This article investigates the ideologies which underpinned unconsecrated burial in late Anglo-Saxon legal and religious texts. The exclusion of sinners and criminals from Christian cemeteries has typically been interpreted by scholars as a form of excommunication or an attempt to facilitate damnation. However, a reassessment of legislative, diplomatic, and ecclesiastical sources reveals that this was not so. In tenth-century laws and charters, unconsecrated burial was imposed exclusively by secular authorities; it was only prescribed by ecclesiastical authorities from ca. 1000. This suggests that it originated as a temporal punishment but later came to be used as an ecclesiastical sentence. The following analysis of the textual evidence yields two interrelated arguments. First, this article demonstrates that through the mid-eleventh century, unconsecrated burial was a penalty distinct from ecclesiastical excommunication. Where excommunication was imposed upon living sinners, to coerce them to penance, unconsecrated burial was prescribed for the unrepentant or criminal dead, whose actions placed them beyond earthly help. Second, this article contends that written prescriptions for unconsecrated burial differentiated secular from ecclesiastical jurisdictions. Although laymen and clergy collaborated in the dispensation of law and justice throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, the written evidence for unconsecrated burial shows that this penalty fell either under the authority of secular or of ecclesiastical agents, demonstrating a clearer separation between these spheres than is usually recognized in pre-Conquest England.
{"title":"UNCONSECRATED BURIAL AND EXCOMMUNICATION IN ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND: A REASSESSMENT","authors":"Nicole Marafioti","doi":"10.1017/tdo.2019.14","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/tdo.2019.14","url":null,"abstract":"This article investigates the ideologies which underpinned unconsecrated burial in late Anglo-Saxon legal and religious texts. The exclusion of sinners and criminals from Christian cemeteries has typically been interpreted by scholars as a form of excommunication or an attempt to facilitate damnation. However, a reassessment of legislative, diplomatic, and ecclesiastical sources reveals that this was not so. In tenth-century laws and charters, unconsecrated burial was imposed exclusively by secular authorities; it was only prescribed by ecclesiastical authorities from ca. 1000. This suggests that it originated as a temporal punishment but later came to be used as an ecclesiastical sentence. The following analysis of the textual evidence yields two interrelated arguments. First, this article demonstrates that through the mid-eleventh century, unconsecrated burial was a penalty distinct from ecclesiastical excommunication. Where excommunication was imposed upon living sinners, to coerce them to penance, unconsecrated burial was prescribed for the unrepentant or criminal dead, whose actions placed them beyond earthly help. Second, this article contends that written prescriptions for unconsecrated burial differentiated secular from ecclesiastical jurisdictions. Although laymen and clergy collaborated in the dispensation of law and justice throughout the Anglo-Saxon period, the written evidence for unconsecrated burial shows that this penalty fell either under the authority of secular or of ecclesiastical agents, demonstrating a clearer separation between these spheres than is usually recognized in pre-Conquest England.","PeriodicalId":44907,"journal":{"name":"TRADITIO-STUDIES IN ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL HISTORY THOUGHT AND RELIGION","volume":"74 1","pages":"55 - 123"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2019-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/tdo.2019.14","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42704836","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"TDO volume 74 Cover and Front matter","authors":"","doi":"10.1017/tdo.2019.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/tdo.2019.1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44907,"journal":{"name":"TRADITIO-STUDIES IN ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL HISTORY THOUGHT AND RELIGION","volume":"67 1","pages":"f1 - f7"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2019-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/tdo.2019.1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"57572028","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In the late Middle Ages, authors of fiction, historical texts, and travel narratives discussed issues related to the places and spaces of marvels. Writers debated whether local, western occurrences could be as wondrous — and thus worthy of being recorded in writing — as foreign, eastern phenomena. This article explores how Boccaccio's engagement with Dante was intertwined with evolving views of the marvelous. It proposes that Boccaccio, following Dante, likened his writings to natural marvels to defend the status of literature, a mode of discourse sometimes considered unnatural or fraudulent. In addition, this research examines how Boccaccio drew on marvels to highlight differences between the properties and ethics of Dante's Comedy and these aspects of his Decameron. In addressing these topics, Boccaccio was inspired by late medieval Latin historians, who foregrounded the novelty of their texts by self-consciously writing about western marvels. In the Decameron, Boccaccio recalled ideas about local marvels to champion the dignity of his erotic, mundane stories in comparison to Dante's otherworldly, divine poem. Boccaccio thus also reminded readers not only to wonder about future, eternal matters, but to cherish the experiences of this our present life.
