Between November 2019 and the end of 2021, our planet lived a strange and singular daily life dictated by unexpected circumstances. During the epidemic caused by the spread of COVID-19, the daily news began with death tolls. For the first time in most of our lives, this wasn’t counting the number of victims of war, massacres or natural disasters. The deaths tallied during that period were, instead, the result of the spread of a respiratory virus, infection with which could be - and was in many thousands of cases - lethal. In fact, large-scale death had never been so significant for an inhabitant of post-World War II Europe, nor had the agent promoting the infection spread so quickly and easily in the various spaces and circles of society and socialisation.

In order to minimise the impact of the disease, social distancing and self-confinement meant that new forms of ‘contact’, socialising, work and the transmission of knowledge needed modelling and streamlining. The health crisis exposed the inequalities in access to this secure space thus, as well as the right to comfort and privacy in the domestic domain - whilst also emphasising the growing tendency towards individualism and the risks of isolation and loneliness in certain social and age groups. These were some of the themes that called the Social and Human Sciences to public debate and the promotion of new lines of research, emphasising, for example, the change in relational paradigms imposed by health concerns².

For the historian, this atypical moment that society was traversing represented yet another reason to consider the past and observe it in its many dimensions. Respiratory transmission, the rapid spread of infections and the impact on social and economic structures led medievalists to draw parallels with the Black Death and the great mortality of the years 1348-1350. Historians studying other eras invoked knowledge of more recent epidemics such as the Spanish flu, also known in Portugal as pneumónica³. Courses, collections and interviews in podcast format proliferated which, at the time, were as extraordinary as the period being lived through, making it possible to transcend domestic, institutional and territorial boundaries⁴. By multiple and varied means, disease and epidemics gained greater prominence in historians' agendas, while the order of the day prompted the revision and revisiting of studies on death, the cult of the dead and ceremonies of and for the dead. Thus, projects and studies focussing on the themes of death and the social and political representations and projections of individuals after death⁵, were joined by new manners of thought about these themes. New approaches were added to the work centred on the Black Death, both as a determining periodisation framework for understanding social and economic structures⁶, and as an event that transformed cultural and artistic expressions⁷.

To summarise, after the COVID-19 health crisis, the study of death and illness has gained momentum, either sporadically as mentioned above, or in a more consolidated way. As a result of organised scientific events and the topicality of the subject, collective works have been published⁸, as well as thematic texts in scientific journals, from the Iberian Peninsula⁹ to Eastern Europe¹⁰, via the United Kingdom¹¹, among other geographies. In these texts, various affirmed ‘states of the art’ on the subject of death dating back to the early 1970s, carrying through to the present day, reveal the different dimensions in which these historiographical lines have been approached¹².

The text presented today is one of the outputs of the COMMEMORtis exploratory project, funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology, which consisted of both a proposal built on the long-term academic career of its coordinators and a response to a current social challenge. On one hand, the research programme aimed to apply a computer infrastructure that both coordinators had used in their doctoral theses, as well as the study of the city and sociability groups that they had both been working on for many years¹³. On the other, at the end of winter 2021, as the application was written, ‘What survives after death?’ was a question as valid for the past as it was for the present.

In the experiment that was determined and desired to be carried out, there was a central desire to understand the potential of the information contained in necrological sources, produced in an ecclesiastical and parish context. This was underpinned with a focus on the management of the cult of the dead and heritage associated with suffrage ceremonies, using this information to characterise urban parish communities using the aforementioned computer infrastructure. This was a revival of the relevance of a historiographical theme that dates back to the 1970s and the founding works of Philippe Ariès¹⁴, Michel Vovelle¹⁵, Jacques le Goff¹⁶, and Jacques Chiffoleau¹⁷, among others. At the same time, the strong influence of the work of Clive Burgess should be recognised, focussing on the characterisation of pastoral care, founded by lay communities linked to a parish¹⁸. In the same way, historiographical influences in studies around the concept of ‘civic religion’¹⁹ and in more recent projects that precisely investigate the spirituality and devotional practices of the laity in the late Middle Ages and the Modern Period was definitively sought²⁰. The urban setting, the appeal to art historians and the manner of emphasising the topography of the burials revealed the inspiration in Vanessa Harding's work²¹. Finally, both in the favoured theoretical framework and the team of researchers and consultants that was assembled, there was a persistent interest in highlighting the study of necrological sources²², the analysis of wills²³, as well as elaborating these author’s experience with the study of lay and ecclesiastical urban parish communities²⁴.

