While practices at late medieval deathbeds were prescribed to strengthen the deeds to effectuate the merits of the dying person, the message of the reformers was that salvation depended on faith in the meritorious suffering of Christ alone.
The experience of death was a point where the doctrine of justification by faith alone came to an ultimate expression. Literary instructions on consolation at the deathbed hence constituted an important part of the work of the reformers.
These instructions appeared both as sermons, as manuals for use at the deathbed and as smaller treatises within summaries of Reformation teaching.
The first contribution to the genre of ars moriendi, originally written in Danish, was Nicolai Palladius’ treatise Huorlunde ith Christet Menniske skal paa sin Soteseng beskicke sig til Døden, Predicket i Kiøbenhaffn, Copenhagen 1558. This work was reprinted in 1562, 1569, 1570, 1575, and 1580.
Palladius’ text was preceded as well as succeded by several shorter texts on dying, mostly translations of German treatises. Among them we find:
Thomas Venatorius, Ein kurtz unterricht den Sterbenden menschen … (1527), published in Danish as Een kort vnderwysning gátske salig oc trostelig att forholde thennõ som ligge ÿ theris helsot, Rostock 1529.
Martin Luther, Eyn Sermon von der bereytung zum sterben (1519), published in Danish in 1538.
Urbanus Rhegius, Seelen ärtzney fur gesund und Krancken … (1529), published in Danish: Siælens Lægedom /for de karske oc sywge / i disse farlige tider / oc i dødz nød, Copenhagen 1544.
Veit Dietrich, Einfeltiger unterricht, wie man das Vater unser beten soll ... (1545), published in Danish: En enfolding underuisning paa Fader vor/ som Vitus Theodorus screff for sin gode Ven / oc om det høyuerdige Sacramente / Oc huorledis huer Christen skal skicke sig til døden, Wittenberg 1552.
The research project Death in Early Protestant Tradition undertakes an investigation of the early books on dying published in Denmark-Norway.
Other devotional texts
The Protestant regulation of death came to the fore in several literary genres, as hymns, prayerbooks and several theological treatises, as Niels Palladius “Om Dommedagen” (“On doomsday”) (1558).
A faximilie of the Danish hymnary (1569) by Hans Thomesen (1532 – 1573)