medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Dear John,
I wasn't thinking of the Jews or Eastern-rite Christians, nor even of heretics, but of
non-Christian beliefs which fall within the realm of folklore. Folklore means many
things to many people, but as it was initially defined by W.J. Thoms in 1846, folklore
denoted "the traditions, customs and superstitions of the uncultured classes in
civilized nations". In other words, while the religion of "heretics" is marginalized
because of its dissent from orthodoxy, a good part of the religion of the peasantry is
branded as "superstition" because they are just too brutish to come fully on board.
I'm thinking of, for example, "holy wells", which were often given a superficial
"Christian" veneer but which do not enter in any manner into the realm of organized
Christian "theology" and can only at a stretch be considered "Christian". Or like the
strange agricultural practices that somebody mentioned a couple of weeks ago in a
different string. I'm beginning to think that this body of "religious belief" was fairly
substantial, not only in the Middle Ages but well into the Enlightenment, but it
tended to be completely ignored by the medieval church and so appears to be
almost completely undocumented. Even the study of "popular religion" seems to
ignore a lot of these beliefs. So far as I know, anyway. But if anyone knows of
literature on this aspect of the "non-Christian" Middle Ages, I'd be very grateful.
Cheers,
Jim Bugslag
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