The Grim Reaper and the Dance of Death: How Death Got a Face

Pictures of a skeleton with a scythe are everywhere today, from Halloween decorations to movies. Behind them is a very old idea: that Death is a figure who comes for everyone, rich or poor, and that no one can refuse. This article traces where that idea came from.

What is the Dance of Death?

It is a theme in medieval art and writing in which Death, or the dead, summon people from every walk of life to dance to the grave. A reference overview describes a typical scene: a pope, an emperor, a king, a child, and a laborer, each led away by Death. It is also called the danse macabre in French and Totentanz in German. The point was universality: no matter who you are, death unites everyone.

When and where did it begin?

Probably in Paris in the early 1400s. The Becker Medical Library at Washington University says the first artistic representation of the Dance appeared as a mural in the Holy Innocents church in Paris in 1425, long since destroyed. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes one of the oldest pictures of the dance as the one in the Cemetery of the Innocents in Paris, also dated 1425. A study from Leiden University adds that the danse appears to have been introduced to England from Paris, and a poem by John Lydgate in the first half of the fifteenth century helped carry it there. The Catholic Encyclopedia suggests it was first a spectacle, a kind of play like English morality plays.

Was it caused by the Black Death?

It is often linked to it, but scholars give several explanations. The New Catholic Encyclopedia says that some writers argue it arose from the plagues and disasters of the 14th century, especially the Black Death of 1348 to 1350, and that there are at least four possible reasons for its popularity in the 15th century. The Becker Library points to a mix of catastrophes: famine from the Little Ice Age, the Hundred Years’ War, and the Black Death. The meaning of the word “macabre” is itself uncertain. One traditional explanation is that it comes from “dance of the Maccabees,” after a grim story in the Bible.

Who made it famous?

The German artist Hans Holbein the Younger. According to Brewminate, he drew his Dance of Death designs in 1526 in Basel, and the first book edition, with forty-one woodcuts, was printed at Lyon in 1538. The Catholic Encyclopedia says more than one hundred editions of the series have appeared. The New Catholic Encyclopedia calls it the culmination of the genre, in which all classes of society are equal in the presence of the Grim Reaper.

Where does the Grim Reaper come in?

The image of Death as a figure with a scythe was part of this world. The Catholic Encyclopedia describes a procession with a wagon carrying a great figure of Death holding a scythe and surrounded by coffins. The Leiden study notes that the “Grim Reaper” is presented as male in some images, though it also describes a late-medieval image of a female death demon wielding a scythe, flying over a heap of corpses. The same study points out that most characters in the medieval danse were men, shown in order of rank. A printed version from 1486, the Danse Macabre des Femmes, gave women their own dance.

What was it for?

To teach. A reference overview describes the original as a didactic poem meant to remind people that death is certain and to urge them to be ready at all times, in the spirit of memento mori and the “art of dying” books of that era. The message was meant to be humbling and also a little comforting: death does not play favorites. For the modern version of that idea, see Memento Mori: Why Remembering Death Can Make Life Better and Why Are Skulls a Reminder to Live?.