This Is A New Release Of The Original 1881 Edition.

The concept of Purgatory in Middle English didactic writings is explored through examination of visions of the afterlife, sermons, homiletic treatises, and lyrics. Purgatory has been the focus of much literary and historical attention since Jacques Le Goff's important Naissance du Purgatoire(1981), but this is the first book-length study to trace its development, reception and influence in Middle English literature.Following a survey of the doctrine of Purgatory and its cultural reception, the book explores the two major Middle English genres in which it is discussed, visions of the afterlife, and didactic andhomiletic treatises on death. In a detailed examination of these, along with sermons and lyrics, the author argues that such writings tend to be structured around the dualism of salvation and damnation, heaven and hell, with no intermediary alternative; at the same time the efficacy of intercession in the alleviation of suffering is repeatedly stressed. The book goes on to suggest that the influence of Purgatory was to provide a more pragmatic and optimistic attitude towards death and the afterlife, as reflected in such poems as the Vernon lyrics. TAKAMI MATSUDAis Associate Professor in the Department of English and American Literature at Keio University.

The Reformation led those who embraced Martin Luther's teachings to revise virtually every aspect of their faith and to reorder their daily lives in view of their new beliefs. Nowhere was this more true than with death. By the beginning of the sixteenth century the Medieval Church had established a sophisticated mechanism for dealing with death and its consequences. The Protestant reformers rejected this new mechanism. To fill the resulting gap and to offer comfort to the dying, they produced new liturgies, new church orders, and new handbooks on dying. This study focuses on the earliest of the Protestant handbooks, beginning with Luther's Sermon on Preparing to Die in 1519 and ending with Jakob Otter's Christlich leben vnd sterben in 1528. It explores how Luther and his colleagues adopted traditional themes and motifs even as they transformed them to accord with their conviction that Christians could be certain of their salvation. It further shows how Luther's colleagues drew not only on his teaching on dying, but also on other writings including his sermons on the sacraments. The study concludes that the assurance of salvation offered in the Protestant handbooks represented a significant departure from traditional teaching on death. By examining the ways in which the themes and teachings of the reformers differed from the late medieval ars moriendi, the book highlights both breaks with tradition and continuities that marked the early Reformation.