medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
>You might try looking at the art of the period. Though late, you
>probably can learn a lot from all three of the Breughels as well as H.
>Bosch. yrs, tom ault
>
*Really* late...
One of the problems is the mutability and variety of belief. I would
imagine (and others would too) that events like the Black Death would
impact upon the mentalite of an age, and thus the views of
joe(sephine) average in the fourteenth or fifteenth century would
probably be pretty different from those in the 11th or 12th c.
Moreover, there was no joe average. One of the questions that
fascinates me is the divergence of religious belief that appears to
have existed between the literati and the rustici (and those in
between). Using the earlier example of perceptions of the miraculous
-- Were these perceptions the same for the educated cleric recording
those miracles, as they were for the formerly-blind beggar who
regained his sight (for example)? I would doubt it.
The problem of course is that the literati dominate the sources.
Nevertheless, there are glimpses that suggest that the spirituality
of "ordinary" people may have varied quite a bit. There is the well
known example from the Fournier records (14th c.) in which a woman
explains her concept of sinful behaviour -- that essentially it was a
sin to have sex with a man (actually a priest, just to make it more
complicated) you did not love, but not sinful if you loved him.
Granted, she was exposed to Cathar beliefs (which is why the
inquisitors were interested in her), but those ideas hardly reflect
Cathar dogma either! Is this just her own idea, or was it something
more popular?
I add this because there is a great risk when attempting to
understand things like the spirituality of the Middle Ages of both:
1) underemphasizing the degree to which "the Middle Ages" changed
over time, and people changed
AND
2) being overly reductionist in describing "the people" of the Middle
Ages as an amorphous mass, instead of a very varied group of people.
Just some words of caution :)
--
Nicole Morgan Schulman <[log in to unmask]>
_._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._.
Omittamus studia dulce est desipere et carpamus dulcia iuventutis tenere
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