Mourning and non-ordered religious behaviour in the tombs of Philip the Bold, John the Fearless and Margaret of Bavaria

Abstract

The tomb of the Burgundian duke Philip the Bold in Dijon, designed by the Haarlem-born sculptor Claus Sluter, holds a key position in the development of Western funerary art, especially on account of the lively and moving depiction of the cortège of weepers around the tomb. In this monument it is they who provide an example to their beholders – namely, how to mourn the deceased ruler. Not only do these expressive statuettes encourage the viewer to pray for Philip’s soul, but they also evoke the actual funeral liturgy of the duke. While the clerical mourners move in a single direction and form a procession, the lay figures seem to move more freely, directing themselves towards the tomb’s onlookers and stimulating them to pray for Philip’s afterlife. This conflation of transitional and everlasting rituals expresses a duality in late Gothic attitudes towards death.