Can anybody tell me a little about the date, authorship, and provenance of
the Compline hymn "Te Lucis Ante Terminum"? Any sources to check out?
On a related problem (the hymn worries about "noctium phantasmata . . . ne
polluantur corpora") is anyone on the list aware of medieval (preferably
pre- 12th century) discussion of nocturnal pollution? I'm making in a
point in an article that on the whole, monastic authors of the middle
Middle Ages didn't worry much about bodily pollution, as much as theorists
and practitioners of some other religions might--the glaring exception to
this observation being the problem of "noctium phantasmata". (Were
medieval monastics indeed worried about this at all, or is this a concern
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries?)
Someone might, of course, tell me I'm all washed up (no pun intended) on
this -- please do, if you're inclined.
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Patrick J. Nugent
Earlham College
Richmond, Indiana 47374 USA
(765) 983-1413
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