medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Greetings all,
A biography of an Icelandic bishop active in the late thirteenth century says that he made changes in burial practice for unbaptized babies allowing them to be buried closer to the churchyard than before (previously they had to be buried an arrow-shot away from the boundary of the home field.) though still not inside it. Actually his existing law code does not corroborate this. Iīd appreciate any information about burial of such infants from elsewhere. However, my real question concerns the claim that the bishop in question based his 'skipan' (lit. 'order, command') on St. Augustine, claiming that St. Augustine said that he would rather be like these children than not exist. The author then states that 'wise men interpret this that he (Augustine) would rather have their (the unbaptised childrenīs) hope/expectation of home' than not to exist at all. The explicit language of salvation is not used here, but to me it seems that the text comes perilously close. From what I know about St. Augustine he is unlikely to have made either statement (though Iīm happy to be corrected), but is there anything he does say that could have been so interpreted, or any statements by medieval authors attributing such statements to him?
All the best,
Meg
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