On Fri, 26 Jul 1996, Richard Landes wrote:
>
> not my position; and i will guard against sounding like it is. i think
> the hostility to lay preaching goes far deeper than mean-spiritedness; it
> has to do with the fact that an aristocratically-staffed church which has
> committed itself to the stability of an aristocratically dominated
> society is stuck with a body of canonical texts which systematically
> undermine the claims of an aristocracy to dominion. they are
> understandably nervous about commoners' readings of these texts. how else
> can we explain the resistance of so many clergy to the translation of a
> text which was itself a translation (and in the case of the words of
> Jesus, even in the original was a translation)? this is not to say that
> xnty cannot produce a stable and (reasonably) just society (by its own
> standards); but it does suggest that there was more than one person in
> medieval europe who found the argument: "we need this for the sake of
> social stability" a bit self-serving and not very convincing.
So a pro-aristocracy bias is one of the handful of biases that cannot
contribute to insight and advancing scholarship? A pro-stability bias
does not have equal standing at the bar with a pro-commoner bias? Having
lived in stable society most of our lives, we can afford, perhaps, the
luxury of a bias in favor of instability and revolution. But, looking
down the road a bit, stability and prevention of anarchy becomes more
attractive to some of us.
>
> > And, given the last 30 years in Western European and American
> > popular culture, I think that a bias stemming from a now
> > deeply engrained chip-on-the-shoulder anti-institutionalism is a greater
> > danger to scholarly interpretations of the Middle Ages than is a
> > pro-authority, traditionalist bias.
>
> harumph! i don't think we need to decide which is worse. let's find a way
> to make the insights from both sets of "sympathies" give us a fuller
> picture of what went on. the last thing we need is to retreat from the
> insights into social history of the last generation into another round of
> conservative, pro-authority, readings of so complex a phenomenon as the
> relgious world of the middle ages.
But aren't you deciding that one is worse in your earlier comments about
how a concern for stability by aristocratic leaders messed things up?
>
> > But then, perhaps I am prejudiced in my assessment of the last 30 years
> > in the West! (Let she who is without bias cast the first stone!)
>
> being of the male persuasion, i don't think i'm allowed to toss too many
> stones. (ingenuousness not being a stone, but a stick). i consider myself
> in the annales school of mentalite. rather than dodge-stone, lets work on
> building some new structures.
I prefer to cultivate old structures, myself! But you are entitled to
your preferences as long as you don't dismiss mine.
Cordialiter,
Dennis Martin
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