{"title":"THE MARVELOUS BETWEEN DANTE AND BOCCACCIO","authors":"James C. Kriesel","doi":"10.1017/tdo.2018.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/tdo.2018.7","url":null,"abstract":"In the late Middle Ages, authors of fiction, historical texts, and travel narratives discussed issues related to the places and spaces of marvels. Writers debated whether local, western occurrences could be as wondrous — and thus worthy of being recorded in writing — as foreign, eastern phenomena. This article explores how Boccaccio's engagement with Dante was intertwined with evolving views of the marvelous. It proposes that Boccaccio, following Dante, likened his writings to natural marvels to defend the status of literature, a mode of discourse sometimes considered unnatural or fraudulent. In addition, this research examines how Boccaccio drew on marvels to highlight differences between the properties and ethics of Dante's Comedy and these aspects of his Decameron. In addressing these topics, Boccaccio was inspired by late medieval Latin historians, who foregrounded the novelty of their texts by self-consciously writing about western marvels. In the Decameron, Boccaccio recalled ideas about local marvels to champion the dignity of his erotic, mundane stories in comparison to Dante's otherworldly, divine poem. Boccaccio thus also reminded readers not only to wonder about future, eternal matters, but to cherish the experiences of this our present life.","PeriodicalId":44907,"journal":{"name":"TRADITIO-STUDIES IN ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL HISTORY THOUGHT AND RELIGION","volume":"73 1","pages":"213 - 254"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/tdo.2018.7","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43764492","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Congesta, written about the middle of the fifteenth century in England and only partially preserved, is a massive sermon commentary, originally in five volumes, covering the Sundays of the church year, some feast days and common sermons for saints, and two special occasions (“In Time of Persecution” and “For Religious”). Of the entire cycle only forty-six sermons are extant in two manuscripts (Oxford, Magdalen College MSS 96 and 212). The commentary deals at great length with the Epistle or Gospel lection of the respective Mass. Its anonymous author, probably an English Carthusian, excerpted long passages from over 130 named authors and anonymous works, including Petrus Berchorius, Saint Brigid of Sweden, and the Imitatio Christi. The sermons, which are basically moral postillation of the lections and show much concern with the qualities of a good pastor, can be seen as part of the reforming tendencies in the English church marked especially by Thomas Gascoigne. The article describes and discusses the sermon cycle, analyzes the sermon for 23 Trinity, and discusses the structure of the sermons and some of the authors of the later Middle Ages that are quoted or excerpted. An appendix lists the authors and anonymous works quoted in alphabetical order.
{"title":"THE WORK CALLED CONGESTA AND FIFTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH THEOLOGY","authors":"Siegfried Wenzel","doi":"10.1017/tdo.2018.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/tdo.2018.5","url":null,"abstract":"Congesta, written about the middle of the fifteenth century in England and only partially preserved, is a massive sermon commentary, originally in five volumes, covering the Sundays of the church year, some feast days and common sermons for saints, and two special occasions (“In Time of Persecution” and “For Religious”). Of the entire cycle only forty-six sermons are extant in two manuscripts (Oxford, Magdalen College MSS 96 and 212). The commentary deals at great length with the Epistle or Gospel lection of the respective Mass. Its anonymous author, probably an English Carthusian, excerpted long passages from over 130 named authors and anonymous works, including Petrus Berchorius, Saint Brigid of Sweden, and the Imitatio Christi. The sermons, which are basically moral postillation of the lections and show much concern with the qualities of a good pastor, can be seen as part of the reforming tendencies in the English church marked especially by Thomas Gascoigne. The article describes and discusses the sermon cycle, analyzes the sermon for 23 Trinity, and discusses the structure of the sermons and some of the authors of the later Middle Ages that are quoted or excerpted. An appendix lists the authors and anonymous works quoted in alphabetical order.","PeriodicalId":44907,"journal":{"name":"TRADITIO-STUDIES IN ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL HISTORY THOUGHT AND RELIGION","volume":"73 1","pages":"291 - 319"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/tdo.2018.5","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45990360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article examines Albert the Great's interpretation of John 1:7 concerning John the Baptist: “He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him.” Commenting on this verse, Albert develops the idea that the metaphysical approach to God, according to which the notion of God is purified of all sensory images, must be completed by a method that is more connatural to the human being: testimonial knowledge, that is, relying on the senses and imagination, using the metaphors that God himself has suggested through his revelation. Albert's reading of John 1:7 is found to be in continuity with key ideas elsewhere in his oeuvre.
