The Last Fetter: A Girardian Reading of Aelred of Rievaulx's De Quadam Miraculum Mirabili

Aelred of Rievaulx's De quadam miraculum mirabili relates the story of a Gilbertine nun raped by a brother in her community. She becomes pregnant and is brutally persecuted by her sisters. The text provides Aelred's interpretation of events as conveyed to him by certain elders in the commu...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Slater, Isaac (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Oxford University Press 2012
In: Literature and theology
Year: 2012, Volume: 26, Issue: 1, Pages: 23-37
Online Access: Volltext (JSTOR)
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Summary:Aelred of Rievaulx's De quadam miraculum mirabili relates the story of a Gilbertine nun raped by a brother in her community. She becomes pregnant and is brutally persecuted by her sisters. The text provides Aelred's interpretation of events as conveyed to him by certain elders in the community. This article finds features of what René Girard identified as ‘persecution texts’ in the elder's account. Despite a certain ambivalence toward the victim, Aelred's theological aim in the interpretation he gives to events is to replace envy with gratitude. The text reveals a partial breakdown in the mechanism of sacred violence under pressure from gospel values.
ISSN:1477-4623
Contains:Enthalten in: Literature and theology
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1093/litthe/frr037