THE WORK CALLED CONGESTA AND FIFTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH THEOLOGY

Author(s):

SIEGFRIED WENZEL

Keyword(s):

Fifteenth Century ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Great Length ◽

Alphabetical Order ◽

Imitatio Christi ◽

Congesta, written about the middle of the fifteenth century in England and only partially preserved, is a massive sermon commentary, originally in five volumes, covering the Sundays of the church year, some feast days and common sermons for saints, and two special occasions (“In Time of Persecution” and “For Religious”). Of the entire cycle only forty-six sermons are extant in two manuscripts (Oxford, Magdalen College MSS 96 and 212). The commentary deals at great length with the Epistle or Gospel lection of the respective Mass. Its anonymous author, probably an English Carthusian, excerpted long passages from over 130 named authors and anonymous works, including Petrus Berchorius, Saint Brigid of Sweden, and the Imitatio Christi. The sermons, which are basically moral postillation of the lections and show much concern with the qualities of a good pastor, can be seen as part of the reforming tendencies in the English church marked especially by Thomas Gascoigne. The article describes and discusses the sermon cycle, analyzes the sermon for 23 Trinity, and discusses the structure of the sermons and some of the authors of the later Middle Ages that are quoted or excerpted. An appendix lists the authors and anonymous works quoted in alphabetical order.

The medieval church of Montrose: a place ‘of much antiquity and abundantly populous’

The Innes Review ◽

10.3366/inr.2014.0064 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 65 (1) ◽

pp. 13-32 ◽

Author(s):

Catriona Anna Gray

Keyword(s):

Fifteenth Century ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Early Date ◽

Plausible Candidate ◽

External Evidence ◽

Medieval Church ◽

Local Tradition ◽

Montrose was one of Scotland's earliest royal burghs, but historians have largely overlooked its parish kirk. A number of fourteenth and fifteenth-century sources indicate that the church of Montrose was an important ecclesiastical centre from an early date. Dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, by the later middle ages it was a place of pilgrimage linked in local tradition with the cult of Saint Boniface of Rosemarkie. This connection with Boniface appears to have been of long standing, and it is argued that the church of Montrose is a plausible candidate for the lost Egglespether, the ‘church of Peter’, associated with the priory of Restenneth. External evidence from England and Iceland appears to identify Montrose as the seat of a bishop, raising the possibility that it may also have been an ultimately unsuccessful rival for Brechin as the episcopal centre for Angus and the Mearns.

Knights, Cooks, Monks and Tourists: Elite and Popular Experience of the Late-Medieval Jerusalem Pilgrimage

Studies in Church History ◽

10.1017/s0424208400003879 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 42 ◽

pp. 99-109 ◽

Author(s):

Kathryne Beebe

Keyword(s):

Fifteenth Century ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Lower Class ◽

Late Medieval ◽

Beliefs And Practices ◽

Late Middle Ages ◽

Popular Interest ◽

Multiple Levels ◽

The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the late Middle Ages was the centre of a range of pilgrimage activity in which elite and popular beliefs and practices overlapped and complicated each other in exciting ways. The Jerusalem pilgrimage, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in particular, abounded in multiple levels of ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ experience. Through the pilgrimage writings of a fifteenth-century Dominican pilgrim named Felix Fabri, this paper will explore two specific levels: the distinction between noble and lower-class experiences of the Jerusalem pilgrimage (both physical and spiritual), and the distinction between spiritually ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ conceptions of pilgrimage itself – that uneasy balance between the spiritually-sophisticated, contemplative experience of pilgrimage promoted by St Jerome and the more ‘popular’ interest in traditional ‘tourist’ activities, such as gathering indulgences or stocking up on holy souvenirs and relics to take home. However, as we will see, even these tourist acts were grounded in the orthodox spirituality of late-medieval piety, and the elite and popular experiences of pilgrimage, whether social or spiritual, were not so distinct as they may first appear.

