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medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

> Are they truly transcendent? Aren't they actually the product of a modern
> mind looking at ancient ideas? As such, they may make mythology "relevant"
> to modern mindsets (though I'm always a bit baffled by the need to make
> mythology "relevant") but they distort the underlying mythos in the process.
> If you want to examine something on its own and see what "models" a people
> used in their own time and their own terms--not Jung's or anyone else's,
> that's fine because you're using their own language and mindset. But to
> assume that a modern system will fit the mindset and worldview of an ancient
> people will inevitably result in remoulding the older culture. To impose any
> archtypes on an ancient or medieval or modern people is to assume that their
> worldview includes such generalizations. It also necessitates categorizing
> and *thinking* in terms that would be unknown to that people. To put it
> another way, it's talking about Irish concepts with English words and anyone
> familiar with a Celtic language knows that you very quickly find words and
> ways of talking without exact equivalents in English (as you do, of course,
> in any translation effort). English words do *not* fit a lot of Irish
> concepts. Jungian archtypes don't fit ancient and medieval concepts of
> deity.

Dear Francine,
I take your point, but finding equivalent means of expression
that *we* can understand for historical phenomena is, to some extent,
what the practice of history is all about.  I am currently struggling
to understand literally hundreds of stories throughout France, dating
largely from the Middle Ages, explaining the origins of local statues
of the Virgin, which all take the same shape: the statue was found in
a tree, or by a spring, or in a grotto, by a shepherd, a shepherdess,
an ox, a cow, etc.  The shepherd piously takes the statue home, only
to find the next day that it has returned to where he found it.
Finally a chapel must be built on the find site. The spring
and/or the statue begin to work miracles.  Trying to *explain* this
sort of phenomenon using the mindset of the people among whom such
topoi originated would leave us simply with: it was a miracle!  I
don't wish to deny that it was, but I am more concerned to understand
and/or explain to a contemporary audience why so many stories are so
similar.  One certainly can't go to the theologians of the Church for
such explanations, and the realm of myth looms everywhere one turns.
Just what "myths" are or were, and how to explain them, is another
matter.  I'm not sure what Jung would make of all this, but some sort
of modern explanation, I think, would be useful.
Bibliographic suggestions on this topic, by the way, would be gladly
accepted.
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag

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