{"title":"METAPHYSICS AND TESTIMONIAL KNOWLEDGE IN THE SUPER IOHANNEM OF ALBERT THE GREAT","authors":"J. Casteigt","doi":"10.1017/tdo.2018.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/tdo.2018.3","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines Albert the Great's interpretation of John 1:7 concerning John the Baptist: “He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him.” Commenting on this verse, Albert develops the idea that the metaphysical approach to God, according to which the notion of God is purified of all sensory images, must be completed by a method that is more connatural to the human being: testimonial knowledge, that is, relying on the senses and imagination, using the metaphors that God himself has suggested through his revelation. Albert's reading of John 1:7 is found to be in continuity with key ideas elsewhere in his oeuvre.","PeriodicalId":44907,"journal":{"name":"TRADITIO-STUDIES IN ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL HISTORY THOUGHT AND RELIGION","volume":"73 1","pages":"255 - 289"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/tdo.2018.3","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47744025","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Crowland Abbey was one of many English monasteries after the Norman Conquest to forge documents that claimed a right to permanent sanctuary rooted in the Anglo-Saxon period. Yet Crowland's claims stand out because while other ecclesiastical chronicles that grounded their sanctuary claims in an earlier tradition did so in order to defend those rights in the twelfth century or later, Crowland never claimed this privilege for anything other than the abbey's Anglo-Saxon past. Indeed, I argue that the three forged “Anglo-Saxon” charters that make this assertion, which all appear in the Pseudo-Ingulf section of the abbey's chronicle, the Historia Croylandensis, do so in order to emphasize a more fundamental claim about the institution's authority — its association with one of the most significant fenland saints, Guthlac. Moreover, I argue that the most likely date when this material was forged is the late twelfth century. In the context of the narrative in which they appear, these charters reveal that later medieval Crowland constructed a narrative that saw permanent sanctuary as an important feature of the abbey's Anglo-Saxon past.
{"title":"CROWLAND ABBEY AS ANGLO-SAXON SANCTUARY IN THE PSEUDO-INGULF CHRONICLE","authors":"Lindy Brady","doi":"10.1017/tdo.2018.1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/tdo.2018.1","url":null,"abstract":"Crowland Abbey was one of many English monasteries after the Norman Conquest to forge documents that claimed a right to permanent sanctuary rooted in the Anglo-Saxon period. Yet Crowland's claims stand out because while other ecclesiastical chronicles that grounded their sanctuary claims in an earlier tradition did so in order to defend those rights in the twelfth century or later, Crowland never claimed this privilege for anything other than the abbey's Anglo-Saxon past. Indeed, I argue that the three forged “Anglo-Saxon” charters that make this assertion, which all appear in the Pseudo-Ingulf section of the abbey's chronicle, the Historia Croylandensis, do so in order to emphasize a more fundamental claim about the institution's authority — its association with one of the most significant fenland saints, Guthlac. Moreover, I argue that the most likely date when this material was forged is the late twelfth century. In the context of the narrative in which they appear, these charters reveal that later medieval Crowland constructed a narrative that saw permanent sanctuary as an important feature of the abbey's Anglo-Saxon past.","PeriodicalId":44907,"journal":{"name":"TRADITIO-STUDIES IN ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL HISTORY THOUGHT AND RELIGION","volume":"73 1","pages":"19 - 42"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/tdo.2018.1","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42115577","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
That women felt and men thought has long been the predominant lens through which medieval Christian writing has been analyzed. The work of the religious women vernacular theologians, or Beguines, who emerged across North Europe from the twelfth to the thirteenth centuries has therefore often been dismissed as affective mysticism. Recent scholarship has begun to re-appraise this work and re-evaluate its place within the Christian tradition. This paper looks at the work of Hadewijch, a thirteenth-century mystical poet from Brabant in the Netherlands who, though less well known than other Beguines such as Hildegaard of Bingen and Marguerite Porete, may, as John Arblaster and Paul Verdeyen argue, “rightly be called the greatest poetic genius in the Dutch language.” It is probable that her work was not widely known during her lifetime (not, that is, directly), but research is strengthening the argument that her theology was transmitted via the works of John of Ruusbroec. This paper will attend both to Hadewijch's poesy and her theology and ask what the dynamic structure in her verse — its shifts of perspective, gender perspective, and non-linear narrative — might lead us to grasp about her theology.
