Visions were highly popular in the late Middle Ages, whether preached as vivid stories from the pulpit, illuminated in saint-filled manuscripts, or experienced during the breathless anticipation of a Mass or eerie darkness of a Yorkshire graveyard. This volume is the first to map out the wide range of vision types in late medieval English lay piety. Analyzing 1000 visionary accounts gathered from sermon and exempla collections, religious devotional works, saints' legends, and lay stories, it explores five central dynamics of spirituality that visions shaped and sustained: Transactions of Satisfaction (visits to and from purgatory and hell), Reciprocated Devotion (visitations of the saints), Spiritual Warfare (attacks by demons), Supra-Sacramental Sight (Mass and Passion sightings), and Mediated Revelation (prophetic visions).

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter One. Transactions of Satisfaction and Visions of the Otherworld

Chapter Two. Reciprocated Devotion and Visitations of the Saints

Chapter Three. Spiritual Warfare in Demonic Encounters

Chapter Four. Seeing Through the Surface: Vision as Supra-sacramental Sight

Chapter Five. Visions, Power, and the Dynamic of Mediated Revelation

Conclusion

Appendices

Bibliography

Index