What happened when a pope died in the Middle Ages? Behind the closed doors of Rome and Avignon, elaborate rituals unfolded—blending faith, politics, and performance to preserve the illusion that the Church never died.
By Joëlle Rollo-Koster
If the past few weeks have taught historians of the medieval papacy anything, it is that the papacy still matters—its history, too. One of the most flamboyant popes of the fourteenth century, Clement VI, declared upon his 1342 election in Avignon—where the papacy had resided since the early fourteenth century, “Our predecessors did not know how to be popes.” His statement is a strikingly candid acknowledgment of what it means to occupy the papal office.
Being pope involves a great deal of communication. I would argue that Pope Francis understood this deeply and would have agreed with Clement that performance and communication are essential papal tools. Long before modern social science conceptualized performative roles, Clement grasped that he embodied both the institution—the Catholic Church—and himself, the man inhabiting that role. He understood his liminal position, suspended between humanity and sanctity, historical contingency and institutional permanence. Like all popes, past and present, he performed the papacy—in life and in death.
Pope Urban V (1362–1370) captured this performative essence differently. On his deathbed, he asked to be moved to the home of his brother, Anglic Grimoard, then bishop of Avignon, and ordered the palace gates to be opened: “To show that the papacy is immortal even if the pope dies,” he said—and to teach “how popes know to die.”
Performing the Papacy: Life, Death, and Legacy
The funeral of Pope Francis – photo by Ricardo Stuckert / Lula Oficial / Wikimedia Commons
Most people today have likely seen the images of Pope Francis’s body exposed for public viewing at the Vatican. This ceremony is as old as the papacy itself. We know a great deal about how medieval popes died because the process was scripted—prescribed down to the smallest detail. A good papal death was a public one, and as recent events have shown, it still is. This public ritual was high drama, culminating in the Conclave: its final act.
Historians know much about the actions taken between the death of a pope and the election of his successor—during what is called the sede vacante, or “vacant See”—thanks to books labeled ceremonials or ordines. The most detailed narratives of papal death come from François de Conzié and Pierre Ameil. These texts describe what should happen during the vacancy, beginning with the pope’s agony. Though they are prescriptive, they sometimes contain annotations reflecting actual events.
The Scripted Death of a Pope
Depiction of a cardinal’s funeral in a chronicle by Ulrich Richenthal – image courtesy Joëlle Rollo-Koster
These books were intended not only to orchestrate the funerary and conclave rituals but also to underscore that even in death—or near death—the pope remained pope, and his authority could not be usurped. The camerlengo, the penitentiaries, and the cardinals managed daily administration and liturgical matters under strict instructions that no innovation was permitted. The language of the ceremonials was directed at the cardinals, who, throughout the Middle Ages, increasingly displayed oligarchic tendencies and sought a kind of “constitutional papacy.” The sede vacante presented them with their grandest opportunity.
Popes regularly shut down these ambitions, but the tension came to a head during one of the cardinals’ greatest frustrations: the Great Western Schism (1378–1417). In 1378, they elected a pope whom they later deemed unfit, and, drawing on the chaotic, carnivalesque traditions of the sede vacante, they invalidated that election and chose a new pope—while, of course, the other one did not renounce his title. For nearly two generations, Western Christianity had two popes and two courts. As such, the sede vacante was serious business and treated with utmost consideration of the risks involved.
The ceremonials also devoted substantial attention to the physical body of the pope. Pierre Ameil offers more detail on the pope’s agony—and on the treatment of the papal corpse—than François de Conzié. For now, I will focus on Ameil. His script demonstrates that the Church of today still preserves much of its past.
So goes Ameil:
“The physicians who are in charge of his [the pope] care, when they realize that death is approaching and that he cannot escape it, are bound to tell him secretly that he should, above all else, think first of his soul and of his deeds, and they themselves should, as much as they can, focus on the health of his body.
Then they are bound to reveal this secretly to his confessor, so that he may guide him to think of the salvation of his soul, exhorting and admonishing him generally and specifically, according to the knowledge and discretion of the confessor — especially since he (the pope) is the light of the whole world. Therefore, he should set an example to all kings and princes, laypeople and clerics, who in their illnesses turn to God and make arrangements concerning their consciences. He, too, must do so, since he is the head of all Christendom.
