Beyond Angels and Demons: Popular Religion in Medieval Europe (original) (raw)

Medieval Religious, Religions, Religion

History Compass, 2012

This article sketches the most important shift in medieval religious history over the past few decades: the transition from ''church history'' to ''the history of religious culture.'' First, it surveys the field's expansion of ''the religious'' beyond a clerical elite to a broad demographic of the faithful, and its interest in devotion and lived experience in ways that have produced more nuanced appreciation of the varieties of Christian orthodoxy. Second, it sketches how the religions falling under the aegis of medieval religious history have increased from Latin Christianity only to Judaism, Islam, Greek Christianity, and even to forms of religiosity identified as pagan. Third, it argues that regardless of the field's many expansions and changes, scholars have tended not to make explicit the definitions of ''religion'' with which they work, and considers the ramifications and possible value of doing so.

How Wisely God Divides: Evidence of Lay Religion in Post-Medieval European Folklore

2018

The recent film Tale of Tales shocks audiences with its surreal juxtaposition of disturbing fantastical imagery with very true-to-history portrayals of post-medieval Italy, complete with notes of Christian practice such as bedtime recitations of the Pater Noster. In this way, the film hearkens back faithfully to the folklore of post-medieval Europe, through which the lay believers of this turbulent period often used oral tales of magic and horror to process large theological statements and assumptions. Supernatural elements that appear in popular stories often exist as a result of religious confusion or hysteria, and older fairy-tales that are often forgotten today feature Christian elements alongside magical or gruesome imagery as a way of thinking through the lived experience of these common folk living in a world seemingly run by entirely arbitrary rules, where God is the unwavering judge yet His justice often comes as tragedy for the lower classes.

Lived Religion and Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe

2020

The pre-and early modern world has often been described as an inherently religious one. There was no sphere of life where religion was irrelevant. Religion explained the basics of cosmology and society. Belief systems inf luence social relations even today, and in the medieval and early modern eras, religious ideas shaped some of the most important secular institutions as well as the overall social theory: the three estates were God-ordained with specific duties, and the idea of the two swords-that is, religious and secular power governing the world-was well established (even if constantly debated) by the Late Middle Ages. As such, religion was played out within the web of power relations inherent in societies. In addition, religion stipulated times of work, worship and leisure for everyone; it instructed what people were supposed or allowed to eat and when, and how, they lived, woke up and went about their daily tasks. Furthermore, religion justified social hierarchies, relationships of power and taxation, economic relationships, and politics and warfare. There were, however, many different interpretations of how exactly religion's demands were to be interpreted. Everyone had their own opinions about which of the many aspects of religious or more mundane life was to be given priority in any situation. More importantly, the relationship between religion and mundane private or social life was not one-way. Rather, religion developed in society to meet society's needs, and society developed in a religious culture that guided both expectations or aims and the means to meet them. This book has two thoroughgoing themes that we intend to investigate from the late medieval period (ca. the 14th century) to the early modern period (until ca. the 18th century). These themes are religion (or faith) and gender, both of which we also understand in a specific way, as lived and experienced. The meaning of these two concepts, religion and gender, has changed in time, space and culture: people in the 14th century understood them differently from those of the

An Embodied Religion: Materialities and Devotion in Medieval Europe

2024

From the images carved and painted to the buildings edified, from liturgical objects to reliquaries and tombs, from books to personal objects of piety, this volume reflects the many domains where the relation between materiality and devotion can be a prospect and a problem. It intersects the material, functional, performative and aesthetic dimensions with the different readings it calls for, the cognitive and emotional apprehensions, the representations (erudite and popular) it associates with, the practices that it sustains, the memories that polarize and legitimize, the powers that were affirmed through it. It discloses the diversity of variants such as wealth and social position, literate training, and gender differences.