Der Bischof stirbt

Death as a fundamental cultural and religious factor is given special consideration in the account of a bishop's demise - but the ideas of death, the demands placed on bishops, and the way of portraying what has happened are changing. Without representing the center of the plot, death reports thus acquire a special expressive potential, since their analysis provides information less about actual events than about the change in the world of imagination and its modes and possibilities of expression. In an overview of fundamental determinations of (late) antiquity and in-depth analyses of the narrative sources of the Western European Middle Ages up to the time of the "Investiture Controversy," Matthias Weber traces the development in the history of imagination that can be seen in the connection of ideas of death, the bishop's ideal, and the mode of representation.