Gordon,
Give a beginning date and end date (these can be approximate) for the
medieval period as you see it. Without this, it's difficult to follow what
you're saying.
pat
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In a message dated 01/15/2000 2:47:23 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:
> I would like to suggest that from one point of view, medieval *studies*
> are
> in
> the present, not in the past, and in a sense can't be confined to some
> period
> defined by endpoints in some calendat. What happened, or what was said
> and done, in the period from X AD to Y AD (X < Y, with values to be
> debated) is one thing, and what we say and think about what was said and
> done in that period is another. What we say and think today about what
> was said and done and thought in some period is conditioned by who we
> are, what we've learned, what our experiences have been, and so on. I
> suggest that trying to talk about events and documents of some past period
> of time as if nothing has happened since then or that we haven't been and
> continue to be influenced in many ways by what happened in the past is
> doomed to fail in some degree. It's not possible, I think, to live, as it
> were, wholly in some past time, as tempting as that may seem to be to
> some of us.
>
> It certainly seems to me to be desirable to limit in some manner what can
> be said on an internet medieval-religion list about what happened and was
> done and said in European medieval times concerning religion, but it's not
> clear to me how this can be done with any precision. One thing, though,
> is that the discussions should be limited to civil ones, which, people
> being who they are, requires some regulation. But I suggest that
> workable policies for such regulation should be flexible enough to
> adjust for a plethora of circumstances. Regulators should, in my
> view, try to enforce messages on the list to be concerned in some
> fair degree to be related (or, as people say, "materially" related,
> though here one might hope that thet they also be "spiritually"
> related) to religions of the medieval Europe, a period whose
> temporal limits historians have debated and continue to debate.
> Periodization by historians is a murky subject, as far as I'm
> concerned.
>
> This brings to mind another of my historiographical beliefs. I think that
> in some sense, a past which is completely independent of individuals is an
> abstraction, a kind or part of a Kantian noumenon, if you like, at least as
> far
> as we humans are concerned. As a consequence, as a practical matter, I
> like to consider that there are in fact many pasts, one for each
individual.
>
> Two persons may have quite similar pasts, or they may have quite dissimilar
> pasts, or something in between, depending on who they are. I'm not
> talking just about what this person or that has experienced during a life,
> or
> what the person remembers about his or her experiences, but also how a
> person envisions "history", in the sense of what happened. How a person
> envisions "history" in this sense produces "history" in another sense,
> namely
> what one imagines and says and thinks happened.
>
> I suggest that the popular suggestion, usually attributed to Otto Ranke,
> that
> we discover and describe what *really* happened, wie es eigentlich
> gewesen war, or, theologically speaking, what God hath actually wrought
> is not a program which can be fully carried through. Now as in a glass
> (mirror!) darkly . . . . .
>
> I'm not sure that the above is relevant to this?
>
> Gordon Fisher [log in to unmask]
>
>
> "Rev. David G. Peters" wrote:
>
> > We've recently been discussing where to draw the line as to what are and
> > what are not topics appropriate to this mailing list. I am curious
> > about the Reformers. For example, Martin Luther is sometimes considered
> > a "late medieval" theologian. Sometimes he's considered an "early
> > modern" theologian. Scholars differ as to the time frame of what
> > constitutes "medieval studies." What do the scholars on this list
> > consider to be the beginning and ending dates for the era which we are
> > discussing here?
> >
> > -David Peters,
> > Ph.D. student, Marquette University
> >
> > --
> > Rev. David G. Peters,
> > Pastor
> > Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church
> > Wisconsin Ev. Lutheran Synod
> > 2908 S. Colony Ave.
> > Union Grove, WI 53182-9564
> > (262) 878-4156
> > [log in to unmask]
>
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