Approaching “Lived Religion” from Late Antiquity to the Central Middle Ages
Fragments of Experience
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Description
This edited volume brings together renowned specialists from History, Medieval Studies, Religious Studies, Archaeology and Art History to critically examine the topic of religious experience and so-called “lived religion” from Late Antiquity to the Central Middle Ages. With papers on Judaism, Christianity and Islam in this period, the volume is the first of its kind to consider this question in the early medieval era from a comparative perspective, drawing from a wide variety of theoretical literatures and multiple approaches, including performance theory, history of emotions, eco-criticism, queer phenomenology, history of experience and new materialism culture, to name just a few.
Recovering a historical community's religious experiences is a delicate, oftentimes difficult task. This is particularly true of religious experiences from Late Antiquity to the Central Middle Ages (c. 300–1100 C.E.), where the number and quality of sources for religious communities increase (compared to classical antiquity) yet have not reached the fevered pitch of the so-called High Middle Ages.
Table of Contents
1: Introduction, or, Framing Our “Fragments”, Lauren Mancia and Brian P. Sowers
Unit One: Methods
2: You Had to Be There: Approaching Medieval Monastic Religious Experience Through the Lens of Twentieth-Century Performance Art, Lauren Mancia
3: Lived Religion as Material Religion, David Morgan
4: The Gardens of Hermits, Virginia Burrus
Unit Two: Material Experiences
5: “Abba has begun to make money from the beer business”: Beer, Lived Religion, and Changing Rabbinic Law for Financial Benefit, Jordan D. Rosenblum
6: 23 Linen Tablecloths: Textile Use in Churches in Egypt, Jennifer Ball
7: Hunting Infidels: Jihad, Crusade, and Sovereignty in Two Ivory Caskets from Medieval Iberia, Abigail Krasner Balbale
Unit Three: Communal Experiences
8: Sensing Love and Death: Jews, Cemeteries, and Lived Religion in Late Antiquity, Karen B. Stern
9: The Habits of Prayer of Medieval Religious Women in the Leominster Prayerbook, Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis
10: You Are Where You Eat: An Affective Archaeology of Monastic Refectories, Camille Leon Angelo
Unit Four: Individual Experiences
11: Fakhr al-Din al-Razi on the Varieties of Extraordinary Experiences, Bilal Ibrahim
12: Fragmented Magic and Counter-Magic or Lived Devotion to Saints Justina and Cyprian, Brian P. Sowers
13: The Consolation of Einhard, Andrew J. Romig
Afterword: What Did They Do, What Did They Think, What Did They Feel? An Afterword to Approaching “Lived Religion” from Late Antiquity to the Central Middle Ages, Amy Hollywood
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Product details
| Published | 12 Nov 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Hardback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 272 |
| ISBN | 9781350569829 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 21 bw illus |
| Dimensions | 234 x 156 mm |
| Series | sera tela: Studies in Late Antique Literature and Its Reception |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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