In order to meet the main objective of the exploratory project, two case studies for the city of Coimbra were produced²⁵, publishing their respective databases²⁶ and analyses between the different parishes in the city were carried out²⁷. While the project's coordinators and fellows focused their efforts on the study of Coimbra, prioritising the analysis of wills, obituaries and anniversary books written in the collegiate churches of the suburbs, the rest of the team focussed on the sources produced in the city, especially the cathedral²⁸.

The international meetings organised by the project promoted these approaches, as well as encouraging the participation of multi-national researchers examining the different aspects of commemorating the dead in the Middle Ages²⁹. For the final meeting, a call for papers was made that favoured approaches considering documents produced in the context of the management of the cult of the dead in an ecclesiastical context - such as wills and obituary calendars - but which also fomented a challenge to analyse other dimensions of the study of urban society in the face of death. The concept was to study urban parish communities, the relationship between parishioners and their church and the welfare and fraternal association of the faithful, with a view, among other things, to guaranteeing a dignified and participatory funeral ceremony. Another aspect was the study of commemoration strategies, analysing the management of funeral legacies and the choice of intercessors for salvation. The study of the role played by heirs, in contexts of greater or lesser conflict or confluence of interests, when executing wills was emphasised, particularly the action of widows and orphans. The burial sites and the tomb were also the subject of this challenge, as an integral part of the symbolic construction of individual, family and community memory among the living parishioners.

In this Special Issue, portions of the research worked on during the two and a half days of the event is published, albeit after it had been subjected to double anonymous peer review and consequent improvements³⁰. From a geographical and chronological point of view, this work considers the environs of the Iberian kingdoms of Portugal and Navarre, with special emphasis on the cities of Coimbra and Pamplona, during the Early Middle Ages. Furthermore, to the north and east of the Pyrenees, French territories are under study, namely the cities of Limoges and Lyon, Flanders, with a case study of Douai, and Prussia, with an approach to the city of Torún, extending from the Early Middle Ages to the dawn of the Modern Period. Finally, the publication includes an article on the liturgy of the dead in the Monastery of Lorvão, from the thirteenth century to the end of the Middle Ages, which, as will be explained below, serves as a counterpoint to the scope of analysis favoured in this collective work.

Opening this Special Issue is the article by Maria Helena da Cruz Coelho entitled ‘A crise dos vivos: uma crise na comemoração dos mortos? A propósito do “Livro das Capelas” da catedral de Coimbra (século XIV)’ [‘The crisis of the living: a crisis in the commemoration of the dead? Regarding the ‘Book of Chapels’ of Coimbra Cathedral (fourteenth century)’]. It highlights the particularities of the document on which the analysis is based and which reflects the liturgical and economic vicissitudes associated with the cult of the dead in Coimbra Cathedral following the Black Death. The author places the production of the document in the distinct context of the socio-political relations and tensions established between the city's main dignitaries whilst emphasising the multiple dimensions of the cathedral's life conditioned by the cult of the dead.

This is followed by a study based on the analysis of Navarrese wills by Fermín Miranda García in ‘Enterramientos aristocráticos y redes eclesiásticas en Navarra. Una breve comparativa (siglo XIV-XV)’ [Aristocratic burials and ecclesiastical networks in Navarre. A brief comparison (fourteenth-fifteenth centuries)], in which the author shows the main families of Pamplona and their relationship with the city's ecclesiastical network. By studying the choice of graves and the foundation of chapels, a map of influences that was perpetuated after death and linked several generations in the city can be seen. The comparative approach of the results achieved for this city with the realities studied for Estella and Tudela reinforces the demonstration of the social specificities of the kingdom of Navarre, evident when it came to choosing graves and founding commemoration ceremonies.

