Heilige, Heiligenverehrung und Mobilität im Frühmittelalter zu Lande und zu Wasser

Abstract

"On the basis of saints' vitae and miraculous stories primarily from Early Medieval Saxony, the author calls attention to special forms of mobility in the Middle Ages - 'sacral mobility' - pilgrimages during which the pilgrims encountered the mortal remains of saints on their way to their future places of rest (so-called translationes). These experiences took people beyond the limits of their often quite stationary everyday lives, leading in the process to common religious experiences as a form of social solder between the classes. Concrete examples also demonstrate how, in the mentality of the times, these journeys by land and water bonded the saints to the people, at the same time bringing about cures of sick persons as well as the mitigation of punitive measures in some cases and their imposition in others. Thus even within the framework of mobility, the religious cosmos of the Middle Ages remained unaffected and committed to the belief in this world and life after death." (author's abstract)