Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Peasant Fires

I'm giving you a link to a page that describes a dancing mania that affected people in late medieval Germany, to give you some context for the wild story we read in chapter II of this book.

This work attempts to penetrate the world of the late medieval peasant, based on the account of what happened to a popular young preacher. As you read the first two chapters, consider the following questions:

• How do you react to the way the author begins his book? How in particular do you react when on page 4 he writes, "I made up most of that"?
• Take notice of how the author describes the work of the historian, especially in this case. How does his account of doing history compare to some of our comments when we discussed this on the first day of class?
• Comment on the author's characterization of enchanted time. What does he mean by saying that Han Behem lived in an enchanted world?
• Comment on the story about Hansel and his evil stepmother. What details are significant, and how do they shed light on the early modern peasant's world?
• What happened during Carnival? Do we have any rituals that can compare with this point in the calendar for these people?

The chapter we are reading from Steven Ozment's Reformation in the Cities is an account of the religious life of late medieval people. We can well ask how so many of the observances church, which held such authority, could almost overnight have become the object of scorn and mockery.

• How does Ozment characterize religious life on the eve of the Reformation?
• Why was civic control over religious life so important?
• What was the importance of preaching to late medieval people? What were some of the tensions that resulted from establishing preacherships?

If you have any questions, please email me or ask in class.

Laurel Carrington carringt@stolaf.edu
Most recent update: September 10, 2007

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