The Cult of the Holy Name of Jesus in Late Medieval and Reformation England

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Until relatively recently, religion played a much more important part in everyday life in Western society than it does today. This was especially the case in the Middle Ages when Christianity and the Church shaped both society and culture, and people of all social backgrounds shared at least some beliefs in common and took part in regular religious ceremonies and festivals. This research explores the reasons and consequences of the growth in religious behaviour in England during the period 1350 to 1560 by focusing on devotion to the holy name of Jesus.The name 'Jesus' meant 'saviour' and was invoked for healing, protection and salvation. Throughout the early centuries of the Church Christian writers extolled its benefits, promoting affection and personal attachment to the name of Jesus through prayer, worship and meditation. By the thirteenth century these writings had gained sufficient momentum for reverence of the name of Jesus to be promoted by the papacy and for it to be celebrated in formal religious rituals including special Masses of the name of Jesus. Personal devotion to the name of Jesus was promoted among the general populace by preaching and by the fourteenth century what can be described as distinctive cults of the holy name had developed in different parts of Western Europe with large, socially diverse followings. These involved membership of fraternities dedicated to the holy name and the support of rituals in its honour, as well as more private forms of devotion such as personal prayer and meditation. This research focuses on how and why devotion to the name of Jesus developed a popular following in England from the late fourteenth century by applying approaches adopted from cognitive psychology that have hitherto largely been used by social anthropologists.It does this by investigating in detail how personal and corporate devotion to the name of Jesus spread across four different geographic regions, namely Kent, Norfolk, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire and by identifying the sorts of mental and communicative processes that were involved in its dissemination and how these might help to explain its growth. It looks for evidence of personal and household devotion to the holy name and more corporate affiliation in the form of fraternities and religious rituals in parish churches and cathedrals, and aims to identify what sorts of people promoted these practices and the kinds of individuals and social groups that adopted them. These included the clergy, whether bishops, parish priests, monks, nuns and friars, as well as ordinary people who did not belong to any religious order.It uses a range of evidence including religious books containing services, prayers, hymns and theological tracts on the holy name, last wills that record support for devotion to the name of Jesus by individuals close to death, in the form of bequests for the celebration of Masses of the name of Jesus for example, and churchwardens' accounts that mention things like altars that were dedicated to the name of Jesus or the activities of Jesus fraternities.The research is important because, by exploring the particular appeal of the name of Jesus in this historical period, it sheds light on the nature of religious belief and practice in the past and why certain religious ideas and practices gain popular followings. This has obvious contemporary relevance in a world where, despite Western secularization, religion continues to play a major role in society, culture and politics. The research is also important because of its potential to tells us about the ways religion was changing prior to the Reformation. This, in turn provides insights into the ways in which Roman Catholicism and ostensibly new Protestant forms of Christianity in the sixteenth century drew on ideas and traditions established in the later Middle Ages and how that medieval heritage went on to shape Western culture into the modern period.