Eternal light and earthly concerns
Belief and the shaping of medieval society
By Paul Fouracre
Book Information
- Format: eBook
- ISBN: 978-1-5261-1400-6
- Publisher: Manchester University Press
- Published Date: April 2021
- BIC Category: HISTORY / Medieval, Social & cultural history, History & Archaeology, European history: medieval period, middle ages, Humanities / History of religion, Humanities / Religion & beliefs, Humanities / Social & cultural history, Humanities / European history, Medieval European Archaeology, Humanities / Medieval history, European history, Europe, CE period up to c 1500, c 1000 CE to c 1500, Archaeology by period / region, Religion, Medieval History, History, HISTORY / Europe / General, RELIGION / History, HISTORY / Social History
Description
In early Christianity it was established that every church should have a light burning on the altar at all times. In this unique study, Eternal light and earthly concerns, looks at the material and social consequences of maintaining these 'eternal' lights. It investigates how the cost of lighting was met across western Europe throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, revealing the social organisation that was built up around maintaining the lights in the belief that burning them reduced the time spent in Purgatory. When that belief collapsed in the Reformation the eternal lights were summarily extinguished. The history of the lights thus offers not only a new account of change in medieval Europe, but also a sustained examination of the relationship between materiality and belief.
Contents
Introduction
1 Beginnings
2 Consolidation of provision: elite practice
3 Light and power: the 'Carolingian moment'
4 Lighting, lords and peasants in post-Carolingian Europe
5 Lights and social formation in the central Middle Ages
6 Lights in the later Middle Ages: from devotion to destruction
Conclusions
Index
Author
Paul Fouracre is Professor Emeritus of Medieval History at the University of Manchester
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