Himmlisches und irdisches Jerusalem
Some historians maintain, that the people in the Middle Ages sustained their life only by trusting in an Other and better world and tonged for the end of this one. Some deplore the secularization of our times hinting with nostalgia at an age, when there was no doubting the church and her teachings....
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | German |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Diagonal-Verlag
2012
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| In: |
Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft
Year: 1993, Volume: 1, Issue: 2, Pages: 91-119 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) |
| Parallel Edition: | Electronic
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| Summary: | Some historians maintain, that the people in the Middle Ages sustained their life only by trusting in an Other and better world and tonged for the end of this one. Some deplore the secularization of our times hinting with nostalgia at an age, when there was no doubting the church and her teachings. Again others see in this attitude a mental disease that has been superseded by the Enlightenment. Jerusalem is the most exhausting goal of pilgrimage imaginable. This fits best with the aim of undertaking a pilgrimage: striving (laborare) to gain salvation. The saviour himself made the utmost effort to win salvation for those who believe him. Therefore the church of the Holy Sepulchre is the peak of a pilgrimage, not Mt. Olive, the Place of His Second Coming. The apocalypse was used in an un-apocalyptical manner: By translating the motives in the oral media it was re-presented: in the ritual of death of the individual, in religious drama, and in the visual arts. Jerusalem as chiffre for salvation was present, at hand. Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre could be visited in many towns of the occident; the history of salvation was re-enacted in the liturgy, here and today. Among the many other incentives to take part in the crusade there were promises of rich rewards both heavenly and earthly: heavenly in so far that crusading was a very succesfull form of repentence, but without essentially changing one's life. Thus crusaders could hope to earn earthly booty and land as well, living as before. So crusaders became the first great religious movement of laity in the Middle Ages. This essay is a plea for a careful reading of religious mentality embedded in its cultural context instead of judging medieval religion from a modern point of view of the homo religiosus. To analyse religion as part of a histoire totale, as programatically formulated by the school of annales, one needs all the tools of the Kulturwissenschaft in the tradition of Max Weber, Aby Warburg, Ernst Cassirer and others. |
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| ISSN: | 2194-508X |
| Contains: | In: Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1515/0019.91 |