Customer Reviews

Medieval Popular Culture (Cambridge Studies in Oral and Literate Culture)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was translated in 1988- from the original russian. The approach to "medieval popular culture" will be familiar to readers of foucault as the fashionable "inversion" technique, of focusing on "low" instead of "high". Gurevich's main, and repeated critique of better known midevialiests like Phillipe Aries and Marc Bloch (french midevialists' it should be said) is that they use sources derived from the intelligensia, rather then relying on analysis based on materials available to the common people.

Thus, their assumptions are based on representations made by elites based on the way things are supposed to be, rather then the way they are. Gurevich looks at hagiography (study of saints lives), midevial vision literature and pentitentials (books designed to instruct the peasants). In the end he presents a picture of midevial "culture" or "mentality" that is considerably more complex then the explanations provided by the annalists school at the university of paris. Gurevich is well grounded in both french and german sources- apparently read in the original? I was well aware of all of the french sources, but hadn't heard of ANY of the german authors- what's up with that???

Thought provoking with an excellent bibliography- and short- but written in a surely-awkward within the original- style that gets no easier to read for being translated into english.

Gurevich investigates the way medieval common people saw this world and the Other World. He uses written sources (penitentials, hagiography, exempla, catechisms and the like) to describe the "Weltanschauung" of the illiterati. In the process the reader gets a very lifely image of hell, purgatory, the Last Judgement, visiting demons, the use of saints, the roles of clergy in society. Important writers as Ceasarius of Heisterbach, Gregorius The Great, Honorius of Autun, Burchard of Worms and Dante are discussed.

But though Gurevich succeeds in painting a vivid image, I cannot give 5 points for this book. First of all, Gurevich makes his theories plausible, but the book lacks substantial evidence. Secondly non-Russian readers will find the style Gurevich uses indirect and repetetive, which makes this interesting book simply (and unnecessary) "hard work" to read.

Gurevich' work is a valuable addition to the collection of anyone interested in popular belief in medieaval europe. This work is especially valuable from the standpoint of the literature of dissenting groups and heresies. The chapter on conceptions of the underworld before Dante's elucidation is both entertaining and enlightening.