{"title":"FLUIDITY IN STILLNESS: A READING OF HADEWIJCH'S STROFISCHE GEDICHTEN/POEMS IN STANZAS","authors":"Anita Mir","doi":"10.1017/tdo.2018.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/tdo.2018.11","url":null,"abstract":"That women felt and men thought has long been the predominant lens through which medieval Christian writing has been analyzed. The work of the religious women vernacular theologians, or Beguines, who emerged across North Europe from the twelfth to the thirteenth centuries has therefore often been dismissed as affective mysticism. Recent scholarship has begun to re-appraise this work and re-evaluate its place within the Christian tradition. This paper looks at the work of Hadewijch, a thirteenth-century mystical poet from Brabant in the Netherlands who, though less well known than other Beguines such as Hildegaard of Bingen and Marguerite Porete, may, as John Arblaster and Paul Verdeyen argue, “rightly be called the greatest poetic genius in the Dutch language.” It is probable that her work was not widely known during her lifetime (not, that is, directly), but research is strengthening the argument that her theology was transmitted via the works of John of Ruusbroec. This paper will attend both to Hadewijch's poesy and her theology and ask what the dynamic structure in her verse — its shifts of perspective, gender perspective, and non-linear narrative — might lead us to grasp about her theology.","PeriodicalId":44907,"journal":{"name":"TRADITIO-STUDIES IN ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL HISTORY THOUGHT AND RELIGION","volume":"73 1","pages":"179 - 211"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/tdo.2018.11","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45981958","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Peter Lombard's influential commentary on the Pauline Epistles, the Collectanea in omnes divi Pauli epistolas, has received little extended analysis in scholarly literature, despite its recognized importance both in its own right and as key for the development of his Sentences. This article presents a new approach to studying the Collectanea by analyzing how Lombard's commentary builds on the Glossa “Ordinaria” on the Pauline Epistles. The article argues for treating the Collectanea as a “historical act,” focusing on how Lombard engages with the biblical text and with authoritative sources within which he encounters the same biblical text embedded. The article further argues for the necessity of turning to the manuscripts of both the Collectanea and the Glossa, rather than continuing to rely on inadequate early modern printed editions or the Patrologia Latina. The article then uses Lombard's discussion of faith at Romans 1:17 as a case study, demonstrating the way in which Lombard begins from the Glossa, clarifies its ambiguities, and moves his analysis forward through his use of other auctoritates and theological quaestiones. A comparison with Lombard's treatment of faith in the Sentences highlights the close links between Lombard's biblical lectures and this later work. The article concludes by arguing that scholastic biblical exegesis and theology should be treated as primarily a classroom activity, with the glossed Bible as the central focus. Discussion of Lombard's work should draw on much recent scholarship that has begun to uncover the layers of orality within the textual history of scholastic works.
