“You Have Saved Me from the Judgment of Gehenna”: The Origins of the Mourner's Kaddish in Medieval Ashkenaz

AJS Review ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
David I. Shyovitz
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Intercessory Prayer ◽  
Christian Belief ◽  
Rapid Spread

This article traces the origins and rapid spread of the Mourner's Kaddish, a liturgical custom first attested in late twelfth- early thirteenth-century Ashkenazic halakhic texts. While scholars have traditionally linked it to the martyrological needs of post-1096 Ashkenazic communities, this article suggests that the rise of the Mourner's Kaddish was one manifestation of a broader shift in medieval Jewish conceptions of the afterlife. An analysis of the exemplum that provided the new custom with a “myth of origins” reveals carefully inserted allusions and symbolism, which together propound a coherent theology of eschatology, divine recompense, and intercessory prayer. This theology closely mirrors doctrinal developments underway in Christian Europe—specifically the “birth of purgatory” and its accompanying commemorative and intercessory practices. The exemplum, moreover, couches its message in subtly polemical terms, criticizing and ridiculing those very elements of Christian belief and practice that were being covertly incorporated into the Jewish liturgical realm.

Hospital Patrons and Social Networks

2019 ◽  
pp. 115-163
Author(s):  
Adam J. Davis
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Intercessory Prayer ◽  
Charitable Institution ◽  
Charitable Bequests ◽  
Family Connection ◽  
Commercial Environment

This chapter argues that the highly commercial environment of thirteenth-century Champagne infused pious giving with even greater meaning, particularly bequests made to a charitable institution like a hospital, which had as its central mission the performance of the works of mercy. During the course of the thirteenth century, during which the number of bequests to traditional Benedictine monastic houses declined, the scale of giving to hospitals actually increased. The range of people from different social classes making charitable bequests also expanded, reflective of what one might term the growing democratization of charity. As compared with donors to monastic houses, however, lay donors to hospitals placed less emphasis on intercessory prayer and requested anniversary masses in exchange for donations less often than donors to monasteries. Instead, hospital donors focused on the performance of the works of mercy, which, in the economy of salvation, they viewed as the most efficacious form of currency. Those making bequests to hospitals were also frequently guided by pragmatic considerations. Some donors had a family connection to a hospital, with a relative working there whom they wished to help. Others made bequests as an entry gift to a hospital, or with the expectation that they might one day wish to join the hospital's religious community. The chapter then focuses on the patrons of Champagne's hospitals and interrogates what these hospitals meant to them.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in Medieval Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 78-99
Author(s):  
Ryan Szpiech
Keyword(s):  
Iberian Peninsula ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Christian Belief ◽  
Islamic World ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
First Millennium ◽  
Fourth Lateran Council

This chapter discusses the interaction between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam in medieval Europe. It considers the importance of Augustine’s doctrine of Jews as ‘witnesses’ to Christian truth in the formation of the medieval image of the ‘hermeneutical Jew’. Jews, who lived primarily in the Islamic world in the first millennium, began to migrate into Christian lands in greater numbers from the eleventh century. As Christian ideas about Judaism evolved in the twelfth century, culminating in the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215, Jewish authors responded with detailed critiques of Christian belief. The simultaneous Christian engagement with Muslim sources led to a triangular encounter, especially significant in the Iberian Peninsula, between Jewish, Christian, and Muslim writers, reflected in numerous dialogues and polemics about prophecy and history. Beginning in the thirteenth century, mendicant friars, including converts, played a greater role in engagement with Islam and Judaism, taking on important roles as translators and inquisitors.

Charles Williams’s Arthuriad: Mythic Vision and the Possibilities of Belief

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-46
Author(s):  
J. G. Bradbury
Keyword(s):  
Religious Faith ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Christian Belief ◽  
Devotional Poetry ◽  
Religious Worldview ◽  
Intellectual Milieu ◽  
Charles Williams ◽  
Narrative Mode ◽  
Intellectual Environment

This essay explores Charles Williams’s use of the Arthurian myth to sustain a religious worldview in the aftermath of sustained attacks on the relevance and veracity of Christian belief in the early twentieth century. The premise to be explored is that key developments in science and philosophy made during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries resulted in a cultural and intellectual milieu in which assertions of religious faith became increasingly difficult. In literary terms this became evident in, amongst other things, the significant reduction in the production of devotional poetry. By the late 1930s the intellectual environment was such that Charles Williams, a man of profound religious belief who might otherwise have been expected to produce devotional work, turned to a much older mode, that of myth, that had taken on new relevance in the modern world. Williams’s use of this mode allowed him the possibility of expressing a singularly Christian vision to a world in which such vision was in danger of becoming anathema. This essay examines the way in which Williams’s lexis, verse structure, and narrative mode builds on his Arthurian source material to allow for an appreciation of religiously-informed ideas in the modern world.

Relation of the Saccasa?khepa??k? Called S?ratthas?lin? to the Vinayavinicchaya??k? Called Vinayas?ratthasand?pan?

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 189-223
Author(s):  
Petra Kieffer-Pülz
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
The Common ◽  
Literary Histories ◽  
High Degree ◽  
Parallel Texts

The present contribution suggests the common authorship of three P?li commentaries of the twelfth/thirteenth centuries CE, namely the Vinayavinicchaya??k? called Vinayas?ratthasand?pan? (less probably Vinayatthas?rasand?pan?), the Uttaravinicchaya??k? called L?natthappak?san?, and the Saccasa?khepa??k? called S?ratthas?lin?. The information collected from these three commentaries themselves and from P?li literary histories concerning these three texts leads to the second quarter of the thirteenth century CE as the period of their origination. The data from parallel texts explicitly stated to having been written by V?cissara Thera in the texts themselves render it possible to establish with a high degree of probability V?cissara Thera as their author.

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