History and the Supernatural in Medieval England
Author: Carl S. Watkins
Publisher:
Published: 2014-05-14
Total Pages: 290
ISBN-13: 9780511378706
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History and the Supernatural in Medieval England
Author: C. S. Watkins
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2010-11-25
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9780521154819
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis is a fascinating study of religious culture in England from 1050 to 1250. Drawing on the wealth of material about religious belief and practice that survives in the chronicles, Carl Watkins explores the accounts of signs, prophecies, astrology, magic, beliefs about death, and the miraculous and demonic. He challenges some of the prevailing assumptions about religious belief, questioning in particular the attachment of many historians to terms such as 'clerical' and 'lay', 'popular' and 'elite', 'Christian' and 'pagan' as explanatory categories. The evidence of the chronicles is also set in its broader context through explorations of miracle collections, penitential manuals, exempla and sermons. The book traces shifts in the way the supernatural was conceptualized by learned writers and the ways in which broader patterns of belief evolved during this period. This original account sheds important light on belief during a period in which the religious landscape was transformed.
Magic and the Supernatural in Medieval English Romance
Author: Corinne J. Saunders
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Published: 2010
Total Pages: 314
ISBN-13: 1843842211
DOWNLOAD EBOOK"This study looks at a wide range of medieval Englisih romance texts, including the works of Chaucer and Malory, from a broad cultural perspective, to show that while they employ magic in order to create exotic, escapist worlds, they are also grounded in a sense of possibility, and reflect a complex web of inherited and current ideas." --Book Jacket.
The Natural and the Supernatural in the Middle Ages
Author: Robert Bartlett
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2008-03-17
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 0521878322
DOWNLOAD EBOOKExploration of how medieval people categorized the world, concentrating on the division between the natural and the supernatural.
Supernatural Encounters
Author: Stephen Gordon
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-12-06
Total Pages: 170
ISBN-13: 0429779151
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe belief in the reality of demons and the restless dead formed a central facet of the medieval worldview. Whether a pestilent-spreading corpse mobilised by the devil, a purgatorial spirit returning to earth to ask for suffrage, or a shape-shifting demon intent on crushing its victims as they slept, encounters with supernatural entities were often met with consternation and fear. Chroniclers, hagiographers, sermon writers, satirists, poets, and even medical practitioners utilised the cultural ‘text’ of the supernatural encounter in many different ways, showcasing the multiplicity of contemporary attitudes to death, disease, and the afterlife. In this volume, Stephen Gordon explores the ways in which conflicting ideas about the intention and agency of supernatural entities were understood and articulated in different social and literary contexts. Focusing primarily on material from medieval England, c.1050–1450, Gordon discusses how writers such as William of Malmesbury, William of Newburgh, Walter Map, John Mirk, and Geoffrey Chaucer utilised the belief in demons, nightmares, and walking corpses for pointed critical effect. Ultimately, this monograph provides new insights into the ways in which the broad ontological category of the ‘revenant’ was conceptualised in the medieval world.
Magic and Religion in Medieval England
Author: Catherine Rider
Publisher: Reaktion Books
Published: 2013-02-15
Total Pages: 222
ISBN-13: 1780230745
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDuring the Middle Ages, many occult rituals and beliefs existed and were practiced alongside those officially sanctioned by the church. While educated clergy condemned some of these as magic, many of these practices involved religious language, rituals, or objects. For instance, charms recited to cure illnesses invoked God and the saints, and love spells used consecrated substances such as the Eucharist. Magic and Religion in Medieval England explores the entanglement of magical practices and the clergy during the Middle Ages, uncovering how churchmen decided which of these practices to deem acceptable and examining the ways they persuaded others to adopt their views. Covering the period from 1215 to the Reformation, Catherine Rider traces the change in the church’s attitude to vernacular forms of magic. She shows how this period brought the clergy more closely into contact with unofficial religious practices than ever before, and how this proximity prompted them to draw up precise guidelines on distinguishing magic from legitimate religion. Revealing the necessity of improving clerical education and the pastoral care of the laity, Magic and Religion in Medieval England provides a fascinating picture of religious life during this period.
Ghosts: A Social History, vol 1
Author: Owen Davies
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2024-08-01
Total Pages: 234
ISBN-13: 1040233570
DOWNLOAD EBOOKReveals changing perceptions of ghosts at different social levels from the Reformation through to the twentieth century in Britain and America. This five-volume set focuses on the key published debates that emerged in each century, and illustrates the range of literary formats that reported or discussed ghosts.
Fantastic histories
Author: Victoria Flood
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Published: 2024-05-28
Total Pages: 219
ISBN-13: 1526164132
DOWNLOAD EBOOKFantastic Histories explores the political and cultural contexts of the entry of fairies to the historical record in twelfth century England, and the subsequent uses of fairy narratives in both insular and continental history and romance. It traces the uses of the fairy as a contested marker of historicity and fictionality in the histories of Gerald of Wales and Walter Map, the continental mirabilia of Gervase of Tilbury, and the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century French Mélusine romances and their early English reception. Working across insular and continental source material, Fantastic Histories explores the practices of history-writing, fiction-making, and the culturally determined boundaries of wonder that defined the limits of medieval history.
The Linguistic Past in Twelfth-Century Britain
Author: Sara Harris
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2017-10-12
Total Pages: 295
ISBN-13: 1316851559
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHow was the complex history of Britain's languages understood by twelfth-century authors? This book argues that the social, political and linguistic upheavals that occurred in the wake of the Norman Conquest intensified later interest in the historicity of languages. An atmosphere of enquiry fostered vernacular literature's prestige and led to a newfound sense of how ancient languages could be used to convey historical claims. The vernacular hence became an important site for the construction and memorialisation of dynastic, institutional and ethnic identities. This study demonstrates the breadth of interest in the linguistic past across different social groups and the striking variety of genre used to depict it, including romance, legal translation, history, poetry and hagiography. Through a series of detailed case studies, Sara Harris shows how specific works represent key aspects of the period's imaginative engagement with English, Brittonic, Latin and French language development.
Seasons in the Literatures of the Medieval North
Author: P. S. Langeslag
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Published: 2015
Total Pages: 260
ISBN-13: 1843844257
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA fresh examination of how the seasons are depicted in medieval literature.
