Dreams and Visions in the Early Middle Ages
The Reception and Use of Patristic Ideas, 400–900

A comprehensive overview of ideas about dreams and visions in the Christian cultures of the early Middle Ages.

Jesse Keskiaho (Author)

9781107442658, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 4 October 2018

339 pages
23 x 15.3 x 1.8 cm, 0.52 kg

Dreams and visions played important roles in the Christian cultures of the early Middle Ages. But not only did tradition and authoritative texts teach that some dreams were divine: some also pointed out that this was not always the case. Exploring a broad range of narrative sources and manuscripts, Jesse Keskiaho investigates how the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and Pope Gregory the Great on dreams and visions were read and used in different contexts. Keskiaho argues that the early medieval processes of reception in a sense created patristic opinion about dreams and visions, resulting in a set of authoritative ideas that could be used both to defend and to question reports of individual visionary experiences. This book is a major contribution to discussions about the intellectual place of dreams and visions in the early Middle Ages, and underlines the creative nature of early medieval engagement with authoritative texts.

1. Introduction
2. Dreams in hagiography and other narratives
3. Dreams and apparitions: patristic ideas and their reception
4. The epistemology of visions: the reception of Augustine on the three visiones
Epilogue: dreams and visions in early medieval thought
Appendix: the pre-tenth-century manuscripts of the main works discussed
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Theology [HRLB], Church history [HRCC2], European history [HBJD]