Communicating the Passion

The Socio-Religious Function of an Emotional Narrative (1250-1530)

Pietro Delcorno, Holly Johnson (eds)

Pages: approx. 410 p.
Size:156 x 234 mm
Illustrations:13 b/w, 19 col.

Language(s):English
Publication Year:2025

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ISBN: 978-2-503-61062-7
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This volume investigates the vivid and emotionally intense commemoration of the Passion of Christ as a key element in late medieval religious communication and culture.

Subject(s)

BIO

Pietro Delcorno, Ph.D. (2016) is Postdoctoral Fellow at Radboud University, Nijmegen, thanks to an NWO Veni Research Grant. He has published widely on medieval preaching and religious theatre and on late medieval social history, including Lazzaro e il ricco epulone: Metamorfosi di una parabola fra Quattro e Cinquecento (Il Mulino, 2014) and In the Mirror of the Prodigal Son: The Pastoral Uses of a Biblical Narrative (c. 1200-1550) (Brill, 2018).

Holly Johnson, Ph.D. (2001) is Professor of English at Mississippi State University. She has published on a variety of topics associated with sermons preached in late medieval England, and she has edited and translated a number of previously unpublished sermons. Her books include The Grammar of Good Friday: Macaronic Sermons of Late Medieval England (Brepols, 2012) and Robert Rypon, Selected Sermons, Vol 1: Feast Days and Saints’ Days (Peeters, 2019).

Summary

This volume investigates the vivid and emotionally intense commemoration of the Passion of Christ as a key element in late medieval religious culture. Its goal is to shed light on how the Passion was communicated and on its socio-religious function in late medieval Europe. By adopting a multidisciplinary approach, the volume analyses the different media involved in this cultural process (sermons, devotional texts, lively performances, statues, images), the multiple forms and languages in which the Passion was presented to the faithful, and how they were expected to respond to it. Key questions concern the strategies used to present the Passion; the interaction between texts, images, and sounds in different media; the dissemination of theological ideas in the public space; the fashioning of an affective response in the audience; and the presence or absence of anti-Jewish commonplaces.

By exploring the interplay among a wide range of sources, this volume highlights the pervasive role of the Passion in late medieval society and in the life of the people of the time.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Communicating the Passion of Christ: An Introduction
PIETRO DELCORNO

Negotiating Gender Roles in Fourteen-Century Bohemian Literature and Performance: Marian and Magdalenian Laments
ELIŠKA KUBARTOVÁ

Picturing the Passion: Devotional Strategies in the Passional of Abbess Kunigunde
KATRIN JANZ-WENIG AND LENKA PANUŠKOVÁ

The Passion Narrative in the Meditationes Vitae Christi: Texts and Images
DÁVID FALVAY

Meditational and Narrative Techniques in a Passion Text of a Hungarian-Language Dominican Manuscript
ÁGNES KORONDI

Hearing the Passion: Soundscapes of Richard Rolle’s Vernacular Passion Meditations
TAMÁS KARÁTH

The Art of Seeing: Passion Imagescapes in the Sermons of Robert Rypon
HOLLY JOHNSON

Preaching the Passion in Fourteenth-Century Bohemia: Milíč of Kroměříž’s Good Friday Sermons
OLGA KALASHNIKOVA

Communicating the Passion and Sainthood: Patterns in Preaching on Saint Stanislaus of Krakow
STANISLAVA KUZMOVÁ

Emotions, Theology, and Society in a Blockbuster: The Good Friday Sermon by Gritsch/Grütsch
PIETRO DELCORNO

Roberto Caracciolo’s Good Friday Preaching: Performance, Religious Drama, and Poetry
GIACOMO MARIANI

Words from the Cross: The Speaking Crucifixes and the Passion of the Franciscan Friars
CARLA BINO

Looking at the Finnish Anti-Judaic Imagery through Sermons: The Passion Iconography of the Holy Cross Church of Hattula
JUSSI HANSKA

Index