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Marriage and Monasticism in the Medieval West
He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken. And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
-Isaiah 53:8-10
Monasticism, as a historical phenomenon, can be seen as a shocking disregard for the basic human impulse to overcome the first death through procreation. But in Christian terms, it should not be understood as a disregard for death, altogether. Rather it is fueled by an acute awareness of the reality of the second death. You might say that it is driven by the conviction that preparing for the second death is even more urgent than preparing for the first.
Warren S. Thompson, Frank W. Notestein and Adolphe Landry began speaking in the 1920s and 30s about “the demographic transition.” By this they meant that modernity is defined pre-eminently by life span extension and birth survival. Others have developed this research and continue to affirm the centrality of changes in lifespan and birthrates as central to understanding modern in relation to pre-modern societies. And they have found consistently that longer lifespan and lower fertility rates go hand in hand. Thus, while pre-modern societies have high fertility rates and short lifespans, modern societies have low fertility rates and long lifespans.
Sweden
1750: 35
1800: 39
1860: 48
1960: 75
Canada
1950: 27 births / 1000 people
today: 10 births / 1000 people
In pre-Transition cultures life had meaning in relation to death. The meaning of life, in pre-Transition Europe, as in other pre-Transition cultures, was understood in light of the ever-present reality of death. This is why the meaning of life was centered on childrearing and religious devotion.
Dear Lucy,
it seems to me to be the will of God that I must shortly leave you; therefore give my kindest love to my dear wife, and tell her, that the uncommon union, which has so long subsisted between us, has been of such a nature, as I trust is spiritual, and therefore will continue forever: and I hope she will be supported under so great a trial, and submit cheerfully to the will of God. And as to my children, you are now like to be left fatherless, which I hope will be an inducement to you all to seek a Father, who will never fail you. And as to my funeral, I would have it be like Mr. Burr’s; and any additional sum of money that might be expected to be laid out that way, I would have it disposed of to charitable uses
-Jonathan Edwards
For ought you know your Death has entered into you, you may have conceived that which determines but about Nine Months more at the most for you to live in the World.
-Cotton Mather
The facts of medieval death were largely, if not entirely, Christian facts. Christianity, after all, placed a death at the centre of its drama of salvation, that of Christ who redeemed the world on the Cross and subsequently rose from the dead. Its central sign was in effect an implement of lethal torture.
-Paul Binski
The whole point of the Medieval culture of death, from an ecclesiastical and theological point of view, was to help people understand that their lives were preparations for the life to come. The consistent message of the Church was that if you prepare well for the first death, the second death will hold no power over you.
Eat Drink Be Inebriated
The Sick Body The Dead Body The Resurrected Body
The First Death (The Second Death)
Whoever has ears, let them hear what the
Spirit says to the churches. The one who is victorious
will not be hurt at all by the second death.
Revelation 2:11
Annihilation: “As a drop of water seems to disappear completely in a big quantity of wine, even assuming the win’s taste and color; just as red, molten iron becomes so much like fire it seems to lose its primary state; just as the air on a sunny day seems transformed into sunshine instead of being lit up; so it is necessary for the saints that all human feeling melt in a mysterious way and flow into the will of God.”
Embodiment: “The flesh is clearly a good and faithful partner for a good spirit, it helps if it is burdened; it relieves if it does not help; it surely benefits and is by no means a burden.”
Bernard is fairly typical within the Christian tradition in the way that he affirms that erotic love between a man and a woman is the sacrament of the union between God and humankind, while nevertheless condemning it as, in actual practice, carnal and impure.
Flavius Crispius to Aurelia Aniane, most worthy wife, who lived 28 years. We were married for 9 years with love, and she never gave me cause for pain. Farewell, my dear. Be at peace with the holy souls. Farewell in Christ!
ICUR IV 12566
Jerusalem means those who, in this world, lead the religious life; they imitate, according to their powers, by a virtuous and orderly life, the way of life of the Jerusalem above.
-Bernard of Clairvaux
Religio: The Monastic Way of Life
In the High Middle Ages religio was a technical term; it denoted a particular way of life; the monastic way of life; a way of life that was the domain of specialists whose behavior, prayers, and discipline put them in stark contrast to the masses.
Francis of Assisi
(1182-1226)
Catherine of Sienna
Population of Europe
950 AD: 25 Million
1250 AD: 75 Million
Agrarian Crisis: 1309-1325
Killed 10-25 % Population
The Big Death: 1347-51
Killed 25-50 % Population
Givry, France
Population 1200-1500
1338-48: 30 Deaths per year
Fourteen Weeks in 1348: 615 Deaths
https://earth.google.com/web/@46.7806698,4.74884894,209.86898693a,1987.13593121d,35y,55.83777132h,60t,0r/data=CkcaRRI_CiQweDQ3ZjJmZWUwNjI5MDE1NTc6MHhiOTk0MWVkMTM0NTA4NWIZRj1EoztkR0AhB8xDpnz4EkAqBUdpdnJ5GAEgASgC
Father abandoned child, wife husband, one brother another, for the plague seemed to strike through breath and sight. And so they died. And no one could be found to bury the dead, for money or friendship.
Agnoli di Tura del Grasso
Oh Happy posterity who will not experience such abysmal woe . . . and who will look upon our testimony as fable.
Petrarch
So high was mortality at the Hotel Dieu (Paris’s principal hospital) that for a long time more than 500 dead were carried daily with great devotion in carts to the cemetery of the Holy Innocents in Paris for burial. A very great number of saintly sister of the Hotel Dieu who, not fearing death, nursed the sick in all sweetness and humility, with no thought of honor, a number too often renewed by death, rest in peace with Christ, as we may piously believe.
-Jean de Venette
The century after the Black Death in England and elsewhere in northern Europe was marked by the rise of intense personal mysticism and the development of elaborate spiritual exercises, religious devotion from people other than monks, those who had been, up until then, the religious few.
Death at the Door
William Caxon
(1422-91)
The Arte and Crafte to Knowe Well to Die
Henry Suso
(1295-1366)
The Little Book of Eternal Wisdom
The truest, most useful, and most practical doctrine for thee in all the Scriptures that, in a few words, will more than amply convince thee of all the truth requisite for the attainment of the summit of perfection in a godly life, is this doctrine: Keep thyself secluded from all mankind, keep thyself free form the influence of all external things, disenthrall thyself from all that depends on chance or accident, and direct thy mind at all times on high in secret and vine contemplation, wherein, with a steady gaze from which though never swervest, though has Me before thy eyes.
-Henry Suso
The Protestant Reformation’s laicization of the holy life was a long time coming. It was seen first, in the High Middle Ages, through the establishment of lay communities such as Beguines and Beghards, and in the Late Middle Ages, through the laicization of monastic spirituality through the work of reformers like Suso and Groote.
Whoever has ears, let them hear what the
Spirit says to the churches. The one who is victorious
will not be hurt at all by the second death.
Revelation 2:11
“Your marriage is your life in God,” is God’s word to married people. It is not God’s word to everyone. God’s word to everyone is, quite simply, “your life, is your life in God.” No matter where you find yourself now, the holy life is open to you. The question is whether Christians in the west today, whether married or single, will take this possibility seriously. It will not be easy for us to do so as long as we refuse to take human mortality seriously. As long as we hide from mortality, we will not feel the need to prepare for death by living the holy life.