Blessing the world
Subtitle: ritual and lay piety in medieval religion
By: Derek A. Rivard.
Publisher: Catholic University of America Press
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Washington, D.C
Language: eng
Number of pages: 332
ISBN-13: 9780813215457
Subjects: Benediction; Liturgics -- History -- Middle Ages, 600-1500; Piety -- History -- Middle Ages, 600-1500
Description: "In this book, Derek A. Rivard studies liturgical blessing and its role in the religious life of Christians during the central and later Middle Ages, with a particular focus on the blessings of the Franco-Roman liturgical tradition from the tenth to late thirteenth centuries. Through a careful and extensive study of more than ninety such blessings, many of them translated for the first time and accessible to a readership beyond specialists in medieval liturgy, the author argues that medieval blessings were composed as a direct response to the needs, anxieties, beliefs, and fears of the laity, and therefore these texts represent a rich and largely untapped source for the study of lay piety and of ritual in medieval Europe."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction; title: The history and theology of Christian blessing; title: Sacred places and sacred space; title: Sacred persons : blessing the laity; title: Sacred vessels, objects, and events.