Three decades after the history of death first made its appearance in France, principally among medievalists and early modernists, the subject eventually made its way into Germany and England and the Protestant Reformation. Among the pioneers, two historians have claimed a place of honor with their broad surveys: Craig Koslofsky with his Reformation of the Dead: Death and Ritual in Early Modern Germany, 1450–1700 (New York: St. Martin's, 2000), and Peter Marshall with his Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Though focused on two very different Reformations, these two books described and analyzed similar sets of changes, arguing that Protestantism reconfigured not only the map of the afterlife, but also the social and financial obligations that had linked the living and the dead in medieval Christendom. As one might expect, these broad surveys are now being followed by more narrowly focused studies that seek to shed more light on smaller details, in one way or another.

One such example is Reforming the Art of Dying, a painstakingly exhaustive analysis of a handful of texts published in Germany during the first decade of the Protestant Reformation. The texts in question are printed sermons, devotional manuals, and catechisms that offered instruction in the ars moriendi, or the art of dying well—an “art” developed in the late Middle Ages, both as ritual and as a genre of devotional literature. In nearly every way, the ars moriendi developed as a response to the medieval Catholic notion that one's salvation was decided at the moment of death, a sentiment commonly expressed in the Latin adage salus homini in fine consistet. The central, unquestioned assumption behind this emphasis on the “end” (fine) rested squarely on belief in free will and the necessity of performing good works, avoiding sin, and availing oneself of the sacraments of the Church, especially penance, extreme unction, and the Eucharist.

Those familiar with Reformation theology might be puzzled by the survival of this genre among early Protestants, given the fact that the medieval ars moriendi focused on what the dying person might be able to do at the last moment to gain salvation. After all, Luther's battle cry of “faith alone,” which turned the world upside down by changing merely one letter in the adage salus hominis in fine consistit—with fide (faith) replacing fine (whatever one might do at the end)—seemingly left salvation entirely in the hands of God rather than the individual. If salvation was determined solely by God in his eternal realm rather than by the individual at the deathbed and nothing could be done at all to earn salvation, what advice was there to give at the moment of death?

Reforming the Art of Dying answers this question thoroughly, paying careful attention to even the finest of details. Although the bulk of this book is descriptive rather than analytical, Reinis does sustain an argument throughout, claiming that the Protestant ars moriendi was very different from that of medieval Catholicism, despite obvious similarities. The main difference, as Reinis sees it, is that while the Catholic art of dying stressed uncertainty and anxiety about salvation, focusing on the moment of death as the ultimate battle against the world, the flesh, and the devil, the new Protestant art of dying sought to comfort the dying and reassure them of their salvation.

This is pure intellectual history, focused solely on the theology and rhetoric of a few texts, and the analysis is guided by a simple dichotomy: as Reinis sees it, the theology pertains to the intellect and the rhetoric to the emotions. The crucial figure is Luther, naturally, whose “Sermon on Preparing to Die” (1519) is seen as the touchstone for all others who dealt with the subject. Most of the other authors are of lesser stature. Only three are relatively well known to specialists: Johann Oecolampadius, Johannes Bugenhagen, and Georg Spalatin. Others, such as Johannes Odenbach, Jakob Otter, and Kaspar Güttel, are obscure enough to challenge all experts. In some ways, then, Reinis deals with what might be called popular culture, but she does so without any apparent interest in that subject. Her sole focus, from start to finish, is the content of these texts. We learn very little about the authors, save for the barest of details, or about the circumstances under which the texts were written and disseminated. We also learn little about how these texts were used or who used them. When all is said and done, it is also somewhat difficult to figure out why these particular texts were chosen or why the scope of the study was limited to one decade.

In the last few pages, almost as an afterthought, Reinis takes issue with one of the most significant theses to have emerged from recent work on the history of death in this period—the suggestion that one of the most salient features of the Protestant Reformation was its tendency to segregate the dead from the living. Unfortunately, she offers little convincing proof for her argument, merely affirming that burial customs and funerary monuments kept the dead sufficiently close to the living, despite the fact that Protestants ceased praying to the dead saints in heaven and for the dead souls in purgatory, and that they also stopped pouring money into those devotions.

This is a book with a limited audience. In many ways, it still reads like a dissertation and gives the impression of having a doktorvater and two other professors as its sole intended readers—a trait quite common in this Ashgate series. Moreover, with a price tag of more than a hundred dollars, it is destined solely for a few university libraries. Its greatest merit is that it convincingly documents how one aspect of medieval piety was transformed in Germany between 1519 and 1528, in a handful of texts. Ironically, its close attention to theological and rhetorical details is also its sole shortcoming. Reforming the Art of Dying proves overwhelming at times, not because its myriad details are insignificant, but rather because they are often strung together without much analysis and compared and contrasted repeatedly, with little apparent regard for their relative significance or their social and political context. Those who are impatient may simply read chapter 7, which contains the gist of the whole book; all others will also find much to ponder in the rest of its pages.