Continuing the exploration of the typology of sources available for the study of death and strategies for commemorating the dead in the Middle Ages therein, the work of Hervé Chopin is presented: ‘The liber sepulturarum of the collegiate church of Saint-Paul of Lyon: topography and sociology’. In order to analyse the book of tombs of the collegiate church of Saint-Paul of Lyon, the author created his own database, which he introduces to us at the same time as presenting the main conclusions it provides. Drawn up at the beginning of the fifteenth century, the document reflects the choice of burial sites made in previous decades, framed within the religious and institutional daily life of the church and the parish network of that city.

In turn, Maria do Rosário Morujão focusses on the presentation of the two main obituaries produced in Coimbra Cathedral, following an exploratory approach with a view to characterising the ceremonies for the dead with her study ‘A comemoração dos mortos em tempos medievais: uma abordagem exploratória com base no caso da Sé de Coimbra’ [‘The commemoration of the dead in medieval times: an exploratory approach based on the case of Coimbra Cathedral’]. Faced with the interspersed, often even truncated, view that these documents provide when trying to reconstruct the cult of the dead in an ecclesiastical institution, the author proposes the articulation of the data provided in the two manuscripts and demonstrates the possibilities and advantages of a joint and intertwined analysis.

This is followed by a study of the strategies chosen by clerical groups to commemorate the dead. In ‘Clergyman as a Subject and Object of Death Commemoration in Late Medieval Prussian Town. Case studies from Thorn (Toruń) at the turn of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century’, Marcin Sumowski analyses the foundation of chapels and ceremonies for the soul by socially and economically prominent clergymen. After placing the founders in the urban and social context of Torún, the ceremonies envisaged in each of these foundations are characterised, demonstrating the liturgical and ritual complexity decided upon by the representatives of the group which, in this case, was both the agent and the target of the intentions for the soul.

Bringing another perspective, Anne Massoni worked mainly on the wills and testamentary clauses of lay parishioners, trying to understand the relationship they had with their parish church and the care that the church's chapter took in celebrating the dead. In her article, ‘Les paroissiens de Saint-Pierre du Queyroix de Limoges et la communauté des prêtres: des liens jusque dans la mort au XIV^e siècle’ [The parishioners of Saint-Pierre du Queyroix in Limoges and the community of priests: links even in death in the fourteenth century], it is the relationship between the two worlds - secular and ecclesiastical - that the author seeks to problematise, presenting, in this context, the transfer of practices and knowledge and highlighting the relationship of devotion and service that was established bilaterally in the parish universe.

By analysing the community of Beguines of Douai and the way in which they were the privileged target of many requests for intercession from the town's inhabitants, Mary Anne Gonzalez brings another important expression of medieval spirituality into this thematic volume in an urban context. In her study ‘Commemoration and the Beguine Movement in Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century Douai’, the author analyses a relevant sample of the city's wills and demonstrates how the participation of the Beguines in funeral prayers and in the care of deceased bodies, at the time of the funerals, was very much required. The articulation of the actions of these women with those of the representatives of the parish churches and mendicant convents was a hallmark of the cult of the dead in this city.

The final article in this issue invites one to get out of the city, away from the parish clergy and into the stony walls of one of the most important female Cistercian monasteries in the kingdom of Portugal. Authored by Luís Miguel Rêpas and Catarina Fernandes Barreira, ‘A morte e a memória no Mosteiro de Lorvão’ [‘Death and Memory in the Monastery of Lorvão’] begins by setting out the Order's general rules for the cult of the dead, and then introduces the individuals and families who chose to be buried in this monastery or founded memorial ceremonies there. This study emphasises the monastery's role as a depository for the commemorative intentions of its deceased nuns, members of the royal family and the main noble lineages. In contrast to the urban and parochial world that this thematic volume favours, this last article journeys back to the other dimensions of medieval society and religiosity in the study of the cult of the dead, leaving the reader and the researcher open to further approaches to the subject by questioning other contexts and institutions.

This Special Issue is dedicated to the memory of Clive Burgess, Emeritus Professor at the University of London Royal Holloway, consultant to the COMMEMORtis project, who passed away in August 2023, just a few weeks after visiting in Coimbra. In addition to the inspiration that his work gave to the construction of this research project, we express our deepest gratitude and appreciation for the generosity, kindness and elegance with which he honoured us not only in his participation in the International Conference, and in the many conversations we had here, but also in the numerous correspondence we exchanged during the application and execution of this programme of work.

After death, survives the memory, the gratitude, and our deep respect…