Virginitas: An Essay in the History of a Medieval IdeaApreface is best written last, after a book is done and its author may look back to survey what he hopes he has accomplished and what he must admit he has not. In hindsight virginity by itself has seemed a very large field to till, but with that reflection also comes a sense of misgiving, the awareness that a really comprehensive treatment of that subject would somehow have to encompass an enormous ter rain, the whole length and breadth of Christianity's attitude toward sexuality from the earliest times down to the high Middle Ages. It could be argued that no small book could cover so much ground, and I would be the first to agree. As its subtitle is meant to suggest, the present work is, in at least two senses of the word, an essay: both an initial and tentative effort to get at the meaning of an extremely important but as yet unprobed medieval belief in the perfective value of the virginal life; and an interpretive study of a complex subject from a limited point of view, specifically, that in which the virgin appears in devotional literature as the bride of Christ. |
Contents
| 5 | |
VIRGINITY AND THE MONASTIC ECONOMY | 30 |
SPONSA CHRISTI VIRGINITY AND EPITHALAMIAN | 59 |
VIRGINITY SEXUALIZED | 80 |
SURVIVING ELEMENTS OF CHRISTIAN GNOSIS III | 111 |
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Common terms and phrases
Adam and Eve Adam's allegorical Ancrene Riwle angels asexuality asserts Augustine Augustine's Augustinian belief Bernard body bride of Christ celibacy Christian gnosis Christian gnostic tradition Church Cistercian concept death devil divine doctrine dualistic English essence evil fall Fathers female virgins flesh Genesis gnostic gnostic principle God's Gregory of Nyssa Guthlac Hali Meidenhad holy homilia human nature human sexuality ideal of virginity iesu Jerome Jesus Katherine Group Leclercq literal Louerde Love of Learning lust luue maiden male man's Mary Mary's virginity medieval metaphor Methodius Methodius of Olympus Middle Ages miles Christi monasticism monk mystical ontological original original sin pagan gnosticism Paradise physical pneumatic primal purity Saint salvation Seinte sexless sexual intercourse simplicitas Song of Songs soul spiritual sponsa Christi motif symbolic thee thou thought tion trans twelfth century union virgin birth virginitate vita angelica wið writes þat þer þet