Diana Walsh Pasulka
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780195382020
- eISBN:
- 9780190206826
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195382020.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter utilizes sources such as medieval world maps, chronicles, and Irish bard poetry to reveal that a purgatory cave was a popular destination for medieval Europeans. The cave in Ireland was ...
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This chapter utilizes sources such as medieval world maps, chronicles, and Irish bard poetry to reveal that a purgatory cave was a popular destination for medieval Europeans. The cave in Ireland was an important site of anchoritic practices. The works of Isabela Moreira, Carl Watkins, Jean-Claude Schmitt, and Carol Zaleski are examined, and the author argues that the cave functioned as a site where penitents could alter their afterlife fates through penances “satisfactory to God.” Additionally, this chapter examines how purgatory was not just a doctrine formulated by Church authorities in the thirteenth century, but was also a penitential practice linked to physical places and caves.Less
This chapter utilizes sources such as medieval world maps, chronicles, and Irish bard poetry to reveal that a purgatory cave was a popular destination for medieval Europeans. The cave in Ireland was an important site of anchoritic practices. The works of Isabela Moreira, Carl Watkins, Jean-Claude Schmitt, and Carol Zaleski are examined, and the author argues that the cave functioned as a site where penitents could alter their afterlife fates through penances “satisfactory to God.” Additionally, this chapter examines how purgatory was not just a doctrine formulated by Church authorities in the thirteenth century, but was also a penitential practice linked to physical places and caves.
Aisling Byrne
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780198746003
- eISBN:
- 9780191808708
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198746003.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature, Folk Literature
Although depictions of the afterlife constitute a ‘special case’ in having a clearly defined meaning derived from an ideology external to the text, they also share much imaginative and thematic ...
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Although depictions of the afterlife constitute a ‘special case’ in having a clearly defined meaning derived from an ideology external to the text, they also share much imaginative and thematic material with descriptions of places like fairyland. This chapter focuses on two of the most widely disseminated otherworld depictions: the Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii and the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis. It also highlights a particularly striking use of biblical allusions in a fantastical context in the late medieval Irish text Echtra Thaidhg. It concludes by arguing that many otherworld motifs actually owe more to Christian culture than potential layers of pre-Christian Celtic beliefs. This is particularly evident in the case of Sir Orfeo. This text features an otherworld description often considered Celtic in origin, but which actually draws most heavily on the Book of Revelation.Less
Although depictions of the afterlife constitute a ‘special case’ in having a clearly defined meaning derived from an ideology external to the text, they also share much imaginative and thematic material with descriptions of places like fairyland. This chapter focuses on two of the most widely disseminated otherworld depictions: the Tractatus de Purgatorio Sancti Patricii and the Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis. It also highlights a particularly striking use of biblical allusions in a fantastical context in the late medieval Irish text Echtra Thaidhg. It concludes by arguing that many otherworld motifs actually owe more to Christian culture than potential layers of pre-Christian Celtic beliefs. This is particularly evident in the case of Sir Orfeo. This text features an otherworld description often considered Celtic in origin, but which actually draws most heavily on the Book of Revelation.
Diana Walsh Pasulka
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780195382020
- eISBN:
- 9780190206826
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195382020.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter examines the discussions about the location of purgatory in the works of medieval scholastics such as William of Auvergne and Thomas Aquinas. It also examines representations of ...
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This chapter examines the discussions about the location of purgatory in the works of medieval scholastics such as William of Auvergne and Thomas Aquinas. It also examines representations of purgatory in visionary literature about the afterlife. This chapter also contains an analysis of the works of scholars Jacques Le Goff and Alan Bernstein pertaining to the figurative or literal status of purgatory in the works of William of Auvergne. The chapter ends with an examination of the visionary myths and legends of the purgatory cave at Lough Derg, Ireland, called St. Patrick’s Purgatory, revealing the gradual development from a material conception of purgatory to a more abstract conception.Less
This chapter examines the discussions about the location of purgatory in the works of medieval scholastics such as William of Auvergne and Thomas Aquinas. It also examines representations of purgatory in visionary literature about the afterlife. This chapter also contains an analysis of the works of scholars Jacques Le Goff and Alan Bernstein pertaining to the figurative or literal status of purgatory in the works of William of Auvergne. The chapter ends with an examination of the visionary myths and legends of the purgatory cave at Lough Derg, Ireland, called St. Patrick’s Purgatory, revealing the gradual development from a material conception of purgatory to a more abstract conception.