Comptes rendus / Reviews of books: Volk, Herrscher und Heiliger im Reich der Merovinger: Studien zur Hagiographie der Merovingerzeit František Graus Prague: Nakladatelstvi Československé akademie věd, 1965, Pp. 533 Furta Sacra: Theft of Relics in the Central Middle Ages Patrick Geary Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978. Pp. 232 Crux Imperatorum Philosophia: Imperial Horizons of the Cluniac Confraternitas, 964-1109 Robert G. Heath Pittsburgh: Pickwick Press, 1976. Pp. 259 The Church in Italy in the Fifteenth Century Denys Hay The Birkbeck Lectures, 1971 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. Pp. 183 Anabaptism and Asceticism: A Study in Intellectual Origins Kenneth Ronald Davis Scottdale, PA, and Kitchener, Ontario: Herald Press, 1974. Pp. 365

Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses ◽

10.1177/000842987800700313 ◽

1978 ◽

Vol 7 (3) ◽

pp. 351-354

Author(s):

Lionel Rothkrug

Keyword(s):

Fifteenth Century ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Cambridge University ◽

Princeton University ◽

Intellectual Origins ◽

The Mediæval Legend of Judas Iscariot

PMLA ◽

10.1632/457014 ◽

1916 ◽

Vol 31 (3) ◽

pp. 481-632

Author(s):

Paull Franklin Baum

Keyword(s):

Fifteenth Century ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Thirteenth Century ◽

Early Life ◽

The Other ◽

The West ◽

Greek Myth ◽

Judas Iscariot ◽

The Church ◽

The Middle Ages

The legendary Life of Judas the Betrayer, based, it is usually said, on the Greek myth of Œdipus, is found in almost every language and country of mediæval Europe. It was written down in Latin as early as the twelfth century. By the end of the thirteenth century it was turned into the vernacular in lands as far apart as Wales, Catalonia, and Bohemia. At the close of the Middle Ages it had become the possession of the folk, and since that period—to some extent even during the fifteenth century—it has spread northward and eastward into Scandinavia, Finland, Russia, and Bulgaria. It was related in Greek, probably in the Middle Ages, although the manuscripts are of a much later date. It was still told orally in Galicia at the end of the last century. As a regular part of the ecclesiastical literature of the West it received canonization, so to say, late in the thirteenth century, in the great legendary of Jacopo da Voragine; but, on the other hand, it is a remarkable fact that in the Middle Ages, so far as I have been able to learn, none of the reputable church writers (with the exception of Jacopo) recognized or even mentioned it. And furthermore, mediaeval sculptors and carvers of wood and ivory, who gave themselves with so much zeal to the plastic representation of legendary matter, completely eschewed or overlooked the ‘early life’ of Judas. Not indeed that either the church writers or artists sought to avoid contact with such a wicked character; on the contrary, they devoted considerable space to him, rejecting only his apocryphal career. However this omission may be explained, the fact must be recognized as of some interest.

Bill Litigation and the Observance of Sundays and Major Festivals in the Court of King's Bench in the Fifteenth Century

Law and History Review ◽

10.2307/4141693 ◽

2004 ◽

Vol 22 (3) ◽

pp. 619-643 ◽

Author(s):

Susanne Jenks

Keyword(s):

General Practice ◽

Fifteenth Century ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Common Good ◽

Working Life ◽

The Common Good ◽

John The Baptist ◽

The Common ◽

Working Day ◽

The attitudes of medieval people toward Sundays and Holy Days have always been of interest to historians. They have been studied from at least five different perspectives. Max Levy, for instance, explained how Sunday developed from a day that commemorated Christ's resurrection, but was originally a working day (dies dominica), to a day of worship, contemplation, and rest. Initially no (servile) work was allowed, but exceptions were accepted because of necessity, like harvest work, or because of good intentions, like concern for the common good or for a pious cause. Others looked at the stance of the Church, analyzing the protests against the non-observance of Holy Days as well as the objections raised to the observance of Holy Days from the clergy or from laymen, or concentrated mainly on the work ban and its implications for working life in the Middle Ages. Willard and Haskett studied the observance of Sundays and Holy Days in government departments like the Lower Exchequer or the Chancery to see to what extent the working of the English government was affected. Legal historians, however, have not shown much interest in how the courts observed Sundays and Holy Days, mainly because everything seemed to have been settled since the late thirteenth century. Paul Brand recently stated that it had “clearly become the general practice by the second half of the reign of Edward I for the Common Bench and King's Bench not to sit on Sundays,” or on All Saints Day (1 November), All Souls Day (2 November), the feast of the Purification (2 February), Ascensiontide, and the feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (24 June), all of which fell within term time.

