Eternal Light and Earthly Concerns

Belief and the Shaping of Medieval Society

Paul Fouracre

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Hardback

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English

Manchester University Press
25 May 2021

European history; Medieval history; Social & cultural history; Medieval European archaeology; Religion & beliefs

Series: Artes Liberales

This book investigates how the practice of keeping a light burning in churches was established in the early Middle Ages. It asks what the material consequences of implementing the practice were and why it ceased at the end of the Middle Ages.

In early Christianity it was established that every church should have a light burning on the altar at all times. In this unique study, Eternal light and earthly concerns, looks at the material and social consequences of maintaining these 'eternal' lights. It investigates how the cost of lighting was met across western Europe throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, revealing the social organisation that was built up around maintaining the lights in the belief that burning them reduced the time spent in Purgatory. When that belief collapsed in the Reformation the eternal lights were summarily extinguished. The history of the lights thus offers not only a new account of change in medieval Europe, but also a sustained examination of the relationship between materiality and belief.

By: Paul Fouracre
Imprint: Manchester University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 138mm, Spine: 17mm
ISBN: 9781784993016
ISBN 10: 1784993018
Series: Artes Liberales
Pages: 248
Publication Date: 25 May 2021
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Introduction 1 Beginnings 2 Consolidation of provision: elite practice 3 Light and power: the ‘Carolingian moment’ 4 Lighting, lords and peasants in post-Carolingian Europe 5 Lights and social formation in the central Middle Ages 6 Lights in the later Middle Ages: from devotion to destruction Conclusions Index -- .

Paul Fouracre is Professor Emeritus of Medieval History at the University of Manchester -- .

Reviews for Eternal Light and Earthly Concerns: Belief and the Shaping of Medieval Society

'[A] meticulously documented survey'. The Journal of Religious History 'Paul Fouracre's book is a breath of fresh air. It is a rare historical study that details the 'material consequences of belief' in medieval Europe, combining cultural and religious history with a study of medieval economy, agrarian production and trade, and social organisation.....To read Fouracre is to witness a master medievalist at work'. English Historical Review, May 2022 -- .