Dear List Members
Another perspective on the question of suffering is provided by
Esther Cohen, Towards a History of European Physical Sensibility: Pain in
the Later Middle Ages, Science in Context, 1995, pp. 47-74.
Cohen argues that late medieval people saw pain as a positive force, a
useful tool for reaching a variety of truths, and that this attitude may
explain features of contemporary medical practice.
The question of suffering is also central to a number of anonymous Middle
English texts of spiritual advice. These include the Contemplations of the
Dread and Love of God (EETS 1993) and the Chastising of God's Children (ed.
Joyce Bazire and Eric Colledge, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1957).
The notes to the EETS edition of the Contemplations refer on page 121 to
Augustine's Enarrrationes in Psalmos, Psalm CII, Section 20, which notes
that
Quod pateris, unde plangis, medicina est, non poena; castigato est non
damnatio. Noli repellere flagellum, si non uis repelli ab hereditate, noli
adtendere quam paenam habeas in flagello, sed quem locum in testamento
(CCSL, xl, 1469).
This stands (IMHO) as a wonderful proof text on the Medieval attitude
towards human suffering.
The concept that God allows tribulation to chastise human beings in the
same way that a mother appears to ill-use her child for the child's benefit
is something of a commonplace in medieval English works, both Latin and ME.
This idea is found in the Ancrene Wisse, the Poor Catiff, the Stimulus
Amoris etc (see F. N. M. Diekstra, A Good Remedie Agens Spirituel
Temptacions Š, English Studies, 1995, 4, pp. 307-354). Of
It is certainly true that medieval people saw pain as a particularly
effective method of communicating instruction. The latin term disciplina
meant both punishment/chastisement and study. The idea "no pain, no gain"
was fundamental to medieval education, penitential practice, popular
memnomics (cf George Homan's reference to boys being beaten at different
points on the parish bounds to ensure that they remembered the exact
position of the boundry) and of course the enforcement of social mores and
law.
Hope this is all not too far off the track.
Yours
Cameron Barnes
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