The crucified Christ is one of the most familiar, yet most disconcerting images of medieval European civilization. How and why did the images of the dying God-man and his grieving mother achieve such prominence?
Dr. Rachel Fulton reviews developments in liturgical performance, private prayer, doctrine, and art along with the revulsion of medieval Jews at being baptized in the name of God born from a woman and the eroticism of the Marian exegesis of the Song of Songs.
From Judgment to Passion is the first systematic attempt to explain the origins and initial development of European devotion to Christ in his suffering humanity and to Blessed Mary in her compassionate grief.
The book begins with the Carolingian campaign to convert the Saxons, in particular with the effort to explain for these new converts the mystery of the Eucharist, the miraculous presence of Christ's body at the Mass.
Moving on to the early eleventh century, when the long-expected return on the millennium of his Passion (A.D. 1033) did not occur. This necessitated for believers a revision of Christian history. Dr. Fulton examines the liturgies and devotions that arose amid this apocalyptic disappointment.
The book turns finally to the twelfth century when, in the wake of the capture of Jerusalem in the First Crusade, there occurred the full flowering of a new, more emotional sensibility of faith.
In addition to its concern with explaining devotional change, From Judgment to Passion poses a second, crucial question: How is it possible for modern historians to understand not only the social and cultural functions but also the experience of faith―the engagement with emotions, of prayer and devotion?
The various answers are exemplified throughout the book's narrative, answers that are both imaginative and empathetic. It is the incorporation of self into story that lay at the heart of the medieval effort to identify with Christ and Mary in their love and pain.
Dr. Fulton reviews and explains developments in liturgical performance, private prayer, doctrine, and art in light of this Christian mystery.
