern Danish Funeral Sermons

Abstract

Abstract How to be counted among the saved on Doomsday? This article presents the emergence of Danish funeral works in the sixteenth century through a case study of Niels Hemmingsen’s sermon for Herluff Trolle (1565). It discusses in particular the theological function of the charitable deeds in the funeral biography for Trolle, and argues that the preacher’s motivation for presenting these deeds was more than the dynastic interests of the noble families. The frame of the emergence of the genre, as well as the particular emphasis on charitable deeds, is the expectation of Judgement Day.