Dear Cecilia,
I share your frustration with this problem and have no real definitive answers. But I strongly suspect that the growth of lay confraternities is a significant part of the picture. Confraternities, however, have not, to my knowledge anyway, been very thoroughly investigated for the 12th and 13th centuries. There is enough in Catherine Vincent's book on medieval French confraternities to suggest that they had become important by this period, but like most scholars who have dealt with confraternities, she focuses on the 14th century and later, when there are lots of documents to study. Even more remarkably, Herbert Grundmann, in his otherwise remarkable book on Religious Movements of the Middle Ages, says nothing at all about confraternities. I sometimes wonder whether they exist only in my imagination, or whether this is a real gap in the scholarship. Probably, however, it is more a question of my own ignorance of the literature on this (and not having Italian, I have not been able to read Meersseman's book on confraternities). There are so many specializations within medieval studies! Ergo, as you say, the value of this list.
Cheers,
Jim

From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious culture [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Cecilia Gaposchkin [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: June 9, 2014 9:14 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [M-R] Lay / popular piety/spirituality (12-13c)

medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Hello smart people, I need your help. I am trying to get my head around what we we mean when we say there was a shift in lay or popular piety, or spirituality, in the 13th century. Yes, I know this is the age of Francis and Dominic. Yes, I know that something has changed with penitential culture (but what has changed?); Yes, I know that the notion of imitatio christi has shifted to a greater focus on passion (although anyone who has seriously read the sources for the first crusade might dispute this), and of "affective" suffering. I know there is an increase in lay literacy (and, by the way, what does this mean for lay understanding/participation/involvement in the liturgy? Does anyone know?)

I say this having read much of the literature and having myself written some of it. But it is so complicated, I'm hoping for anyone who has some good thoughts on this to share them. What do you see as the characteristic features of the shift? How do we know this? How is it manifest? And actually, as I type, I'm curious about anyone's thoughts on this idea of lay involvement in the liturgy.

I am (again) thinking about all of this in context with crusading. I realize I have not deal with this adequately, which means I have not understood it adequately. And as always, I appreciate so much the warm generosity of the intellectual community of this list.

Thanks

cecilia

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