He is bound to confess, to receive the Lord’s body [the Eucharist], and to seek indulgence at the moment of death, which the confessor should grant him. He should forgive and show mercy to all his household members, and pardon wrongs and thefts committed against him up to a certain sum of florins, as it pleases His Holiness — just as Pope Gregory XI forgave up to six hundred florins. [Ameil was obviously aware that someone had robbed Pope Gregory XI (1370–1378) of a substantial sum.]
Likewise, he should grant indulgence to all his household at the moment of death under the seal of some prelate from his household.
Then the pope himself, or his chamberlain, should summon all his cardinals a day or two or three before his speech fails [this was a lot to ask of a dying pope!], and in their presence he should make his testament and choose his burial place.
He should declare how he is dying and how he wishes to die in the unity of the faith, and how he believes in the one Catholic Church and all the articles of faith, for which he is ready to die.
He should also admit how he did not govern the papacy well, and that he asks some — including the cardinals — to forgive him, and to pardon any he might have unjustly or improperly offended.
He should commend all his household to them [the cardinals].
He should reveal to them [the cardinals] any debts he contracted on behalf of the Church of God, so that his successor may settle them.
He should also tell them who the creditors are, who owes him or the Roman Church, and where the treasures, jewels, and his and the Church’s goods are.
He should grant the cardinals certain favors in the forum of conscience.
He should commend the Church to them [the cardinals] and charge them to provide a good shepherd in peace and tranquility, and — if it seems good to them — that such and such person(s) might be suitable to govern, according to their conscience. [So the pope could actually offer suggestions regarding his successor.]
At the end, he gives them his blessing and tells them to go in peace.
As death approaches, his chamberlains should always be ready to serve him, and they must call his confessor and the prelates of the household, who will administer the sacraments of the Church to him, according to the rite prescribed in the Politicus and the Roman Pontifical.
Then the recommendation of the soul is to be carried out, as contained in the said Pontifical.
While he is in agony, a prelate or priest should hold the consistorial cross before his eyes — without tassel or staff — and have him kiss it frequently, always reminding him of the passion of Christ.
Then the chamberlain should be alert to gather all the pope’s goods into a secure and safe place in case of disturbances. [this is the traditional pillage of papal goods at a pope’s death]
All officials must surrender and account for what they had under their care, and likewise the chamberlains for what was in their custody.
The sacristan of the chapel should hand over all the jewels — not without inventory — in locked boxes. The sacristan should retain the keys himself, because the office is perpetual. [Again, there is fear of plunder. Some curial offices were perpetual and did not cease with the death of the pope, others were attached to the person of the pope and ended with him.]
He [the sacristan] must render an account to the three senior cardinals during the vacancy and be answerable to them.
Once the pope has died — or while he is in agony, which is preferable — the penitentiaries must immediately be called and recite before him the Office of the Dead, the seven penitential psalms, and the other texts found in their book.
Meanwhile, [once the pope died] with the brothers of the Bulla [the Bull Office] (if present) or of the Pignotta [the papal almshouse], the chamberlains prepare warm water with good herbs, and wash well the body [of the deceased]; the barber is to shave his head and beard.
Once washed, the apothecary and the said brothers of the Bulla should properly seal all bodily openings — anus, mouth, ears, nostrils — with cotton or tow, and with myrrh, frankincense, and aloes if they can be obtained.
The body should also be washed with good white wine warmed with fragrant herbs, and with good vernaccia wine, which the pope’s chamberlains or butlers must supply to the washers.
The throat is to be filled with aromatic spices and cotton, and the nostrils with musk.
Finally, the whole body should be thoroughly rubbed and anointed with good balm, especially the hands. The chamberlain, chamberlains, or sacristan who hold the balm should handle this.”
The Body as Symbol: Rituals, Embalming, and Theft
Portrait of Pope Urban V by Simone dei Crocifissi, made around 1375 – Wikimedia Commons
Once prepared, penitentiaries dressed the body in full papal regalia. Some historians argue that moving the pope’s body into a sitting position while dressing him suggests he was carried to the chapel seated—an echo of Byzantine patriarchal funerals. The corpse wore symbolic garments: red for passion, white for purity.