彼得·伦巴第对保罗书信的有影响力的评论，Collectanea in omnes divi Pauli epistolas，在学术文献中几乎没有得到深入的分析，尽管它在其本身的权利和他的句子的发展中都被认为是重要的。本文通过分析伦巴第的评注是如何建立在对保罗书信的普通注释之上，提出了一种研究《集锦》的新方法。这篇文章主张将《合集》视为“历史行为”，重点关注伦巴第是如何与圣经文本和权威来源打交道的，他在这些来源中遇到了嵌入的圣经文本。这篇文章进一步论证了转向Collectanea和Glossa的手稿的必要性，而不是继续依赖不充分的早期现代印刷版本或paterlogia Latina。然后，文章用伦巴第在罗马书1:17中对信仰的讨论作为案例研究，展示了伦巴第如何从Glossa开始，澄清其歧义，并通过使用其他权威和神学问题推进他的分析。与伦巴第在《句子》中对信仰的处理进行比较，突出了伦巴第的圣经讲座与后来的作品之间的密切联系。文章最后认为，经院圣经训诂学和神学应该主要作为一种课堂活动来对待，以圣经为中心焦点。对伦巴第著作的讨论应该借鉴许多最近的学术研究，这些研究已经开始揭示学术著作文本历史中的口述层次。
{"title":"GLOSSING THE GLOSS: READING PETER LOMBARD’S COLLECTANEA ON THE PAULINE EPISTLES AS A HISTORICAL ACT","authors":"Peter O’Hagan","doi":"10.1017/tdo.2018.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/tdo.2018.8","url":null,"abstract":"Peter Lombard's influential commentary on the Pauline Epistles, the Collectanea in omnes divi Pauli epistolas, has received little extended analysis in scholarly literature, despite its recognized importance both in its own right and as key for the development of his Sentences. This article presents a new approach to studying the Collectanea by analyzing how Lombard's commentary builds on the Glossa “Ordinaria” on the Pauline Epistles. The article argues for treating the Collectanea as a “historical act,” focusing on how Lombard engages with the biblical text and with authoritative sources within which he encounters the same biblical text embedded. The article further argues for the necessity of turning to the manuscripts of both the Collectanea and the Glossa, rather than continuing to rely on inadequate early modern printed editions or the Patrologia Latina. The article then uses Lombard's discussion of faith at Romans 1:17 as a case study, demonstrating the way in which Lombard begins from the Glossa, clarifies its ambiguities, and moves his analysis forward through his use of other auctoritates and theological quaestiones. A comparison with Lombard's treatment of faith in the Sentences highlights the close links between Lombard's biblical lectures and this later work. The article concludes by arguing that scholastic biblical exegesis and theology should be treated as primarily a classroom activity, with the glossed Bible as the central focus. Discussion of Lombard's work should draw on much recent scholarship that has begun to uncover the layers of orality within the textual history of scholastic works.","PeriodicalId":44907,"journal":{"name":"TRADITIO-STUDIES IN ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL HISTORY THOUGHT AND RELIGION","volume":"73 1","pages":"83 - 116"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/tdo.2018.8","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47668404","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Modern critics usually read the vision of Dryhthelm as an account of a man frightened into penitential asceticism even though Bede explains that Dryhthelm lived out his days in the desire for heaven, not fear of punishment. While fear is an important part of Dryhthelm's conversion, Bede depicts the process according to the doctrine of compunction as it is received from Gregory the Great, who presents compunction as a process by which fear of punishment yields to love and the desire for heaven. Reading the conversion of Dryhthelm as a process of Gregorian compunction reveals both Bede's fundamental optimism about the vision Dryhthelm has seen and a spirituality in the text that is more nuanced and positive than the fire and ice that figure so prominently in it. Proceeding from these observations, the paper argues that the celestial topography of Dryhthelm's vision is a spiritual topography — a map of personal and emotional progress through compunction, as understood by Gregory the Great and received by Bede, and only incidentally a map of celestial regions deemed logically necessary by later theologians. These conclusions complicate hellfire and brimstone readings of this and other Anglo-Saxon texts about judgment and penance, and they call for nuanced readings of compunction as a complex and productive experience.