La Iglesia de Mallorca y la redención de cautivos en la Baja Edad Media = The Church of Majorca and the Ransom of Captives during the Late Middle Ages

Espacio Tiempo y Forma Serie III Historia Medieval ◽

10.5944/etfiii.32.2019.23040 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 105

Author(s):

Albert Cassanyes Roig

Keyword(s):

Fifteenth Century ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Individual Characteristics ◽

Late Middle Ages ◽

La Caridad ◽

The Individual ◽

El presente artículo es un primer estudio del rol de la Iglesia en la redención de los cautivos cristianos que se hallaban bajo el yugo de los infieles. La tarea de las órdenes redentoristas —trinitarios y mercedarios— en este ámbito fue muy significativa. Menos conocida es la intervención de la catedral, a veces junto a las autoridades municipales. En ambos casos, las limosnas constituían la principal fuente de ingresos, de modo que el rescate era posible gracias a la caridad de los vecinos. El artículo se centra en el ejemplo de la diócesis de Mallorca, un territorio abocado al mar, cuyos habitantes eran frecuentemente capturados. A partir de una serie de registros de subsidios de mediados del siglo xv, se pueden conocer algunos rasgos de los cautivos, la vulnerabilidad en la que quedaban sus familias y el comportamiento de los responsables de la distribución de las limosnas entre las personas a rescatar.AbstractThis paper analyses the role of the Church in the ransom of Christian captives who fell under Muslim control. The role of the ransoming orders—Trinitarians and Mercedarians—in the ransoming process was highly significant. Less known is the intervention of the cathedral chapter, often working side by side with the municipal authorities. In both cases, alms were the most important source of income; the charity of their neighbors made a captive’s ransom possible. This paper focuses on the example of the Diocese of Majorca, a territory exposed to the sea, whose inhabitants were frequently captured. Based on some mid-fifteenth century registers of subsidies it is possible to know some of the individual characteristics of the captives, the vulnerability of their families, and the behavior of the responsible persons who distributed the charitable money among the captives and their families.

III.—The Painted Glass of All Saints’ Church, North Street, York

Archaeologia ◽

10.1017/s0261340900003763 ◽

1969 ◽

Vol 102 ◽

pp. 151-202 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

E. A. Gee

Keyword(s):

Fifteenth Century ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Fourteenth Century ◽

High Quality ◽

The Church ◽

Very High

The painted glass at All Saints', North Street, York, is exceptional even in York, and although that of the fourteenth century in two of the windows (II, VIII), is not outstanding, the early fifteenth-century glass is of very high quality. The Prick of Conscience window (III), is unique, and the theme of the Corporal Acts of Mercy, window IV, is rare. The whole medieval body of glass was limited to the church which existed before the penultimate bay, and the tower and the aisles on either side of it, were added by c. 1450. Windows which replaced the previous doorways in the fourth bay, on either side, contained plain glass in the later Middle Ages.

The Rise of Secular Drama in the Renaissance

Studies in the Renaissance ◽

10.2307/2857098 ◽

1956 ◽

Vol 3 ◽

pp. 7-22 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Leicester Bradner

Keyword(s):

Fifteenth Century ◽

Middle Ages ◽

Fourteenth Century ◽

Twelfth Century ◽

Considerable Degree ◽

Dramatic Effect ◽

The revival of the drama was not one of the accomplishments of the Renaissance. This revival had already taken place during the later Middle Ages, and by the twelfth century the plays connected with the festivals of the church had reached a considerable degree of complexity and dramatic effect. By the end of the fourteenth century the cycles of Biblical plays were well established, and in the fifteenth century they reached their greatest development. The rise of the moralities—those plays in which personified virtues and vices struggle for the possession of man's soul—also took place in the later Middle Ages, although the earliest references to them go back no further than the last quarter of the fourteenth century.