Penitentiaries may also have been involved in embalming. According to their 1290 statutes, they washed the pope’s body with warm water and sweet-smelling wine and wrapped it in silk and mustard-colored cloths. Embalming and elaborately dressing the body, in addition to public viewing, demonstrate then and now a certain objectification of the dead pope. I have argued that the use of wax over the body may have reinforced this symbolism, though I find this more in royal ceremonials than papal ones.
In his Regimen custodiae corporum mortuorum, the famous medieval surgeon Gui de Chauliac (c.1300–1368) distinguished between two types of embalming: a “clean” method for the cold season and thin bodies, and a more invasive one for heavier corpses. In both cases, the body was laid face down to prevent swelling. In cases of swelling, de Chauliac recommended puncturing the abdomen to release “water and wind.” Notably, the body was no longer partitioned. Pope Boniface VIII’s bull Detestande feritatis (1299), also known as de Sepulturis, banned dismemberment for preservation, mandating only minimal embalming to preserve bodily integrity for burial.
Things did not always go smoothly. The valuable vestments on a papal corpse tempted both thieves and thrill-seekers. Jacques de Vitry alluded to the disrobing of Pope Innocent III’s body as it lay waiting to be buried—“some people had ‘furtively’ stripped it of the precious vestments in which it was to have been entombed.” Boccaccio’s tale of Andreuccio da Perugia reminds us this practice extended to archbishops. In the tale, Andreuccio is lured into robbing the grave of the recently deceased Archbishop of Naples and ends up trapped in the tomb until a priest-led gang rescues him—only to resume the plundering.
Even the corpse of Pope Urban V was not immune. When his body was transferred in 1372 from the Cathedral of Notre-Dame-des-Doms in Avignon to the Abbey of Saint-Victor in Marseille, the litter was attacked by a fervent crowd. While this could be read as pious devotion, it also reflects the allure of valuable goods—ritual objects that were easily accessible in death.
The Pope Is Dead—But the Performance Continues
From Clement VI’s theatrical self-awareness to Pope Francis’s modern papal stagecraft, the papacy has never been merely an office—it has always been a performance. The medieval rituals surrounding papal death, with their precise choreography, offer more than historical curiosities; they reveal how the Church sought to shape and control the narrative of continuity, legitimacy, and holiness. These scripts—at once somber, sacred, and strategic—preserved the illusion that the institution never dies, even when the man at its head does. The enduring spectacle of papal death reminds us that history is not only remembered—it is enacted. In death, as in life, the pope remains a symbol, and his body, a stage.
Joëlle Rollo-Koster is professor of medieval history at the University of Rhode Island and a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America. She is the author of Raiding Saint Peter: Empty Sees, Violence, and the Initiation of the Great Western Schism (1378) (Leiden: Brill, 2008); Avignon and its Papacy (1309-1417): Popes, Institutions, and Society (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015); and most recently The Great Western Schism, 1378-1417: Performing Legitimacy, Performing Unity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2022).
Further Readings:
Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, The Pope’s Body, trans. D.S. Peterson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, Morte e elezione del papa: Norme, riti e conflitti (Rome: Viella, 2013)
Michail A. Bojcov, “Der tote Papst im Sessel und andere Gespenster,” in Papst Johanne XXII: Konzepte und Verfahren seines Pontifikats, ed. Hans-Joachim Schmidt and Martin Rohde (Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter, 2014), 501–535.
Marc Dykmans, Le cérémonial papal de la fin du Moyen Âge à la renaissance: Les textes avignonnais jusqu’à la fin du grand schisme d’occident (Bruxelles: Institut historique belge de Rome, 1983).
Marc Dykmans, Le cérémonial papal de la fin du Moyen Âge à la renaissance: Le retour à Rome ou le cérémonial du patriarche Pierre Ameil (Bruxelles: Institut historique belge de Rome, 1985),
Joëlle Rollo-Koster, Raiding Saint Peter: Empty Sees, Violence, and the Initiation of the Great Western Schism (1378) (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008).
Joëlle Rollo-Koster, “Episcopal and Papal Vacancies: A Long History of Violence,” in Ecclesia et Violentia: Violence against the Church and Violence within the Church in the Middle Ages, ed. Radosław Kotecki and Jacek Maciejewski (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), 54–71.
Joëlle Rollo-Koster, ed., Death in Medieval Europe: Death Scripted and Death Choreographed (London: Routledge, 2016).
