Dear Gary Dickson,
I might indeed be able to increas the lexicon a bit, with verbs as well as
nouns. I'm working this week on the _ Miracula S. Viviani Figiacensis
patrata_
" inter infinita gentium agmina . . . praecedens vel subsequens turba
increpans"" (13)
"interque tantam gentium legionem permixtus latuit [fur]" ; "suos sanctos
ad praedicti confessoris curiam constipaverunt" (18)
"Tandem vero dum praesenti infinita multitudine sancti Johannis, quod in
eodem coenobio situm est, astaret altare" (27)
"Tandem vero dum praesenti infinita multitudine sancti Johannis, quod in
eodem coenobio situm est, astaret altare" (29)
"ad hoc sollemne gaudium tantae multitudinis assuescit coire immensitas ut
pro intolerabili constipatione a monasterio majestas venerabilis
confessoris expellitur ac in amplissimo loco fixis tentoriis statuitur."
(30)
"Alio vero tempore rursus facta est conjunctio episcoporum atque
innumerabilium populorum, quo et vehuntur plurimorum corpora sanctorum."
(35)
" sacra pignera [i.e. pignora] infinita gentis secuta sunt agmina." (35)
The text may be found in _AB_ 8 (1889): 256-277.
Crowds are a persistent feature at the shrines of the saints in the tenth
thru twelfth century (and probably beyond, but in my book the world ends at
the Fourth Lateran Council), and the texts go out of their way to describe
them. If the texts are to be believed (and there is some disagreement over
this, as recent discussion on the list has shown), one of the major
stimulants to the vigorous program of church building in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries is that churches, especially shrines, could no longer
hold the crowds of pilgrims that visited them.
An important article (which you may know) for helping think about the
crowds in this period is R. I. Moore's "Family, Community, and Cult on the
Eve of the Gregorian Reform."
The crowds are generally not "led," at least according to the sources, but
those that accumulated around _delationes_ or _circumlationes_ or
_translationes_ of relics were in a sense led by the relics of the saint --
and therefore by the monks who owned them. We cannot but suspect that the
monks who supervised the pilgrims who flocked to their churches had some
role to play in orchestrating their movements and direction their
attention, particularly in the later eleventh and twelfth centuries when
monasteries had begun to really master the business of operating a shrine,
and had registrars and custodians on the premises to keep track of (and
therefore help interpret, and therefore perhaps help orchestrate) miracles.
There is, in addition, a constant give-and-take between the activity of
the crowds (including acclaiming miracles and singing hymns) and the
monastic liturgy, such each becomes in a fashion woven into the other.
Soon I'll finish my dissertation, and someday, d.v., I'll publish it, and
you can read all about it, as it were. I need to avoid the temptation to
write it here rather than for my committee, however!
Cheers,
Patrick.
>Dear Patrick Nugent,
>
>My article on crowds/crowd psych. has not yet been published: someday,
>perhaps.
>I'd be interested in the crowd lexicon for your period--any thing other than
>'turba' and 'multitudo', plus the occasional 'vulgus' or 'populus'? Crowds
>leaderless or led?
>
>Gary Dickson
>University of Edinburgh
__________________________
Patrick J. Nugent
Department of Religion
Earlham College
Richmond, Indiana 47374 USA
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