Place

Mapping Intimacies ◽

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199212484.013.0006 ◽

2015 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

James Simpson

Keyword(s):

Fourteenth Century ◽

Central Issue ◽

Protestant Reformation ◽

Significant Issue ◽

Pilgrimage Narratives

The question of the Church’s location became a central issue of the Protestant Reformation: was it the material, visible Church containing the saved and the damned (as yet unable to be distinguished), or the immaterial, invisible Church of the Elect? This little noticed but hugely significant issue preoccupied Reformation theorists, but already in the late fourteenth century writers were conscious of it. Pilgrimage narratives, particularly narratives in which the visible, located Church’s relics are exposed as disgusting, exploitative and fake, underline the fragilities of the “located” Church. This essay defines the theological issue of place, and then sees how it works in practice with two Canterbury pilgrimage texts, Chaucer’sPardoner’s Taleand Desiderius Erasmus’sPilgrimage of Pure Devotion.

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National Sentiment and Religious Vocabulary in Fourteenth-Century England

The Journal of Ecclesiastical History ◽

10.1017/s002204690800599x ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 60 (1) ◽

pp. 1-18 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

ANDREA RUDDICK

Keyword(s):

Fourteenth Century ◽

Old Testament ◽

Religion And Politics ◽

Religious Language ◽

Protestant Reformation ◽

Special Relationship ◽

National Sentiment ◽

Divine Punishment ◽

The Government

This article examines the neglected role of religious ideas and vocabulary in expressions of English national sentiment in the fourteenth century, particularly in official rhetoric. Many official uses of religious language followed well-established literary conventions. However, documents requesting nationwide prayers during national crises suggest that the government encouraged the concept of a special relationship between God and England, modelled on Old Testament Israel, well before the Protestant Reformation. National misfortunes were explained as divine punishment for national sins, with England presented as a collective moral community. Parallels with Israel were then drawn out more explicitly in public preaching, bringing this interplay between religion and politics to a wider audience.

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