At 09:37 24.09.98 +0100, you wrote:
>Dear All
>I have a query on behalf of a friend and colleague, who is about 2/3 of
>his way through his doctoral research. [It is not strictly speaking a
>'religion' query, but you're all so well read and learned that I don't
>think this will matter!]. Said friend is researching changes in castles,
>and their sociocultural meanings; and has a problem with water (its
>presence or absence). In any case, the big query is - does anyone know of
>any modern scholarship to do with the medieval symbolism of water? _Any_
>kind of water, not just castle-moat water...? If anyone out there can
help, I
>would be most grateful.
Dear John,
I suppose that the following is not much concerned with the *symbolism* of
water, but at least it is brand-new (from my forthcoming Italian-Studies
booklist):
Squatriti, Paolo
Water and Society in Early Medieval Italy, 400-1000.
Cambridge / New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998, 208 pp.
ISBN 0-521-62192-5
My DBF contains a Dante entry borrowed from second hand and for the quality
of which I cannot vouch:
TRAVI Ernesto
Emblematismo dantesco: l'acqua. In: Annali dell'Istituto di
Studi Danteschi 1 (1967) [= Pubblicazioni dell'Universita\
del Sacro Cuore, Milano: Soc. Editr. Vita e Pensiero]
Again from my Dante materials, I can refer you to Manfred Bambeck, _Studien
zu Dantes _Paradiso_, Stuttgart: Steiner, 1979: chap. IV, taking its issue
from Pd 5,75 ("e non crediate che'ogni acqua vi lavi"), adduces patristic
and medieval interpretations of water figuring bad or contradicting
doctrines, as in the exegesis of the "multae aquae" of Ps 31,6; chap. XII,
takings it issue from Pd 12,97ss. (about Domenicus as "quasi torrente
ch'alta vena | preme" in his fight of heresy), adduces passages
interpreting "torrens" or "torrentes" in the Bible (Iob 20,17; Ps 45,5; Is
35,9; Ez 47,7) as a figure of exaltation by the Hl. Ghost (according to B.,
although his quotations do not generally confirm what he reads in them);
chap. XX, taking its issue from Pd 27,121ss. ("Oh cupidigia che i mortali
affonde | si\ sotto te, che nessuno ha podere di trarre li occhi fuor de le
tue onde"), adduces patristic and medieval passages with water as a figure
of covetousness in the exegesis of Ct 8,7; Mt 7,25; Mt 17,4; Is 23,2 (but
B. strangely neglects more closely matching traditions like the exegesis of
the Red Sea swallowing the Egyptians).
Moving away from my Dante materials, for the rivers of paradise see Ernst
Schlee, _Die Ikonographie der Paradiesesflu"sse_, Leipzig 1937; Sibylle
Ma"hl, _Quadriga virtutum: die Kardinaltugenden in der Geistesgeschichte
der Karolingerzeit_, Ko"ln / Wien: Bo"hlau, 1969 (= Beihefte zum Archiv
fu"r Kulturgeschichte, 9); Reinhold Grimm, _Paradisus coelestis, Paradisus
terrestris: Zur Auslegungsgeschichte des Paradieses im Abendland bis um
1200_, Mu"nchen: Fink, 1977 (= Medium Aevum, 33); and for the Geon/Nilus
specifically A. Hermann, _Der Nil und die Christen_, Jahrbuch fu"r Antike
und Christentum 2 (1959), p.30-69. Water as a figure of baptism can be
found a bit everywhere, see, for instance, Jean Danie/lou in _Recherches de
science religieuse (1946), p.402-430 (Exodus and baptism) and in Dieu
Vivant 8 (1947), p.97-112 (deluge and baptism). For "flumina de ventre
eius" (Io 7,37-38) see Biblica 22 (1941), p.269-302, p.367-403 (by Hugo
Rahner), in Revue de l'Universite/ d'Ottawa (1954), p.5-25 (by Me/nard),
and in Revue biblique (1958), p.523-546 (by Boismard).
There is a lot more, but "water" is such a general and ubiquitious topic
that I avoided to use it as as a keyword for storing entries in my
bibliography.
Best,
Otfried
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