1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910777331303321

Autore

Moreira Isabel

Titolo

Dreams, visions, and spiritual authority in Merovingian Gaul [[electronic resource] /] / Isabel Moreira

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Ithaca, : Cornell University Press, 2000

ISBN

0-8014-7467-1

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (276 p.)

Disciplina

248.2/9

Soggetti

Merovingians - Religion

Dreams - Religious aspects - Christianity - History of doctrines - Early church, ca. 30-600

Dreams - Religious aspects - Christianity - History of doctrines - Middle Ages, 600-1500

Church history - Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600

Church history - Middle Ages, 600-1500

Christian hagiography - History

Visions - History

Gaul Church history

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-258) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Introduction -- Part 1. Visionary Access -- Part 2. Visions and Authority in the Merovingian Community -- Part 3. Dreams and Visions in Merovingian Hagiography -- Conclusion -- Appendix A. Otherworld Visions and Apocalypses -- Appendix B. The Earliest Vitae of Aldegund of Maubeuge -- Selected Bibliography -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

In early medieval Europe, dreams and visions were believed to reveal divine information about Christian life and the hereafter. No consensus existed, however, as to whether all Christians, or only a spiritual elite, were entitled to have a relationship of this sort with the supernatural. Drawing on a rich variety of sources—histories, hagiographies, ascetic literature, and records of dreams at saints' shrines—Isabel Moreira provides insight into a society struggling to understand and negotiate its religious visions.More ira analyzes changing attitudes toward



dreams and visionary experiences beginning in late antiquity, when the church hierarchy considered lay dreamers a threat to its claims of spiritual authority. Moreira describes how, over the course of the Merovingian period, the clergy came to accept the visions of ordinary folk—peasants, women, and children—as authentic. Dream literature and accounts of visionary experiences infiltrated all aspects of medieval culture by the eighth century, and the dreams of ordinary Christians became central to the clergy's pastoral concerns. Written in clear and inviting prose, this book enables readers to understand how the clerics of Merovingian Gaul allowed a Christian culture of dreaming to develop and flourish without compromising the religious orthodoxy of the community or the primacy of their own authority.