Diana Walsh Pasulka
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780195382020
- eISBN:
- 9780190206826
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195382020.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This introduction provides an overview of the problem that purgatory’s materiality has presented throughout its history. It frames the problem as an issue of the materiality of religion, the contours ...
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This introduction provides an overview of the problem that purgatory’s materiality has presented throughout its history. It frames the problem as an issue of the materiality of religion, the contours of which are discernible with the rise of empiricism. The introduction also suggests that the doctrine of purgatory sheds light on Catholic historiography and in particular on the hermeneutic of continuity, which suggests that the reforms of Vatican II do not represent a rupture in tradition, but reveal a continuous tradition of Catholic practice. Contemporary advocates of spatial representations of purgatory suggest that purgatory has been forgotten since the Vatican II reforms.Less
This introduction provides an overview of the problem that purgatory’s materiality has presented throughout its history. It frames the problem as an issue of the materiality of religion, the contours of which are discernible with the rise of empiricism. The introduction also suggests that the doctrine of purgatory sheds light on Catholic historiography and in particular on the hermeneutic of continuity, which suggests that the reforms of Vatican II do not represent a rupture in tradition, but reveal a continuous tradition of Catholic practice. Contemporary advocates of spatial representations of purgatory suggest that purgatory has been forgotten since the Vatican II reforms.
R. Bloch
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- February 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226059686
- eISBN:
- 9780226059693
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226059693.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Early and Medieval Literature
This book offers a fundamental reconception of the person generally assumed to be the first woman writer in French, the author known as Marie de France. It considers all of the writing ascribed to ...
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This book offers a fundamental reconception of the person generally assumed to be the first woman writer in French, the author known as Marie de France. It considers all of the writing ascribed to Marie, including her famous Lais, her 103 animal fables, and the earliest vernacular Saint Patrick's Purgatory. Evidence about Marie de France's life is so meager that we know next to nothing about her—not where she was born and to what rank, who her parents were, whether she was married or single, where she lived and might have traveled, whether she dwelled in cloister or at court, nor whether in England or France. In the face of this great writer's near anonymity, scholars have assumed her to be a simple, naive, and modest Christian figure. This book's claim, in contrast, is that Marie is among the most self-conscious, sophisticated, complicated, and disturbing figures of her time—the Joyce of the twelfth century. At a moment of great historical turning, the so-called Renaissance of the twelfth century, Marie was both a disrupter of prevailing cultural values and a founder of new ones. Her works, it is argued, reveal an author obsessed by writing, by memory, and by translation, and acutely aware not only of her role in the preservation of cultural memory, but of the transforming psychological, social, and political effects of writing within an oral tradition. Marie's intervention lies in her obsession with the performative capacities of literature.Less
This book offers a fundamental reconception of the person generally assumed to be the first woman writer in French, the author known as Marie de France. It considers all of the writing ascribed to Marie, including her famous Lais, her 103 animal fables, and the earliest vernacular Saint Patrick's Purgatory. Evidence about Marie de France's life is so meager that we know next to nothing about her—not where she was born and to what rank, who her parents were, whether she was married or single, where she lived and might have traveled, whether she dwelled in cloister or at court, nor whether in England or France. In the face of this great writer's near anonymity, scholars have assumed her to be a simple, naive, and modest Christian figure. This book's claim, in contrast, is that Marie is among the most self-conscious, sophisticated, complicated, and disturbing figures of her time—the Joyce of the twelfth century. At a moment of great historical turning, the so-called Renaissance of the twelfth century, Marie was both a disrupter of prevailing cultural values and a founder of new ones. Her works, it is argued, reveal an author obsessed by writing, by memory, and by translation, and acutely aware not only of her role in the preservation of cultural memory, but of the transforming psychological, social, and political effects of writing within an oral tradition. Marie's intervention lies in her obsession with the performative capacities of literature.