Joëlle Rollo-Koster, The Great Western Schism, 1378-1417: Performing Legitimacy, Performing Unity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).
What happened when a pope died in the Middle Ages? Behind the closed doors of Rome and Avignon, elaborate rituals unfolded—blending faith, politics, and performance to preserve the illusion that the Church never died.
By Joëlle Rollo-Koster
If the past few weeks have taught historians of the medieval papacy anything, it is that the papacy still matters—its history, too. One of the most flamboyant popes of the fourteenth century, Clement VI, declared upon his 1342 election in Avignon—where the papacy had resided since the early fourteenth century, “Our predecessors did not know how to be popes.” His statement is a strikingly candid acknowledgment of what it means to occupy the papal office.
Being pope involves a great deal of communication. I would argue that Pope Francis understood this deeply and would have agreed with Clement that performance and communication are essential papal tools. Long before modern social science conceptualized performative roles, Clement grasped that he embodied both the institution—the Catholic Church—and himself, the man inhabiting that role. He understood his liminal position, suspended between humanity and sanctity, historical contingency and institutional permanence. Like all popes, past and present, he performed the papacy—in life and in death.
Pope Urban V (1362–1370) captured this performative essence differently. On his deathbed, he asked to be moved to the home of his brother, Anglic Grimoard, then bishop of Avignon, and ordered the palace gates to be opened: “To show that the papacy is immortal even if the pope dies,” he said—and to teach “how popes know to die.”
Performing the Papacy: Life, Death, and Legacy
Most people today have likely seen the images of Pope Francis’s body exposed for public viewing at the Vatican. This ceremony is as old as the papacy itself. We know a great deal about how medieval popes died because the process was scripted—prescribed down to the smallest detail. A good papal death was a public one, and as recent events have shown, it still is. This public ritual was high drama, culminating in the Conclave: its final act.
Historians know much about the actions taken between the death of a pope and the election of his successor—during what is called the sede vacante, or “vacant See”—thanks to books labeled ceremonials or ordines. The most detailed narratives of papal death come from François de Conzié and Pierre Ameil. These texts describe what should happen during the vacancy, beginning with the pope’s agony. Though they are prescriptive, they sometimes contain annotations reflecting actual events.
The Scripted Death of a Pope
These books were intended not only to orchestrate the funerary and conclave rituals but also to underscore that even in death—or near death—the pope remained pope, and his authority could not be usurped. The camerlengo, the penitentiaries, and the cardinals managed daily administration and liturgical matters under strict instructions that no innovation was permitted. The language of the ceremonials was directed at the cardinals, who, throughout the Middle Ages, increasingly displayed oligarchic tendencies and sought a kind of “constitutional papacy.” The sede vacante presented them with their grandest opportunity.
Popes regularly shut down these ambitions, but the tension came to a head during one of the cardinals’ greatest frustrations: the Great Western Schism (1378–1417). In 1378, they elected a pope whom they later deemed unfit, and, drawing on the chaotic, carnivalesque traditions of the sede vacante, they invalidated that election and chose a new pope—while, of course, the other one did not renounce his title. For nearly two generations, Western Christianity had two popes and two courts. As such, the sede vacante was serious business and treated with utmost consideration of the risks involved.
The ceremonials also devoted substantial attention to the physical body of the pope. Pierre Ameil offers more detail on the pope’s agony—and on the treatment of the papal corpse—than François de Conzié. For now, I will focus on Ameil. His script demonstrates that the Church of today still preserves much of its past.
So goes Ameil:
“The physicians who are in charge of his [the pope] care, when they realize that death is approaching and that he cannot escape it, are bound to tell him secretly that he should, above all else, think first of his soul and of his deeds, and they themselves should, as much as they can, focus on the health of his body.
Then they are bound to reveal this secretly to his confessor, so that he may guide him to think of the salvation of his soul, exhorting and admonishing him generally and specifically, according to the knowledge and discretion of the confessor — especially since he (the pope) is the light of the whole world. Therefore, he should set an example to all kings and princes, laypeople and clerics, who in their illnesses turn to God and make arrangements concerning their consciences. He, too, must do so, since he is the head of all Christendom.
