medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
As I recall, Gurevich's posits a theory that the original/natural religion of the medieval peasantry was a kind of dualism based on fear of the devil against which the official church waged a constant struggle. He therefore reads church resistance to dualist heresy as evidence of popular culture (hence his title) emerging from the constraints of institutional church power. I may be misreading him here (must reread the book), but this struck me as not very convincing at the time - and also based on the conceit that the "people" were not fully converted to Christianity. Shades of Margaret Murray.
Hilary Carey
>>> [log in to unmask] 10/16/01 10:00 AM >>>
I have not been paying strict attention to this thread, but has
anyone yet mentioned Aron Gurevich's _Medieval Popular Clture: Problems of
belief and perception_ ? Its trans. from Russian, and published by
Cambridge UP, with its first chapter relaying "Popular culture and medieval
latin literature from Caesarius of Arles to Caesarius of Heisterbach. And
there is also J-C Schmitt's _The Holy Greyhound_ which is an excellent
study of Burgundian popular piety vs Papal power in the 11/12th century and
later (I believe I'm recalling the date correctly).
Leah Rutchick
At 02:36 PM 10/15/01 -0500, you wrote:
>medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
>
>Not to be too immodest, but I have a chapter on the laity and the
>liturgical community, which might address some of these questions, in
>my book, Consorting with Saints: Prayer for the Dead in Early
>Medieval France (Cornell UP, 1994)
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