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Die neue englischsprachige Reihe zur Mediävistik strebt eine methodisch reflektierte, anspruchsvolle Verbindung von Text- und Kulturwissenschaft an. Sie widmet sich den kulturellen Grundthemen der mittelalterlichen Welt aus der Perspektive der Literatur- und Geschichtswissenschaft. Grundthemen' sind die kulturprägenden Denkbilder, Weltanschauungen, Sozialstrukturen und Alltagsbedingungen des mittelalterlichen Lebens, also z. B. Kindheit und Alter, Sexualität, Religion, Medizin, Rituale, Arbeit, Armut und Reichtum, Aberglauben, Erde und Kosmos, Stadt und Land, Krieg, Emotionen, Kommunikation, Reisen usw. Die Reihe greift wichtige aktuelle Fachdiskussionen auf und stellt ein Forum der interdisziplinären Mittelalter-Forschung dar.
_x000D_ Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture steht Sammelbänden ebenso offen wie Monographien. Intention ist immer, kompendienhafte Werke zu zentralen Fragen der mittelalterlichen Kulturgeschichte vorzulegen, die einen soliden Überblick über einen geschlossenen Themenkreis aus der Perspektive verschiedener Fachdisziplinen vermitteln. Im Ganzen bietet die Reihe so eine Enzyklopädie der mittelalterlichen Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte und ihrer Hauptthemen. Es werden ca. zwei Bände pro Jahr erscheinen.
About the author
Albrecht Classen
, University of Arizona, USA.
Summary
Despite the assumption that we live today in a rather rationalist and mechanized world, there remain many aspects that neither medicine nor physics can fully explain. The Catholic Church continues to pronounce individuals as saints because scientifically confirmed miracles are associated with them. If we want to gain a solid understanding of the pre-modern history of mentality, emotions, and everyday culture, it proves to be highly revealing to examine what miracles and wonders had meant at that time, both in the theological and medical field, in the visual arts and literature. As a matter of fact, people both in the East and in the West have consistently flocked to pilgrimage sites all over the world in the hope that a miracle might happen and solve issues for them. The contributors to this volume, based on a symposium at the University of Arizona, May 2024, approach this critically important topic from many different perspectives, taking us from the early Middle Ages to the early modern age, examining hagiographical, medical, literary, and alchemical texts, discussing both miracles and wonders as relevant themes in the public discourses. Both the passage through
Inferno
and
Purgatorio
as the crucial pathway toward
Paradiso
and the experience of women’s miraculous conception are identified as deeply impactful for the pre-modern world, and this both in Christian and Muslim cultures. Studying miracles and wonders through a kaleidoscope of different materials and concepts makes it possible to gain a closer understanding of people’s mindsets, power structures, and the debate between medicine and religion. These topics were also greatly important in other cultures, as several papers on Arabic medieval literature indicate. Further, pursuing this global issue, we recognize easily that the separation line between the Middle Ages and the early modern period is only a modern construct and often not that helpful because the discourse on miracles and wonders has continued and influences even us today.
