Where the Middle Ages Begin
The transformation of homosexual Liebestod in sagas translated from Latin Ashurst, David Saga-Book (2002) Abstract The focus of this article will be on a series of texts in which one warrior dies clasping the body of a fallen comrade; but before concentrating on that theme I must explain the term liebestod, ëlove- deathí, and its […]
Lewd Imaginings: Pedagogy, Piety, and Peformance in Late Medieval East Anglia Sebastian, John Thomas PhD Dissertation, Cornell University, August (2004) Abstract This dissertation explores clerical and lay desires for spiritual teaching and learning at the end of the Middle Ages in England, desires that, while ostensibly contemplative, carried crucial ecclesiological, political, and literary implications. Where […]
WHY THE MEDIEVAL TRIAL OF JOAN OF ARC IS OF PARTICULAR INTEREST TODAY Hobbins, Daniel THE TRIAL OF JOAN OF ARC, Harvard University Press (2005) Abstract Joan of Arc was a courageous and combative woman, a resistance fighter who lived in a man’s world during the Middle Ages. The official records of her infamous trial […]
Institutionalized Sufism and Non-Institutionalized Sufism: A Reconsideration of the Groups of Sufi Saints of the Non-Ṭarīqa Type as Viewed through the Historical Documents of Medieval Maghreb Masatoshi, KISAICHI Kyoto Bulletin of Islamic Area Studies, 2-1 (2008) Abstract Perhaps the most important innovation in the 12th and 13th century Islamic world was the institutionalization of Sufism. During the years 1150 […]
Illuminating the Soul: Religious Enclosure and the Validation of Mystical Experience in The Life of Christina of Markyateand The Book of Margery Kempe Roberts, Ruth R. Marginalia, Vol. 3 (2006) Abstract The mind has a more extensive and expansive leisure within the six surfaces of a room than it could gain outside by traversing the […]
Hildegard on Trial: A Note Regarding the Narrow Reception of a Medieval Abbess-Composer DiCenso, Daniel Marginalia, Vol. 5, (2007) Abstract Hildegard of Bingen, known widely after her death as the ‘Sybil of the Rhine’, was an abbess, composer, poet, herbalist, artist, scholar, mystic and visionary. During her lifetime (1098-1179), Hildegard produced major works of music, […]
SESSION 1: Transhistorical Anglo-Saxon England “Vernacular Authority in a Materialized God: Reading the Text of Christ’s Body in Old and Middle English” Camin Melton (Fordham University) This brief paper was a work in progress and focused on Anglo-Saxon piety, mysticism & devotional literature. Anglo-Saxon piety, and devotion in texts existed long before the 11th century. There […]
The Anchoress and the Self-Proclaimed Prophet: Medieval Female Writers in Ecclesiastical Society By Jenna Tynan Discoveries, No.9 (2008) Introduction: The medieval mystic who embodied an intersection between the divine and earthly realms challenged not only the authority of the clergy but also the dogmas of the church. Medieval mystics became mediators between God and humanity, […]
The Hermeneutics of Eroticism in the Poetry of Rumi Tourage, Mahdi VARIORUM, Duke University Press Vol. 25, No. 3, (2005) Abstract Michel Foucault writes that in societies that made use of ars erotica, secrecy served the purpose of amplifying the truth that is drawn from pleasure and the importance of a master in transmitting it in an […]
UN-CAGING MEANING IN JOHN CAPGRAVE’S LIFE OF SAINT KATHERINE OF ALEXANDRIA: BODIES AND BRIDES OF CHRIST Geldenhuys, Katharine Leigh Phd Thesis (University of the Free State) Abstract Katherine of Alexandria, one of the most popular saints of the Middle Ages, was acclaimed for her great learning. This investigation focuses on the fraught relationship between knowledge, the […]
Henry Suso’s Horologium Sapientiae in fifteenth-century France: images of reading and writing in Brussels Royal Library MS IV 111 Rozenski Jr., Steven Word & Image, Volume 26, Issue 4, December (2010) Abstract Henry Suso, despite the frustrated epigraph above, loved his books. The Swabian Dominican (ca. 1295-1366) was constantly immersed in textuality: reading contemplative and devotional texts, writing […]
Kenotic Mysticism and Servant Leadership in the letters of Clare of Assisi to Agnes of Prague Bekker, Corné J. (Regent University) Proceedings of the 2005 Servant Leadership Research Roundtable Abstract This paper explores the spirituality and leadership of Clare of Assisi in the letters to Agnes of Prague. Successive repetitive-progressive pattern analysis of the letters to […]
