In Death and the Miser, how is the The foreground of the Subject and interpretation elucidated?
The meaning of the foreground is still unclear and debated by art historians, though they're reasonably certain about the symbolism inside the room.  The Ars moriendi does not contain a depiction of armor, or even pieces of it, and no other influence has satisfactorily explained their presence.  Most hypotheses fall into two schools of thought; the fabric, weapons, and armor are of symbolic significance, or they represent the miser's former life, before Death came to take him.  Art historians' opinions have seem to run the gamut of possibilities just in the 20th century alone, which include the following by no less than a dozen art historians:The objects represent an evil or malevolent force, the vanity of earthly goods, and the folly of earthly desires.  They are placed there to be traps by the devil, to tempt you away from the Christian path, but their disregard in the scene shows that these earthly goods cannot help you against death.  The depiction of such inorganic objects to symbolize earthly vanity, transience or decay would become a genre in itself among Flemish artists.
They symbolize power, potentially even anger, and how the miser came to be wealthy.
The miser died as a knight; the weapons and armor are representative of his station.
The man might have been a knight, but he was also a dishonest steward and death has come for him.
Gold is more useful than a knight's courage and bravery, implied by placing the gold as a central subject and part of the miser's final struggle while his knightly attire has been discarded in the foreground and outside the main events of the scene.
The whole painting is satire about nobility and chivalry , the items symbolic of the aristocracy and their avarice.
The red fabric could be evil, but combined with the armor has also been interpreted as a symbol for St. Martin of Tours, who famously used his military sword to cut his cloak in half to give to a beggar who lacked sufficient clothing for the winter.  The architecture serves as a line between Christian generosity, symbolized by St. Martin's items in the foreground, and greed, illustrated within the room.
The objects represent items that would have been pawned by knights, i.e. jousting equipment, or textile goods from the poor, as an allusion to usury.No single theory has been accepted as the most correct, with art historians themselves admitting that none of the proposed explanations are entirely appropriate or suitably thorough.  Schlüter and Vinken propose an alternate source to their predecessors in the form of biblical texts themselves, namely Letter to the Ephesians 6:10-17, where St. Paul makes several mentions of the armor of God: "Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the while of the devil" (Ephesians 6:11); "Whereupon take unto you the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand" (Ephesians 6:13); "Stand therefore having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace" (Ephesians 6:14-15).
Throughout the following verses, St. Paul mentions specific pieces of armor, assigning certain aspects of Christianity to them; the helmet of salvation, the shield of faith, the hauberk of justice, and the sword of spirit, which represents the word of God itself.  There are also other references to armor with assigned moral attributes in non-religious texts of the time period, such as the pieces of Lancelot's armor representing a knight's duty to the Church, and chivalry.
Church Christ sin Martin of Tours Ars moriendi pawn Death Lancelot's miser aristocracy nobility St. Paul Letter to the Ephesians devil chivalry satire avarice Lancelot knight St. Martin of Tours