ARTH 525(S) Pilgrimage of the Soul: The Imagery of Death and the Hereafter in the Late Middle Ages

  For the medieval Christian, the pilgrimage of the soul began at death, and ended at the Last Judgment, at which time it was dispatched to perpetual torment or eternal bliss. Death, Judgment, Heaven and Hell: these comprised the Four Last Things, as they were known in the Middle Ages, but the situation was more complex than this implies, for by the fourteenth century the soul was understood to undergo a preliminary judgment immediately after death, and, for the vast majority of the saved, a stint in Purgatory before attaining Paradise. These stages of the soul’s post mortem journey were described in countless treatises from 1300 on, and represented in a wide range of visual images, from illustrations in books of hours and other devotional works for private use to public monuments such as altarpieces and wall frescos in churches. Best known, perhaps, are the scenes of Heaven and Hell by Hieronymus Bosch, but many late-medieval artists visualized the afterlife in depictions equally vivid and compelling. The seminar will explore this imagery and its literary and pictorial sources, as well as its broader religious context, which includes aspects of lay piety and belief seldom if ever discussed by the medieval theologians. Requirements include at least two oral presentations from each student in class, and a term paper due at the end of the term. Enrollment limit: 12

Hour GIBSON