Dissertation Fellow 2001-02
Wendy Love Anderson (History)
The Divinity School, Martin Marty Center, University of Chicago
Free Spirits, Presumptuous Women,
and False Prophets:
The Discernment of Spirits in the Late Middle Ages
My dissertation explores the late medieval development of interest
in and criteria for distinguishing between true and false revelations
or visions. During the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries,
individuals from virtually all segments of medieval Christian society
used the Scriptural language of "discernment of spirits"
in an attempt to examine, understand, and either legitimate or discredit
the extraordinary religious experiences which proliferated in their
society. I argue that clergy and laity, men and women, examiners
and examinees functioned within and contributed to this discourse,
which assumed the existence of a universal truth but problematized
access to it. Many of these thinkers linked the truth of prophecy
with the behavior of a "true prophet," insisting on a
link between (presumptively universal) religious truth and individual
morality. Despite some heroic efforts, however, medieval Christians
were ultimately unable to establish a set of criteria for discerning
spirits which left the Church's institutional authority unquestioned.
This long-neglected account is a crucial prerequisite to any study
of late medieval visionary or "mystical" texts, and it
serves as a necessary prelude to the debates about religious authority
and the grounds of certainty which dominated subsequent centuries.
It also raises wider questions about the search for truth and certainty
within religious life and its impact on individual - as well as
institutional - spirituality.
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