Demonic Possession and Lived Religion in Later Medieval Europe

Erscheinungsjahr 2020
ISBN: 978-0-19-885046-5
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 222 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 236 mm, Gewicht: 460 g

Reihe: Oxford Studies in Medieval European History

Demonic possession was a spiritual state that often had physical symptoms; however, in Demonic Possession and Lived Religion in Later Medieval Europe, Sari Katajala-Peltomaa argues that demonic possession was a social phenomenon which should be understood with regard to the community and culture. She focuses on significant case studies from canonization processes (c. 1240-1450) which show how each set of sources formed its own specific context, in which

demonic presence derived from different motivations, reasonings, and methods of categorization. The chosen perspective is that of lived religion, which is both a thematic approach and a methodology: a focus on rituals, symbols, and gestures, as well as sensitivity to nuances and careful contextualizing of the

cases are constitutive elements of the argumentation. The analysis contests the hierarchy between the 'learned' and the 'popular' within religion, as well as the existence of a strict polarity between individual and collective religious participation. Demonic presence disclosed negotiations over authority and agency; it shows how the personal affected the communal, and vice versa, and how they were eventually transformed into discourses and institutions of the Church; that is, definitions of

the miraculous and the diabolical. Geographically, the volume covers Western Europe, comparing Northern and Southern material and customs. The structure follows the logic of the phenomenon, beginning with the background reasons offered as a cause of demonic possession, continuing with communities'

responses and emotions, including construction of sacred caregiving methods. Finally, the ways in which demonic presence contributed to wider societal debates in the fields of politics and spirituality are discussed. Alterity and inversion of identity, gender, and various forms of corporeality and the interplay between the sacred and diabolical are themes that run all through the volume.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Katajala-Peltomaa, Sari

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte

Über Autor(innen)

Sari Katajala-Peltomaa is a university researcher at the Academy of Finland Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences at Tampere University, Finland. She specializes in late medieval hagiography and especially in canonization processes. Her work centres on lived religion, gender, and family as well as methodological questions concerning canonization processes. Laity's devotional strategies, especially various forms and means of interacting with the
supernatural, are crucial themes in her publications.