medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I entirely take the correspondents' points about the need
for hard evidence, but even if the Trappists didn't go in for this kind of
practice, it does appear to have been seriously recommended in the later Middle
Ages to anchorites (some of whom were buried in their cells). I don't just
mean the recommendation in the C13 Middle English anchoritic guide _Ancrene
Wisse_ that the anchoress should use her hands daily to scrape earth from the
grave in which she will rot, since this could in isolation be read as
metaphorical; but Dr Eddie Jones at Exeter has found other instances
of this recommendation in contexts where it can only be literal---though since
I'm not sure whether he has published on it yet, you'll have to take my word for
it,
best wishes
Bella M.
Dr Bella Millett
English, School of Humanities
University
of Southampton
Highfield
Southampton
SO17 1BJ
t: 023 80593704
e:
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www: http://www.soton.ac.uk/~enm/
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and
culture
On 21/02/07, Christopher Crockett
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
as
i said, i once saw --early on in my Book Dealing Career, nearly 30
years
ago-- a small cut depicting at least what i believed then (i don't
remember
why) was a monk digging his own grave (i.e., not that of another
monk). my (very dim) memory is that something in the context was Trappist; and
the
date was 17th c. or so.
Wouldn't that be evidence for the existence of the story, but not
necessarily for the existence of the practice (depending, of course, on the
nature of the book you mention)? Whether the story is factual is the question
Anne Thayer has posed. Maybe there is some foundation for the story about the
Trappists in De Rancé's writings, but I still feel very skeptical about the
existence of the specific practice: "nisi videro... non credam".
i
remember it because it seemed to me to be a particularly _a
propos_
practice; why the modren Church would be ashamed of it is quite
beyond my ken,
There's no doubt about the important
place meditation on death had as a spiritual practice, in Europe especially from
the 15th century on, which is why I think it's worth considering the
grave-tending story in the context of the Ars moriendi. Vandenbroucke (in
Spirituality of the Middle Ages, ET 1968, 485) puts the Artes moriendi under the
rubric of the "pessimism" and "macabre sensibility" of the 15th c., and while
there may be some truth in that, it's hardly a great insight into a long-lasting
and influential literature.
The "denial of death" is supposedly a key
feature of modern culture. As you suggest, it enjoys limited success in the end,
but that is perhaps a discussion for another forum.
The "Victorian
houses" at Parkminster, John Briggs, surely do not compare to the surpassingly
elegant Michelangelo-designed cells of the Rome Charterhouse, which is
unfortunately very difficult to see. You can get a glimpse from via Cernaia and
they do look extremely beautiful. An aerial photo is here http://tinyurl.com/yvpx3c (surviving cells
on the left) and there is other documentation on the website. -- Paul
Chandler
--
Paul Chandler,
O.Carm. | Institutum Carmelitanum
via Sforza
Pallavicini, 10 | 00193 -
Roma | Italy
tel:
+39-06-68.10.08.70 | fax: +39-06-68.30.72.00
[log in to unmask] | carmelitana.blogspot.com
which is here, near St Peter's and
Castel S. Angelo: <
http://tinyurl.com/ycddsl> (A marks the spot)
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