Albrecht Durer's Representations of Faith: The Church, Lay Devotion and Veneration in the "Apocalypse" (1498)

The church as sacred space places the reader at the heart of medieval religious life, standing inside the church with the medieval laity in order to ask what the church meant to them and why. It examines the church as a building, idea, and community, and explores the ways in which the sanctity of the church was crucial to its place at the centre of lay devotion and parish life. At a time when the parish church was facing competition for lay attention, and dissenting movements such as Lollardy were challenging the relevance of the material church, the book examines what was at stake in discussions of sanctity and its manifestations. Exploring a range of Middle English literature alongside liturgy, architecture, and material culture, the book explores the ways in which the sanctity of the church was constructed and maintained for the edification of the laity. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary theoretical approaches, the book offers a reading of the church as continually produced and negotiated by the rituals, performances, and practices of its lay communities, who were constantly being asked to attend to its material form, visual decorations, and significance. The meaning of the church was a dominant question in late-medieval religious culture and this book provides an invaluable context for students and academics working on lay religious experience and canonical Middle English texts.

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Music, ritual and patronage at the Church of Our Lady, Antwerp

Early Music History ◽

10.1017/s026112790000053x ◽

1987 ◽

Vol 7 ◽

pp. 1-57 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Kristine K. Forney

Keyword(s):

Fifteenth Century ◽

Fourteenth Century ◽

Catholic Church ◽

Roman Catholic ◽

Roman Catholic Church ◽

Low Countries ◽

Lay Devotion ◽

The Church

The development of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century sacred polyphony is linked closely not only to the Mass and divine services of the Roman Catholic Church, but equally to the rise of lay devotional congregations who sponsored their own services, often musically elaborate, at private chapels and altars. Within this popular phenomenon of lay devotion in the Low Countries, several northern confraternities can be cited for their very early regular use of polyphony. A polyphonic Salve service was established in 1362 by the Marian confraternity at St Goedele in Brussels, and Reinhard Strohm has shown that, by 1396, the Marian Guild of the Dry Tree (Ghilde vanden droghen Boome) in Bruges sponsored weekly masses sung in polyphony by its guild members. That polyphony was central to some fourteenth-century confraternity services is confirmed by the records of the Illustrious Confraternity of Our Lady in 's-Hertogenbosch, founded in 1318 in St John's Church.

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Spiritual Healing, Sick Kids and the Law: Inequities in the American Healthcare System

American Journal of Law & Medicine ◽

10.1017/s0098858800002847 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 29 (2-3) ◽

pp. 269-299

Author(s):

Janna C. Merrick

Keyword(s):

Medical Science ◽

Spiritual Healing ◽

Best Interests ◽

Legal Rights ◽

High Tech ◽

Divine Love ◽

Religious Minority ◽

Human Need ◽

East End ◽

The Church

Main Street in Sarasota, Florida. A high-tech medical arts building rises from the east end, the county's historic three-story courthouse is two blocks to the west and sandwiched in between is the First Church of Christ, Scientist. A verse inscribed on the wall behind the pulpit of the church reads: “Divine Love Always Has Met and Always Will Meet Every Human Need.” This is the church where William and Christine Hermanson worshipped. It is just a few steps away from the courthouse where they were convicted of child abuse and third-degree murder for failing to provide conventional medical care for their seven-year-old daughter.This Article is about the intersection of “divine love” and “the best interests of the child.” It is about a pluralistic society where the dominant culture reveres medical science, but where a religious minority shuns and perhaps fears that same medical science. It is also about the struggle among different religious interests to define the legal rights of the citizenry.

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Ideas and Leaders in Contentious Politics: One Parish Priest in El Salvador's Popular Movement

Behavioral and Brain Sciences ◽

10.1017/s0140525x13009862 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 38 (01) ◽

pp. 76-101

Author(s):

PETER M. SANCHEZ

Keyword(s):

Collective Action ◽

El Salvador ◽

Liberation Theology ◽

Contentious Politics ◽

Religious Leaders ◽

Political Movement ◽

Parish Priest ◽

Historical Moment ◽

Resource Mobilisation ◽

The Church

AbstractThis paper examines the actions of one Salvadorean priest – Padre David Rodríguez – in one parish – Tecoluca – to underscore the importance of religious leadership in the rise of El Salvador's contentious political movement that began in the early 1970s, when the guerrilla organisations were only just beginning to develop. Catholic leaders became engaged in promoting contentious politics, however, only after the Church had experienced an ideological conversion, commonly referred to as liberation theology. A focus on one priest, in one parish, allows for generalisation, since scores of priests, nuns and lay workers in El Salvador followed the same injustice frame and tactics that generated extensive political mobilisation throughout the country. While structural conditions, collective action and resource mobilisation are undoubtedly necessary, the case of religious leaders in El Salvador suggests that ideas and leadership are of vital importance for the rise of contentious politics at a particular historical moment.

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