In the late Middle Ages onwards, after the Black Death had killed nearly a third of the population, it became popular to carry trinkets of death. #Art would feature dancing skeletons and people would wear amulets of the Grim Reaper. The French philosopher #Montaigne encouraged people to visit graveyards, so ‘to deprive #death of its strangeness.’ This is all to do with what philosophers call ‘memento mori’ or death memory. Memento mori is the idea that if you focus on death, you can enjoy the li