He is bound to confess, to receive the Lord’s body [the Eucharist], and to seek indulgence at the moment of death, which the confessor should grant him. He should forgive and show mercy to all his household members, and pardon wrongs and thefts committed against him up to a certain sum of florins, as it pleases His Holiness — just as Pope Gregory XI forgave up to six hundred florins. [Ameil was obviously aware that someone had robbed Pope Gregory XI (1370–1378) of a substantial sum.]
Likewise, he should grant indulgence to all his household at the moment of death under the seal of some prelate from his household.
Then the pope himself, or his chamberlain, should summon all his cardinals a day or two or three before his speech fails [this was a lot to ask of a dying pope!], and in their presence he should make his testament and choose his burial place.
He should declare how he is dying and how he wishes to die in the unity of the faith, and how he believes in the one Catholic Church and all the articles of faith, for which he is ready to die.
He should also admit how he did not govern the papacy well, and that he asks some — including the cardinals — to forgive him, and to pardon any he might have unjustly or improperly offended.
He should commend all his household to them [the cardinals].
He should reveal to them [the cardinals] any debts he contracted on behalf of the Church of God, so that his successor may settle them.
He should also tell them who the creditors are, who owes him or the Roman Church, and where the treasures, jewels, and his and the Church’s goods are.
He should grant the cardinals certain favors in the forum of conscience.
He should commend the Church to them [the cardinals] and charge them to provide a good shepherd in peace and tranquility, and — if it seems good to them — that such and such person(s) might be suitable to govern, according to their conscience. [So the pope could actually offer suggestions regarding his successor.]
At the end, he gives them his blessing and tells them to go in peace.
As death approaches, his chamberlains should always be ready to serve him, and they must call his confessor and the prelates of the household, who will administer the sacraments of the Church to him, according to the rite prescribed in the Politicus and the Roman Pontifical.
Then the recommendation of the soul is to be carried out, as contained in the said Pontifical.
While he is in agony, a prelate or priest should hold the consistorial cross before his eyes — without tassel or staff — and have him kiss it frequently, always reminding him of the passion of Christ.
Then the chamberlain should be alert to gather all the pope’s goods into a secure and safe place in case of disturbances. [this is the traditional pillage of papal goods at a pope’s death]
All officials must surrender and account for what they had under their care, and likewise the chamberlains for what was in their custody.
The sacristan of the chapel should hand over all the jewels — not without inventory — in locked boxes. The sacristan should retain the keys himself, because the office is perpetual. [Again, there is fear of plunder. Some curial offices were perpetual and did not cease with the death of the pope, others were attached to the person of the pope and ended with him.]
He [the sacristan] must render an account to the three senior cardinals during the vacancy and be answerable to them.
Once the pope has died — or while he is in agony, which is preferable — the penitentiaries must immediately be called and recite before him the Office of the Dead, the seven penitential psalms, and the other texts found in their book.
Meanwhile, [once the pope died] with the brothers of the Bulla [the Bull Office] (if present) or of the Pignotta [the papal almshouse], the chamberlains prepare warm water with good herbs, and wash well the body [of the deceased]; the barber is to shave his head and beard.
Once washed, the apothecary and the said brothers of the Bulla should properly seal all bodily openings — anus, mouth, ears, nostrils — with cotton or tow, and with myrrh, frankincense, and aloes if they can be obtained.
The body should also be washed with good white wine warmed with fragrant herbs, and with good vernaccia wine, which the pope’s chamberlains or butlers must supply to the washers.
The throat is to be filled with aromatic spices and cotton, and the nostrils with musk.
Finally, the whole body should be thoroughly rubbed and anointed with good balm, especially the hands. The chamberlain, chamberlains, or sacristan who hold the balm should handle this.”
The Body as Symbol: Rituals, Embalming, and Theft
Once prepared, penitentiaries dressed the body in full papal regalia. Some historians argue that moving the pope’s body into a sitting position while dressing him suggests he was carried to the chapel seated—an echo of Byzantine patriarchal funerals. The corpse wore symbolic garments: red for passion, white for purity.
Penitentiaries may also have been involved in embalming. According to their 1290 statutes, they washed the pope’s body with warm water and sweet-smelling wine and wrapped it in silk and mustard-colored cloths. Embalming and elaborately dressing the body, in addition to public viewing, demonstrate then and now a certain objectification of the dead pope. I have argued that the use of wax over the body may have reinforced this symbolism, though I find this more in royal ceremonials than papal ones.
