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

直到最近，宗教在西方社会的日常生活中扮演着比今天更重要的角色。尤其是在中世纪，基督教和教会塑造了社会和文化，各种社会背景的人至少有一些共同的信仰，并参加定期的宗教仪式和节日。本研究探讨了1350年至1560年期间英国宗教行为增长的原因和后果，重点是对耶稣圣名的虔诚。“耶稣”这个名字的意思是“救世主”，被用来治疗、保护和拯救。在教会的早期几个世纪里，基督教作家赞美它的好处，通过祈祷，崇拜和冥想促进对耶稣名字的感情和个人依恋。到了十三世纪，这些著作已经获得了足够的动力，使教皇能够宣扬对耶稣之名的崇敬，并在正式的宗教仪式中庆祝耶稣之名，包括以耶稣之名举行的特别弥撒。个人献身于耶稣的名字是促进了一般民众的说教和由14世纪什么可以被描述为独特的邪教的圣名已经发展在不同地区的西欧与大，社会多样化的追随者。这些包括加入致力于圣名的兄弟会，支持纪念圣名的仪式，以及更多私人形式的奉献，如个人祈祷和冥想。这项研究的重点是如何以及为什么奉献给耶稣的名字发展了一个流行的追随者，从14世纪后期通过应用的方法，从认知心理学，迄今为止，主要是由社会人类学家使用。它通过详细调查如何个人和企业奉献给耶稣的名字在四个不同的地理区域，即肯特郡，诺福克郡，伯明翰郡和约克郡，并通过识别参与其传播的各种心理和交流过程，以及这些过程如何有助于解释其发展。它寻找个人和家庭对圣名的奉献以及更多以教区教堂和大教堂的兄弟会和宗教仪式形式存在的企业联系的证据，旨在确定什么样的人促进了这些做法以及采用这些做法的个人和社会团体。这些包括神职人员，无论是主教，教区牧师，僧侣，修女和修士，以及不属于任何宗教秩序的普通人。它使用了一系列证据，包括包含服务的宗教书籍，祈祷，赞美诗和关于圣名的神学小册子，最后的遗嘱，记录了接近死亡的个人对耶稣之名的奉献支持，例如，以耶稣之名的弥撒仪式的遗赠形式，以及教会管理员的账户，其中提到了诸如奉献给耶稣之名的祭坛或耶稣兄弟会的活动。这项研究很重要，因为，通过探讨耶稣的名字在这一历史时期的独特吸引力，揭示了过去宗教信仰和实践的本质，以及某些宗教思想和实践为什么会受到人们的欢迎。这在当今世界具有明显的现实意义，尽管西方已经世俗化，但宗教继续在社会、文化和政治中发挥重要作用。这项研究也很重要，因为它有可能告诉我们宗教改革之前宗教的变化方式。这反过来又提供了对罗马天主教和表面上新的新教形式的基督教在16世纪借鉴中世纪后期建立的思想和传统的方式，以及中世纪遗产如何继续塑造西方文化进入现代时期的见解。

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.