I took the gist of Renihan's question to be:
"To what extent would it be true to say that
medieval Europeans lived in a fundamentalist
religious society?"
This kind of discussion is certainly a way to
address the "relevancy" question. Surely
*some* of the academics who subscribe to
the list are teachers and not researchers only;
and for some of these individuals, the charge
of irrelevancy must surface at least now and then,
even if the only people to make such a charge
are benighted freshmen and university administrators.
I was hoping for (and got) learned discussion
on at least some of these topics:
public penances
Medieval Media: Pulpits, Pageants, Paintings
(that title can be yours for only $2/per alliterating consonant)
treatment of heretics and suppression of heresies
inter-faith wars / pogroms
restrictions on inter-faith social intercourse
inter-faith harmony and cultural synthesis (e.g. Spain)
conversion practices
tithes and taxes
sins<->crimes / jurisdiction of church courts
the-end-is-nigh
theology and the university curriculum
I'd be happy to see the discussion not go away.
Tim Romano
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|