In his Regimen custodiae corporum mortuorum, the famous medieval surgeon Gui de Chauliac (c.1300–1368) distinguished between two types of embalming: a “clean” method for the cold season and thin bodies, and a more invasive one for heavier corpses. In both cases, the body was laid face down to prevent swelling. In cases of swelling, de Chauliac recommended puncturing the abdomen to release “water and wind.” Notably, the body was no longer partitioned. Pope Boniface VIII’s bull Detestande feritatis (1299), also known as de Sepulturis, banned dismemberment for preservation, mandating only minimal embalming to preserve bodily integrity for burial.
Things did not always go smoothly. The valuable vestments on a papal corpse tempted both thieves and thrill-seekers. Jacques de Vitry alluded to the disrobing of Pope Innocent III’s body as it lay waiting to be buried—“some people had ‘furtively’ stripped it of the precious vestments in which it was to have been entombed.” Boccaccio’s tale of Andreuccio da Perugia reminds us this practice extended to archbishops. In the tale, Andreuccio is lured into robbing the grave of the recently deceased Archbishop of Naples and ends up trapped in the tomb until a priest-led gang rescues him—only to resume the plundering.
Even the corpse of Pope Urban V was not immune. When his body was transferred in 1372 from the Cathedral of Notre-Dame-des-Doms in Avignon to the Abbey of Saint-Victor in Marseille, the litter was attacked by a fervent crowd. While this could be read as pious devotion, it also reflects the allure of valuable goods—ritual objects that were easily accessible in death.
The Pope Is Dead—But the Performance Continues
From Clement VI’s theatrical self-awareness to Pope Francis’s modern papal stagecraft, the papacy has never been merely an office—it has always been a performance. The medieval rituals surrounding papal death, with their precise choreography, offer more than historical curiosities; they reveal how the Church sought to shape and control the narrative of continuity, legitimacy, and holiness. These scripts—at once somber, sacred, and strategic—preserved the illusion that the institution never dies, even when the man at its head does. The enduring spectacle of papal death reminds us that history is not only remembered—it is enacted. In death, as in life, the pope remains a symbol, and his body, a stage.
Joëlle Rollo-Koster is professor of medieval history at the University of Rhode Island and a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America. She is the author of Raiding Saint Peter: Empty Sees, Violence, and the Initiation of the Great Western Schism (1378) (Leiden: Brill, 2008); Avignon and its Papacy (1309-1417): Popes, Institutions, and Society (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015); and most recently The Great Western Schism, 1378-1417: Performing Legitimacy, Performing Unity (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2022).
Further Readings:
Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, The Pope’s Body, trans. D.S. Peterson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
Agostino Paravicini Bagliani, Morte e elezione del papa: Norme, riti e conflitti (Rome: Viella, 2013)
Michail A. Bojcov, “Der tote Papst im Sessel und andere Gespenster,” in Papst Johanne XXII: Konzepte und Verfahren seines Pontifikats, ed. Hans-Joachim Schmidt and Martin Rohde (Berlin, Boston: de Gruyter, 2014), 501–535.
Marc Dykmans, Le cérémonial papal de la fin du Moyen Âge à la renaissance: Les textes avignonnais jusqu’à la fin du grand schisme d’occident (Bruxelles: Institut historique belge de Rome, 1983).
Marc Dykmans, Le cérémonial papal de la fin du Moyen Âge à la renaissance: Le retour à Rome ou le cérémonial du patriarche Pierre Ameil (Bruxelles: Institut historique belge de Rome, 1985),
Joëlle Rollo-Koster, Raiding Saint Peter: Empty Sees, Violence, and the Initiation of the Great Western Schism (1378) (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008).
Joëlle Rollo-Koster, “Episcopal and Papal Vacancies: A Long History of Violence,” in Ecclesia et Violentia: Violence against the Church and Violence within the Church in the Middle Ages, ed. Radosław Kotecki and Jacek Maciejewski (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014), 54–71.
Joëlle Rollo-Koster, ed., Death in Medieval Europe: Death Scripted and Death Choreographed (London: Routledge, 2016).
Joëlle Rollo-Koster, The Great Western Schism, 1378-1417: Performing Legitimacy, Performing Unity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).
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