Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T02:18:31.711Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Sacramental Medicine and Frequent Communion from Prague to Kraków

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 May 2024

Patrick Outhwaite
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
Get access

Summary

The end of the De bono mortis, written by Jan of Jenštejn, archbishop of Prague, features the story of a wealthy woman named Elizabeth who suffered from convulsions that left her paralysed and unable to speak. Her illness began after she had stopped taking daily communion administered by her confessor Matthew of Krakow, master of the University of Prague. This was not the first time she had been ill in this manner, as Jenštejn explains:

When sometimes it so happened that she did not take communion, she soon started to weaken; and when at times three or four ailments befell her most severely, she began to mock them and make light of them on account of her tasting of the divine sweetnesses. At other times she was even cured of the most serious illnesses by her reception of the sacred Eucharist.

Physicians and members of the clergy failed to diagnose her illness and cure her, and it was only after she received communion that her great discomfort started to cease. However, this time, Elizabeth did not recover, but died, after directly interacting with Christ:

When this woman was shaken daily by many infirmities, she began at last to languish and to be weakened to death, and when she was unable to speak with the many priests and religious women who were standing by her in wonder, she signalled with her hands that they should withdraw from this side and that. No one understood how to help her, yet willing to obey, they withdrew to one part [of the room]. And when after a time she recovered enough strength that she might begin to speak, asked by the bystanders why she had motioned to them with her hands that they should withdraw to the side, she said, ‘Most delightful Jesus Christ, my Bridegroom visited me in his divine glory, I prepared the path.’ Telling of everything she saw with many very devout words, one moment she sighed, the next she exulted and at other times, put in a state of ecstasy, she was held suspended in the repose of divine pleasure.

Type
Chapter
Information
Christ the Physician in Late-Medieval Religious Controversy
England and Central Europe, 1350-1434
, pp. 67 - 112
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×