medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I first came across this in the Boston Globe newspaper about ten years ago
as a common practice used by Roman Catholics in the region. I believe it
was attributed to contemporary Italian Catholic piety but can't remember for
sure. I would be surprised if there were medieval links to this practice.
Daniel Joslyn-Siemiatkoski
Assistant Professor of Church History
Church Divinity School of the Pacific
2451 Ridge Road
Berkeley, California 94709-1217
-----Original Message-----
From: medieval-religion - Scholarly discussions of medieval religious
culture [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Diana Wright
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2007 1:38 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [M-R] St. Joseph disrespected
medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
My daughter sent me these quotes from an on-line discussion:
> What you need to do is bury a statue of St Joseph head down in your
> yard. There's apparently a long tradition of this working for house
> sales.
>
> My favorite story about that was a few years ago. A woman buried a
> statue of St Joseph in her yard, but the house still wasn't selling.
> So she dug up the statue and threw it away. Three weeks later, on the
> news, she saw a story that reported that the County Landfill had been
> sold.
>
> ******
>
> My mom did this years ago when she was trying to sell the house in FL
> the first time my parents separated. Except rather than buy the
> special Joseph figurine, she just dug out the nativity set and buried
> that Joseph (I think she knew it wasn't the same one but figured a
> Saint is a Saint.) She THOUGHT she marked the spot but when they
> decided not to sell she wasn't able to find it again. So we have a
> cardboard illustration of Joseph that my sister drew and taped to half
> a paper cup in our nativity set.
Is this tradition known in medieval sources? Is there a (good)
explanation for it? Are other saints treated similarly? How far back
can this be traced?
Etc.?
DW
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|