medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
In this context, does anyone else know that lovely bit of medievalism,
the poem "Our Lady of the Sackcloth" by Rudyard Kipling ? I have always
understood it to be based firmly on a Byzantine legend but have never
attempted to trace it. It does, however, deal imaginatively with this
problem: a aspirant-to-sainthood bishop buys the hair cloth, the shears and
the thread but lacks the skill to make himself a hair shirt and shrinks from
the gossip that will be engendered if he asks one of the women in his
congregation to do it for him. A mysterious woman (later revealed as Our
Lady) does the job for him secretly but the price she exacts is a better
exercise in humility than ever the hairshirt could be.
But this does illustrate the problem Anne Schutte is raising - tho not
offering a practical solution....
In the case of hair shirts I suspect they might well be made by the
aspirant's (female) next of kin or devoted followers. In the same way that
friends / family often embroider the stole for a priest's ordination. (This
latter is certainly a tradition in my branch of the Anglican communion.)
BMC
Subject: [M-R] Instruments of bodily mortification
* * * * * * *
. Does anyone
know how devout people in the Middle Ages and early modern period procured
instruments of bodily mortification: cilices, disciplines, hair-shirts?
Could they get
them in shops? Or did they have to special-order them from artisans
(blacksmiths, rope-makers, tailors)? Conceivably, a experienced amateur
seamstress with
access to scratchy fabric could stitch up her own hair-shirt, and someone
with extraordinarily strong hands could knot up a passable discipline.
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