Assisted Dying
[AGONIZANTS.]
Règles et indulgences de la confrérie des agonisans, erigée dans l’eglise abbatiale de RR. PP. Bénédictins de Besançon, dont l’anniversaire solemnel se fait chaque année le Ier dimanche de Carême … Avec les prieres pour les agonisans … Besançon, Jean-Mathieu Couché, [1769].
8vo, pp. 60; woodcut skull and crossbones to title; slightly toned in places; very good in contemporary calf, spine lettered in gilt, marbled endpapers, red edges; old repairs to spine ends and corners.
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Règles et indulgences de la confrérie des agonisans, erigée dans l’eglise abbatiale de RR. PP. Bénédictins de Besançon, dont l’anniversaire solemnel se fait chaque année le Ier dimanche de Carême … Avec les prieres pour les agonisans …
Very rare set of rules for male and female members of a confraternity of Agonizants established at the Benedictine abbey in Besançon, in the east of France.
‘The last moment of our life is decisive for our eternity: it will be happy or unhappy; this final moment unites us with God or separates us from him’ (trans.). So opens the preface here, before describing how members of the confraternity, ‘at the mournful sound of the bell’, would rush as a group to help the dying with their prayers.
Following the text of the 1719 papal bull establishing the confraternity come its rules, indulgences granted to its members, liturgical texts in facing Latin and French for pre- and post-mortem, and meditational reflexions on the end of life. Five supplementary statutes appear at the end, the latest dated July 1769. Jean-Mathieu Couché (1708–1782) served as printer to the archbishop of Besançon as well as to the city’s university.
No copies traced in the UK or US. CCfr records a single copy, at BM Besançon.