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author himself.1 The question of Donne’s ecumenicalism may reasonably prompt us to search Donne’s oeuvre for statements that address the question explicitly. Such searches are quite productive. Even focusing specifically on Eucharistic theology (a particularly contentious area of early modern Christianity), one finds several strongly ecumenical statements in Donne’s sermons:2 A peremptory prejudice upon other mens opinions, that no opinion but thine can be true, in the doctrine of the Sacrament, and an uncharitable condemning of other men, or other Churches that may be
is to another place (i.e., to the New Jerusalem). 4 I refer to Gless’s 1994 monograph, Interpretation and Theology. My interpretation of the betrothal/wedding ceremony in canto xii as an allegory of the sacrament of Communion has been anticipated by John King who, in the final sentence of his Spenser Encyclopedia entry under the heading ‘Sacraments’, describes the ceremony as ‘an act that mirrors the union of Christian and Christ in the Communion service’ (624). King has not, however (in so far as I have been able to discover), expanded upon this inspired
rather than in (often mumbled) Latin as in the Roman Catholic Sarum mass and by administering bread and wine to the laity, too. The Roman Catholic liturgy and doctrine of transubstantiation were maintained during the early years of Reformation under Henry VIII. When Henry’s young son Edward ascended the throne, the English Reformation gained momentum. Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury and the leading theologian during the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, gradually adopted Zwingli’s figurative understanding of the sacraments as the official Anglican position
increasingly acquired the status of sacrament (Albrecht/Weber, 2002a: 2; Targoff, 2008: 158). In England, even fairly close to the beginning of the Reformation, the sermon also gained in significance: ‘The Book of Common Prayer has from its first version in 1549 prescribed a dual ministry of word and sacrament’ (Carrithers, 1972: 10) – under different monarchs, one or other of these ministries was emphasised more (McCullough, 1998: 6). As a priest of the English Church under King James I, Donne appears to have ‘favoured communication over Communion’ (Ferrell, 1992: 63), and
repentance, the Gospel parable shows far simpler action than the threefold process of contrition, confession, and satisfaction typically associated with the late medieval sacrament. The son may be contrite, but the father welcomes him home before he verbally expresses wrongdoing, and the story offers no evidence of restitution for his misdeeds. Although the parable raises issues related to justice (more specifically, to the efficacy and rewards of devout action), patterns of revision in Middle English retellings suggest that the portrayal of divine mercy generated the most
acts of torture are transformed into sacraments through the heroine's alliance with a piece of the holy cross, an angel, two evil dragons, her many converts, and her own prayer. This poem integrates previously ruptured material and spiritual components essential to Christian community. Sir Orfeo (item 39) models selective adaptation through the transformation of a classic story of tragic loss into one of hopeful recuperation, wherein a saint's life, in tandem with romance, rewrites an inherited model. In this genre-composite, the human-tree hybrid Orfeo performs
This book explores a range of literary and theatrical forms as means of mediating religious conflict in early modern England. It deals with the specific ways available to mediate religious conflict, precisely because faith mattered more than many other social paradigms. The first part explores the ways in which specific religious rituals and related cultural practices were taken up by literary texts. In a compelling rereading of the final act of 'The Merchant of Venice', the book investigates the devotional differences informing early modern observances of Easter. Subsequently, it explores the ways in which Christmas provided a confessional bridge uniting different religious constituencies. Goodnight ballads were not only commercially successful pieces of public entertainment but also effective forms of predominantly Protestant religious persuasion. The book's consideration of Elizabethan romance links the literary form to the sacrament of the Eucharist, and argues that the Eucharist debate had an impact on Elizabethan romances. The second part 'Negotiating confessional conflict' provides a rereading of When You See Me You Know Me, exposing the processes of religious reform as an on-going means of mediating the new normality of confessional plurality. It examines the potential of the tragic form by a reading of the play The White Devil, and discusses the ideological fault line in the views of witchcraft. The book also shows that Henry V anticipates later sermons of John Donne that served to promote 'an interrogative conscience'.
immanence of Christ’s humanity, in devotional objects such as the crucifix and, especially, in the relic of MUP_McDonald_02_Ch1 29 11/18/03, 16:57 30 Suzanne Conklin Akbari Christ par excellence: that is, the eucharistic host. In this context, it is striking to note the resemblance of the behaviour of the crucifix in the Siege of Melayne to that of the host in the fifteenth-century Croxton Play of the Sacrament: like the crucifix in the earlier poem, the eucharist in the drama moves from being victim to tormentor. When the unscrupulous Jew Jonathas stabs the
The church as sacred space places the reader at the heart of medieval religious life, standing inside the church with the medieval laity in order to ask what the church meant to them and why. It examines the church as a building, idea, and community, and explores the ways in which the sanctity of the church was crucial to its place at the centre of lay devotion and parish life. At a time when the parish church was facing competition for lay attention, and dissenting movements such as Lollardy were challenging the relevance of the material church, the book examines what was at stake in discussions of sanctity and its manifestations. Exploring a range of Middle English literature alongside liturgy, architecture, and material culture, the book explores the ways in which the sanctity of the church was constructed and maintained for the edification of the laity. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary theoretical approaches, the book offers a reading of the church as continually produced and negotiated by the rituals, performances, and practices of its lay communities, who were constantly being asked to attend to its material form, visual decorations, and significance. The meaning of the church was a dominant question in late-medieval religious culture and this book provides an invaluable context for students and academics working on lay religious experience and canonical Middle English texts.
while in private carrying out his ministry in full, risking his life with every sacrament; if it comforted his secret congregations, it had not seemed to alter those minds that could make a difference. None the less, Southwell had brought treasures back to England, word-painting a new sort of Catholicism, the visions of the Counter-Reformation opening in the new churches in Rome, the sacralisation of