Although much has been published on the social history of death, this is the first book to give a comprehensive account of attitudes toward the dead—above all the "placing" of the dead, in physical, spiritual and social terms—in order to reveal the social and religious outlook of past societies. The contributions range widely geographically, from Scotland to Transylvania, and address a spectrum of themes: attitudes toward the corpse, patterns of burial, forms of commemoration, the treatment of dead infants, the nature of the afterlife, and ghosts.