Imagining the Medieval Afterlife

A comprehensive, innovative study of how medieval people envisioned heaven, hell, and purgatory - images and imaginings that endure today.

Richard Matthew Pollard (Edited by)

9781316630785, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 10 November 2022

376 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.546 kg

'Taken together, the contents of this volume succeed in providing the reader with an overview of the textual and artistic sources for the ways in which medieval people imagined the fates awaiting them after death.' Scott Bruce, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History

Where do we go after we die? This book traces how the European Middle Ages offered distinctive answers to this universal question, evolving from Antiquity through to the sixteenth century, to reflect a variety of problems and developments. Focussing on texts describing visions of the afterlife, alongside art and theology, this volume explores heaven, hell, and purgatory as they were imagined across Europe, as well as by noted authors including Gregory the Great and Dante. A cross-disciplinary team of contributors including historians, literary scholars, classicists, art historians and theologians offer not only a fascinating sketch of both medieval perceptions and the wide scholarship on this question: they also provide a much-needed new perspective. Where the twelfth century was once the 'high point' of the medieval afterlife, the essays here show that the afterlives of the early and later Middle Ages were far more important and imaginative than we once thought.

Preface
List of abbreviations
List of figures
1. Introduction Richard M. Pollard
Part I. Chronological Surveys: 2. Just deserts in the ancient pagan afterlife Susanna Braund and Emma Hilliard
3. Visions of the afterlife in the early medieval west Yitzhak Hen
4. A Morbid efflorescence: envisaging the afterlife in the Carolingian period Richard M. Pollard
5. The afterlife in the medieval Celtic-speaking world Elizabeth Boyle
6. Anglo-Saxon visions of heaven and hell Gernot Wieland
7. Otherworld journeys of the central middle ages Carl Watkins
8. Visions of the otherworlds in the late middle ages, c.1300–c.1500 Gwenfair Walters Adams
Part II. Theological Perspectives: 9. Purgatory's intercessors Isabel Moreira
10. The theology of the afterlife in the early middle ages, c.600–c.1100 Helen Foxhall Forbes
11. Afterdeath locations and return appearances, from scripture to Shakespeare Henry Ansgar Kelly
Part III. Artistic Impressions: 12. 'Eye hath not seen [...] which things God hath prepared [...] ': imagining heaven and hell in Romanesque and Gothic art Adam R. Stead
Part IV. Notable Authors and Texts
13. Visions and the afterlife in Gregory's dialogues Jesse Keskiaho
14. The vision of Tnugdal Eileen Gardiner
15. The afterlife in the visionary experiences of the female mystics Debra L. Stoudt
16. Dante's other-worldly surprises and this-worldly polemic George Corbett
Cumulative bibliography.

Subject Areas: History of religion [HRAX], Religion: general [HRA], Medieval history [HBLC1], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB], History of art: Byzantine & Medieval art c 500 CE to c 1400 [ACK]