Ebook: Sacred and Secular in Medieval and Early Modern Cultures: New Essays (The New Middle Ages)

Professor Lawrence Besserman of the English Department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was the prime moving force behind a two- year faculty- student seminar in Jerusalem on the subject of the 'Secular and Sacred in Medieval and Modern Cultures'. The essays collected in this volume are the product of that seminar. They are ably gathered together by Professor Besserman who contributes his own illuminating overview essay as an introduction to the volume. He traces the theme from " its roughly simultaneous appearance in ancient Greece and among the Israelite tribes and later Jewish urbanites depicted in the Hebrew Bible, through its development in New Testament and patristic times, and on into medieval and early modern European civilization." His principal emphais is on the fluid character of the categories and how phenomena of sacred and secular intermingle in such a way as to mean that their borders are always elusive and shifting. He questions the simplistic reading of the whole process of ' secularization' and in effect argues that the proces of 'desecularization' is an ' ancient and ongoing phenomenom."
Among the other essays in the first part of the book, which is devoted to 'Medieval and Early Modern Literature:Lyric, Narrative and Drama,' are the following:
Cyril Aslanov writes on ' the influence of the Golden Legend by Jacob de Voragine on the genre of troubadour 'vidas'. ( lives of the troubadours). He also tries to show the influence of these 'vidas' on Provencal lyrical poetry.
Thomas C. Duncan focuses on the ' expression of the sacred in heroic mode of Old English literature through the exploration of secular Germanic images and concepts in the representation of Christ as a young warrior in 'The Dream of the Rood.'
Alan J. Fletcher centers on the Middle English poem 'Pearl' and the figure 'metonymy'which is pervasively used in the poem. He argues that 'metonymy' provides a key to understanding the 'aesthetic and cultural dynamics of the poem.
Alastair Minnis discusses the 'material and spiritual economies on the Canterbury pilgrimage'. And in considering Chaucer's most reprehensible character 'The Pardoner' argues that ' the poet's point is that this inveterate sinner ia exaggerating and exploiting shamelessly whatever limited spiritual authority he may have." The Pardoner is shown as one whose 'obsession with the material economy has utterly subverted any chance he may have of profiting from the spiritual economy.'
Murry Roston in discussing the sacred and secular in 'The Merchant of Venice' argues that the major theme of the play is the conflict between 'precepts of Christianity denouncing financial acquistion and the demands of the burgeoning world of commerce.' He argues that by merging these two disparate sides in the figure of Antonio Shakespeare in effect works to justify his own ' current commercial ventures.'

The second section of the volume is devoted to 'Medieval and Early Modern History: Church and State.'
Lior Barshack opens with a reading of 'The Communal Body, the Corporate Body, and the Clerical Body; An Anthropological Reading of the Gregorian Reform."
Esther Cohen 'examines the question of late medieval discourse and its approach to torture.'
Rita Copeland looks at 'how the history of rhetoric provides a test case for the stability of the boundary between the sacred and the secular."
Robert M. Stein's piece considers 'the huge three - part chronicle , The Deeds of the Bishops of Cambrai' in conjunction with the rebuilding of the Cathedral. He shows how it is a 'political weapon'in the hands of the bishop in his effort to achieve supremacy over 'secular and ecclesiastical rivals.'
Miri Rubin ' focuses on the efforts invested iin the design of the Mass from the twelvth century and the array of dilemnas and questions that the priest's role at the altar raised for theologians and practicioners alike'.
The essays as a whole provide a solid body of evidence for the fundamental thesis of the volume regarding the permeability of sacred and secular in Christian Medieval and early modern cultures. They also provide clues as to the persistence of the 'sacred' in a supposedly post- Christian world today.
While many of the pieces are in quite complex scholarly language the volume is extremely user- friendly as for instance in the editor's having provided clear abstracts as introduction to each essay.
This is a very rich and thought- provoking group of essays which show how varied and intricate are the connections between what we would set aside as ' sacred' and what we might somehow suppose only belongs to a deconsecrated world.