Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b95js Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-23T14:33:32.307Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

14 - Ascetic Prayer for the Dead in the Early Medieval West

from Part I - The Origins of Christian Monasticism to the Eighth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 January 2020

By
Gordon Blennemann
Edited by
Alison I. Beach  and
Isabelle Cochelin
Alison I. Beach
Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Isabelle Cochelin
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
Get access

Summary

Despite the common association of monasteries with intercession in the early Middle Ages, the religious, cultural, and social practice of prayer extended beyond the narrow ascetic–monastic sphere. In keeping with both Old Testament and early Christian traditions, prayer was understood as an expression of brotherly love that was the duty of all Christians, and not as the exclusive obligation of a few ascetic specialists. Even when prayer served the primary function of worship, the idea of intercession was at least implied—a functional complementarity reflected in the so-called double command of love: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God, with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like to it: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Mark 12:30–31). By late antiquity, the charitable dimension of prayer was integral both to ecclesiology and to the development of Christian social concepts.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Medieval Monasticism in the Latin West , pp. 278 - 296
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Angenendt, Arnold. Liturgie im Mittelalter. Ausgewählte Aufsätze zum 70. Geburtstag, edited by Flammer, Thomas and Meyer, Daniel. Münster, 2004.Google Scholar
Angenendt, Arnold. Offertorium. Das mittelalterliche Meßopfer. 3rd ed., Münster, 2014.Google Scholar
Brown, Peter. The Ransom of the Soul: Afterlife and Wealth in Western Christianity. Cambridge, MA, 2015.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Choy, Renie S. Intercessory Prayer and the Monastic Ideal in the Time of the Carolingian Reforms. Oxford, 2016.Google Scholar
Dal Santo, Matthew. Debating the Saints’ Cults in the Age of Gregory the Great. Cambridge, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geuenich, Dieter, and Oexle, Otto Gerhard, eds. Memoria in der Gesellschaft des Mittelalters. Göttingen, 1994.Google Scholar
Häußling, Angelus A. Mönchskonvent und Eucharistiefeier. Eine Studie über die Messe in der abendländischen Klosterliturgie des frühen Mittelalters und zur Geschichte der Meßhäufigkeit. Münster, 1973.Google Scholar
Helvétius, Anne-Marie. “Le monachisme féminin en Occident de l’antiquité tardive au haut Moyen Âge.” In Monachesimi d’oriente e d’occidente nell’alto medioevo. LXIV Settimana di Studio (Spoleto, March 31st–April 6th 2016), 2 vols., 1:193–230. Spoleto, 2017.Google Scholar
Hen, Yitzhak, and Meens, Rob, eds. The Bobbio Missal: Liturgy and Religious Culture in Merovingian Gaul. Cambridge, 2004.Google Scholar
Hendrix, Julian. “La liturgie monastique avant Cluny: la contribution carolingienne.” In Cluny. Les moines et la société au premier âge féodal, edited by Iogna-Prat, Dominique et al., 129–36. Rennes, 2013.Google Scholar
Magnani, Eliana. “Transforming Things.” In Negotiating the Gift: Pre-Modern Figurations of Exchange, edited by Algazi, Gadi, Groebner, Valentin, and Jussen, Bernhard, 269–84. Göttingen, 2003.Google Scholar
Muschiol, Gisela. Famula Dei. Zur Liturgie in merowingischen Frauenklöstern. Münster, 1994.Google Scholar
Muschiol, Gisela. “Men, Women and Liturgical Practice in the Early Medieval West.” In Gender in the Early Medieval World: East and West, 300–900, edited by Brubaker, Leslie and Smith, Julia Mary Howard, 198–216. Cambridge, 2004.Google Scholar
Oexle, Otto Gerhard, “Memoria als Kultur.” In Memoria als Kultur, edited by Oexle, Otto Gerhard, 9–78. Göttingen, 1995.Google Scholar
Paxton, Frederick S. Christianizing Death: The Creation of a Ritual Process in Early Medieval Europe. Ithaca, NY, 1996.Google Scholar
Raaijmakers, Janneke E. “Memory and Identity: The Annales necrologici of Fulda.” In Texts and Identities in the Early Middle Ages, edited by Corradini, Richard, Meens, Rob, Pössel, Christina U., and Shaw, P., 303–22. Vienna, 2006.Google Scholar
Rose, Els. “The Ritual of the Names: A Practice of Intercession in Early Medieval Gaul.” Frühmittelalterliche Studien 51 (2017): 2–18.Google Scholar
Schmid, Karl, and Wollasch, Joachim, eds. “Memoria.” Der geschichtliche Zeugniswert des liturgischen Gedenkens im Mittelalter. Munich, 1984.Google Scholar
Scholz, Sebastian. “‘Durch eure Fürbitten ist er Gefährte der Heiligen’: Grabinschriften als Ausdruck des Totengedenkens im Mittelalter.” In Bücher des Lebens—lebendige Bücher. Katalog, edited by Erhart, Peter and Kuratli, Jakob, 153–61. St. Gall, 2010.Google Scholar
Scholz, Sebastian. “Das Grab in der Kirche: zu seinen theologischen und rechtlichen Hintergründen in Spätantike und Frühmittelalter.” Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte. Kanonistische Abteilung 84 (1998): 270–306.Google Scholar
Treffort, Cécile. L’Église carolingienne et la mort. Christianisme, rites funéraires et pratiques commémoratives. Lyon, 1996.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×