Virginitas: An Essay in the History of a Medieval Ideal
A preface is best written last, after a book is done and its author may look back to survey what he hopes he has accomplished and what he must admit he has not. In hindsight virginity by itself has seemed a very large field to till, but with that reflection also comes a sense of the awareness that a really comprehensive treatment of misgiving, that subject would somehow have to encompass an enormous ter­ rain, the whole length and breadth of Christianity's attitude toward sexuality from the earliest times down to the high Middle Ages. It could be argued that no small book could cover so much ground, and I would be the first to agree. As its subtitle is meant to suggest, the present work is, in at least two senses of the word, an essay: both an initial and tentative effort to get at the meaning of an extremely important but as yet unprobed medieval belief in the perfective value of the virginal life; and an interpretive study of a complex subject from a limited point of view, specifically, that in which the virgin appears in devotional literature as the bride of Christ.
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Virginitas: An Essay in the History of a Medieval Ideal
A preface is best written last, after a book is done and its author may look back to survey what he hopes he has accomplished and what he must admit he has not. In hindsight virginity by itself has seemed a very large field to till, but with that reflection also comes a sense of the awareness that a really comprehensive treatment of misgiving, that subject would somehow have to encompass an enormous ter­ rain, the whole length and breadth of Christianity's attitude toward sexuality from the earliest times down to the high Middle Ages. It could be argued that no small book could cover so much ground, and I would be the first to agree. As its subtitle is meant to suggest, the present work is, in at least two senses of the word, an essay: both an initial and tentative effort to get at the meaning of an extremely important but as yet unprobed medieval belief in the perfective value of the virginal life; and an interpretive study of a complex subject from a limited point of view, specifically, that in which the virgin appears in devotional literature as the bride of Christ.
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Virginitas: An Essay in the History of a Medieval Ideal

Virginitas: An Essay in the History of a Medieval Ideal

by M. Murray
Virginitas: An Essay in the History of a Medieval Ideal

Virginitas: An Essay in the History of a Medieval Ideal

by M. Murray

Paperback(1975)

$109.99 
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Overview

A preface is best written last, after a book is done and its author may look back to survey what he hopes he has accomplished and what he must admit he has not. In hindsight virginity by itself has seemed a very large field to till, but with that reflection also comes a sense of the awareness that a really comprehensive treatment of misgiving, that subject would somehow have to encompass an enormous ter­ rain, the whole length and breadth of Christianity's attitude toward sexuality from the earliest times down to the high Middle Ages. It could be argued that no small book could cover so much ground, and I would be the first to agree. As its subtitle is meant to suggest, the present work is, in at least two senses of the word, an essay: both an initial and tentative effort to get at the meaning of an extremely important but as yet unprobed medieval belief in the perfective value of the virginal life; and an interpretive study of a complex subject from a limited point of view, specifically, that in which the virgin appears in devotional literature as the bride of Christ.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9789024716975
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Publication date: 09/30/1975
Series: Archives Internationales D'Histoire Des Id�es Minor , #17
Edition description: 1975
Pages: 168
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.01(d)

Table of Contents

I: Sexuality and the Fall of Man.- II: Virginity and the Monastic Economy of Perfection.- III: Sponsa Christi: Virginity and Epithalamian Mystery.- IV: Virginity Sexualized.- V: Surviving Elements of Christian Gnosis.- Afterword.
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