IMC 2025: Sessions
Session 626: Supernatural Communication in Practice: Learning and Reflecting on Influencing Higher Powers, II - Communication Devices
Tuesday 8 July 2025, 11:15-12:45
| Sponsor: | Seminar für mittelalterliche Geschichte, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen |
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| Organisers: | Johanna Jebe, Seminar für Mittelalterliche Geschichte, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen Bastiaan Waagmeester, Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin |
| Moderator/Chair: | Carine van Rhijn, Departement Geschiedenis en Kunstgeschiedenis, Universiteit Utrecht |
| Paper 626-a | From Revelation to Reflection: Dreams as Divine Cues to Action (Language: English) Index terms: Daily Life, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Mentalities |
| Paper 626-b | How to Talk to Animals: The Question of Authority in Early Medieval Animal Incantations (Language: English) Index terms: Daily Life, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Medicine |
| Paper 626-c | Metal Liturgy: Materiality, Ritualised Prayer, and the Resonance of Bells, c. 751-c. 850 (Language: English) Index terms: Liturgy, Monasticism, Religious Life |
| Abstract | Besides learning how to pray and the use of incantations, as discussed in the previous session, medieval people had several other means of communication at their disposal to interact with the supernatural. The explanation of dreams, for instance, gave divine guidance for everyday decisions. Early medieval scribes appealed to higher authorities by a whole set of means in order to use their power and gain control over animals. Bells, furthermore, communicated liturgical time but also divine providence to anyone who could hear, both in and outside monastery walls. The session examines indirect communication devices, with a particular focus on their manuscript context and materiality, in the Latin West. |