“Checkmate to the time, the forms and the place…”. Meister Eckhart between flowing of time and stillness of Eternity Raschietti, Matteo Mirabilia 11, Tempo e Eternidade na Idade Média, Jun-Dez (2010) Abstract The conception of time in Eckhart’s reflection is a fundamental point that joins the thought of German Dominican: the metaphysic model of development of being […]
Narratives of time: Augustine and Joachim of Fiore Rossato, Noeli Dutra Mirabilia 11, Tempo e Eternidade na Idade Média, Jun-Dez (2010) Abstract The Book XI of Augustine’s Confessions is analyzed based on the mutual implication between the themes of triplicate present and distention of the soul. The solution shown is that of the ontological paradox and to that […]
Witches, Saints, and Heretics: Heinrich Kramer’s Ties with Italian Women Mystics: Heinrich Kramer’s Ties with Italian Women Mystics Herzig, Tamar (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, Volume 1, Number 1, Summer (2006) Abstract In the late Middle Ages, mystical sainthood was often defined as antithetical to diabolic witchcraft. Whereas the saintly female mystic was […]
“Revertere ad ecclesiam meam!” Dreams, visions and exhortations to undertake a pilgrimage in the canonisation process of Nicholas of Tolentino Katajala-Peltomaa, Sari (University of Tampere) MIRATOR 1 (2007) Abstract Dreams and visions were, qualitatively, a gender-specific feature in the depositions of the laity in the canonisation acts of Nicholas of Tolentino (AD 1325). Only men […]
Divine Needs, Divine Illusions: Preliminary Remarks Toward a Comparative Study of Meister Eckhart and Ibn AľArabi Almond, Ian (Bosphorus University, Istanbul) Medieval Philosophy and Theology 10 (2001) Abstract A surprising number of Western studies or translations of the Sufi thinker and mystic Ibn Al’Arabi (1165–1240) make some kind of reference to the German preacher Meister […]
Meister Eckhart and Jan Van Ruusbroec: A Comparison van Nieuwenhove, Rik (Trinity College, Dublin) Medieval Philosophy and Theology 7 (1998) Abstract Jan Van Ruusbroec (1293–1381), the most important spiritual writer of the Low Countries, is often associated (with or without some qualifications) with the tradition of the Rhineland Mystics, of which Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–1327) […]
Performing The Love Of God And The Struggle With The Devil: The “Theatricality” Of Medieval Mystical Culture Sikorska, Liliana Medieval English Studies, vol.10 (2002), No.1 Abstract The dramatic quality of medieval mystical culture can be observed through its two aspects, i.e. the performed love of God and the struggle with the devil. On the one […]
Spirituality and Self-Representation in The Life of Christina Mirabilis Giglio, Katheryn M. Essays in Medieval Studies, vol. 15 (1998) Abstract In her introduction to The Life of Christina Mirabilis, translator Margot King acknowledges the personal fascination that lay between the lines of her scrupulous scholarship. In a brief autobiographical gesture, King notes: I must confess […]
The muthes wit: Reading, Speaking, and Eating in Ancrene Kalve, Kari Essays in Medieval Studies, vol. 14 (1997) Abstract Since Caroline Walker Bynum published Holy Feast and Holy Fast ten years ago, many scholars of the Middle Ages have examined how bodies played a more complex role for medieval writers than had often been suggested […]
St Gertrude’s Synecdoche: The Problem of Writing the Sacred Heart Jenkins, Eve B. Essays in Medieval Studies, vol. 14 (1997) Abstract St Gertrude was reluctant to acquiesce to the Lord’s demand that she write an account of her mystical experiences for others to read. “I thought it so unseemly,” she confesses, “to write down all […]
The Lives of Umiliana de’ Cerchi: Representations of Female Sainthood in Thirteenth-Century Florence Schuchman, Anne M. Essays in Medieval Studies, vol. 14 (1997) Abstract The earliest Life of the Blessed Umiliana de’ Cerchi (1219-1246), a Florentine mystic of the early thirteenth century, underscores the traditional virtues of obedience, humility, and charity. Throughout the text, the […]
Mysticism, Meditation, and Identification in The Book of Margery Kempe Coulson, Carolyn Essays in Medieval Studies, vol. 12 (1995) Abstract In most of Margery Kempe’s visionary encounters with Christ, He appears to her not from within a particular historical moment of His life, but in a more universal and post-resurrectional guise in which He visits […]
The Virgin Above the Writing in the First Vita of Douce 114 Clouse, Rebecca Essays in Medieval Studies, vol. 11 (1994) Abstract Elizabeth of Spalbeek (d. 1316) has not attracted much critical attention among Anglo-American scholars. Her religious observances are neither as repulsive to modern sensibilities as Angela of Foligno’s, nor as fantastic as those […]
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