{"title":"DRYHTHELM'S DESIRE: COMPUNCTION AND BEDE'S CELESTIAL TOPOGRAPHY","authors":"Erik Carlson","doi":"10.1017/tdo.2018.2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/tdo.2018.2","url":null,"abstract":"Modern critics usually read the vision of Dryhthelm as an account of a man frightened into penitential asceticism even though Bede explains that Dryhthelm lived out his days in the desire for heaven, not fear of punishment. While fear is an important part of Dryhthelm's conversion, Bede depicts the process according to the doctrine of compunction as it is received from Gregory the Great, who presents compunction as a process by which fear of punishment yields to love and the desire for heaven. Reading the conversion of Dryhthelm as a process of Gregorian compunction reveals both Bede's fundamental optimism about the vision Dryhthelm has seen and a spirituality in the text that is more nuanced and positive than the fire and ice that figure so prominently in it. Proceeding from these observations, the paper argues that the celestial topography of Dryhthelm's vision is a spiritual topography — a map of personal and emotional progress through compunction, as understood by Gregory the Great and received by Bede, and only incidentally a map of celestial regions deemed logically necessary by later theologians. These conclusions complicate hellfire and brimstone readings of this and other Anglo-Saxon texts about judgment and penance, and they call for nuanced readings of compunction as a complex and productive experience.","PeriodicalId":44907,"journal":{"name":"TRADITIO-STUDIES IN ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL HISTORY THOUGHT AND RELIGION","volume":"73 1","pages":"1 - 17"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/tdo.2018.2","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43396348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This is a study of an apocalyptic Latin letter (incipit “Ad flagellum humani generis”), surviving in manuscripts from the mid-thirteenth to fourteenth centuries, that describes an apparent aggressive invasion of an ascetic army in the distant East, led by a figure claiming to be Christ and bearing a new volume of scripture. This article offers the first comprehensive study of the letter's manuscript tradition and presents a new critical edition of the text. It argues that this letter was composed in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem sometime in the years 1235–36 as a response to intelligence brought by eastern Christian envoys (quite possibly from Georgia or Greater Armenia) concerning the second wave of Mongol invasions in Transcaucasia. These envoys had spent some time in the presence of a Mongol army, possibly that of the general Chormaghan, receiving an edict that probably demanded their submission and stated the Mongols’ divine right to universal domination. This edict, accompanied by other information, was ultimately translated into Latin for the benefit of the authorities of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. These authorities interpreted both the edict and the oral and/or written intelligence that the eastern Christian envoys delivered within the intellectual framework of Latin Christianity. This particular interpretation was then written into a letter that was sent to Western Europe, where it circulated probably quite widely for around a century. Crusade theorists’ need for intelligence about the Middle and Far East, together with the vogue of apocalyptic prophecy in the later Middle Ages, encouraged the continued copying of the text.
{"title":"THE MONGOL INVASIONS BETWEEN EPISTOLOGRAPHY AND PROPHECY: THE CASE OF THE LETTER “AD FLAGELLUM,” C. 1235/36–1338","authors":"A. Grant","doi":"10.1017/tdo.2018.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/tdo.2018.6","url":null,"abstract":"This is a study of an apocalyptic Latin letter (incipit “Ad flagellum humani generis”), surviving in manuscripts from the mid-thirteenth to fourteenth centuries, that describes an apparent aggressive invasion of an ascetic army in the distant East, led by a figure claiming to be Christ and bearing a new volume of scripture. This article offers the first comprehensive study of the letter's manuscript tradition and presents a new critical edition of the text. It argues that this letter was composed in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem sometime in the years 1235–36 as a response to intelligence brought by eastern Christian envoys (quite possibly from Georgia or Greater Armenia) concerning the second wave of Mongol invasions in Transcaucasia. These envoys had spent some time in the presence of a Mongol army, possibly that of the general Chormaghan, receiving an edict that probably demanded their submission and stated the Mongols’ divine right to universal domination. This edict, accompanied by other information, was ultimately translated into Latin for the benefit of the authorities of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. These authorities interpreted both the edict and the oral and/or written intelligence that the eastern Christian envoys delivered within the intellectual framework of Latin Christianity. This particular interpretation was then written into a letter that was sent to Western Europe, where it circulated probably quite widely for around a century. Crusade theorists’ need for intelligence about the Middle and Far East, together with the vogue of apocalyptic prophecy in the later Middle Ages, encouraged the continued copying of the text.","PeriodicalId":44907,"journal":{"name":"TRADITIO-STUDIES IN ANCIENT AND MEDIEVAL HISTORY THOUGHT AND RELIGION","volume":"73 1","pages":"117 - 177"},"PeriodicalIF":0.4,"publicationDate":"2018-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1017/tdo.2018.6","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43252220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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