The Role of the Senses in Medieval Liturgies, Rituals, and Devotional Practices

During the Middle Ages, rituals d  shaped the daily life of the faithful, from the Divine Office and the Mass to individual devotional practices such as the reading of the Hours. They accompanied the lives of people from their birth to their last breath. These ceremonies aimed at engaging the devotees by stimulating their senses and triggering emotional and spiritual responses. This book aims to approach these practices from the lens of sensory studies, by giving the spotlight to the sensoria (i.e. the diverse sensory systems that existed in the Middle Ages) and the experiences of the faithful. In so doing, it aims to show that the experience of the sacred was not homogeneous and static. On the contrary, it was a multimodal and multisensorial activity, one that bore complex and overlapping layers of meaning, and was perceived in different ways by the diverse groups and individuals involved.

Zuleika Murat, Valentina Baradel, Sara Carreño, Introduction: Sensing the Sacred in the High and Late Middle Ages

Holly Flora, Meditation, Ritual, and the Senses in the Paris Meditationes Vitae Christi

Martina Bordone, Through Body or Eye: Experiencing Devotional Books in Late Medieval Italy

Vittorio Frighetto, Protect and Survive: The Pursuit of Salvation and the Role of the Body in Fifteenth-Century Flemish Prayer Books

Dr Leah R. Clark, Sensorial Practices and Transcultural Objects in the Collections of Eleonora d’Aragona, Duchess of Ferrara

Ariana Mae Sider, Materiality, Sensory Experience, and the Sacraments in Late Medieval Toursnais Wills

Francesc Massip and Alba Knijf, With the Five Senses: Spectacular Devices for Engaging the Audience in the Middle Ages

Carla M. Bino, Moving Movements: Animated Crucifixes and the Faithful in Fourteenth-Century Central Italy

Sara Carreño, Space, Movement, and the Senses: Religious Plays at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in the Fifteenth Century

Valentina Baradel, Sensing the Miracle, Experiencing the Resurrection: Embodied Devotional Practices at the Shrine of St Lazarus, Autun

David Merlin, Sounding Liturgy: The Aural Dimension of Medieval Worship

Frederick S. Paxton, Engaging the Senses in the Death Ritual at Cluny

Florence Chave‑Mahirn, Exorcism in the Middle Ages: A Performance for All Senses

Ninon Dubourg, The ‘Blind’, the ‘Deaf’, and the ‘Dumb’: Liturgical Practice and Sensory Impairment in the Late Middle Ages

Marta Simões and Joana Antunes, Fasting the Senses: Lent and Holy Week in Portuguese Medieval Churches

Zuleika Murat, Embodied Piety: Sensory Education and Childhood Devotion in Medieval Europe

Hólmfríður Sveinsdóttir, Sensory Affordances of Objects: Amulets and the Medieval Sensorium

Serena Frenzon, Praying with the Senses: Sensory Engagement in Relation to Medieval Devotional Jewellery

Micol Long, An Intimate Touch: The Religious Significance of Combs Beyond Liturgical Use (tenth–fifteenth c.)

Katalin Suba, The Crucifixion Scene on the Hungarian Coronation Mantle and Its Liturgical Allusions

Elliott Wise, Epiphanies of Flesh and Light: Framing the Elevation of the Eucharist with the Chasuble of the Golden Fleece

Index