Book contents
- Imagining the Medieval Afterlife
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature
- Imagining the Medieval Afterlife
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Imagining the Medieval Afterlife: Introduction
- Part I Chronological Surveys
- Chapter 1 Just Deserts in the Ancient Pagan Afterlife
- Chapter 2 Visions of the Afterlife in the Early Medieval West
- Chapter 3 A Morbid Efflorescence: Envisaging the Afterlife in the Carolingian Period
- Chapter 4 The Afterlife in the Medieval Celtic-Speaking World
- Chapter 5 Anglo-Saxon Visions of Heaven and Hell
- Chapter 6 Otherworld Journeys of the Central Middle Ages
- Chapter 7 Visions of the Otherworlds in the Late Middle Ages, c. 1300–c. 1500
- Part II Theological Perspectives
- Part III Artistic Impressions
- Part IV Notable Authors and Texts
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature
Chapter 5 - Anglo-Saxon Visions of Heaven and Hell
from Part I - Chronological Surveys
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 December 2020
- Imagining the Medieval Afterlife
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature
- Imagining the Medieval Afterlife
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Imagining the Medieval Afterlife: Introduction
- Part I Chronological Surveys
- Chapter 1 Just Deserts in the Ancient Pagan Afterlife
- Chapter 2 Visions of the Afterlife in the Early Medieval West
- Chapter 3 A Morbid Efflorescence: Envisaging the Afterlife in the Carolingian Period
- Chapter 4 The Afterlife in the Medieval Celtic-Speaking World
- Chapter 5 Anglo-Saxon Visions of Heaven and Hell
- Chapter 6 Otherworld Journeys of the Central Middle Ages
- Chapter 7 Visions of the Otherworlds in the Late Middle Ages, c. 1300–c. 1500
- Part II Theological Perspectives
- Part III Artistic Impressions
- Part IV Notable Authors and Texts
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature
Summary
This chapter presents a survey of both Latin and Old English visions of heaven and hell in Anglo-Saxon England from Boniface to Aelfric. The Anglo-Saxons were not content with reading about visions of foreigners, such as the Vita Fursei, the Visio Pauli, or pope Gregory’s Dialogi, but were eager to find native Anglo-Saxons who experienced visions themselves. With the account of the monk of Wenlock, Boniface presents the first native Anglo-Saxon’s vision, but the desire to Anglicise visions becomes most apparent in Bede who first – and incorrectly – transposes the vision of the Irishman Fursey to England, and then narrates the vision of the native Anglo-Saxon Dryhthelm. Aelfric silently corrects this ‘pious fraud’, but by his time Anglo-Saxons such as the monk of Wenlock, Dryhthelm, Guthlac, and Merchdeof had already experienced visions, and England had therefore joined the other nations in meriting this special grace.
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- Imagining the Medieval Afterlife , pp. 79 - 98Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020