The Infernal Laboratory: Apocryphal Hermeneutics and Hell in the Medieval North Sea
Abstract (summary)
Focusing on the generative power of apocrypha, or noncanonical scriptures, “The Infernal Laboratory: Apocryphal Hermeneutics and Hell in the Medieval North Sea” explores the evolution of representations of hell across linguistic and cultural lines in the Middle Ages. While canonical Christian scriptures contain only a few brief passages on the infernal, apocryphal accounts exhibit the most robust treatments from the era. Through careful study of adaptations of the Visio Sancti Pauli and the Evangelium Nicodemi, I propose that apocrypha occupy a liminal cultural space, and so often served as a literary laboratory in which speculative theologies could be experimented with safely. I explore the implications of apocrypha occupying a liminal space in medieval taxonomies of textual authority: they seem like scripture, and so were revered by some, but they are not scripture, and so were revised by others. This dynamic encouraged theological experimentation, while also ensuring that the results were passed on. My work demonstrates that vernacular apocrypha are not unimportant rote translations, but, rather, a productive genre attesting to medieval literary creativity. In overlooking this large corpus of texts, scholars miss a repository of cultural experimentation that was crucial in generating discursive space for speculative theologies that bolstered local identities within a globalizing faith. Chapters explore the reception and transformation of infernal apocrypha in Old English (especially The Penitence of Jamnes and Mambres and The Descent into Hell), Middle Welsh (Breudwydd Pawl, Efengyl Nicodemus, and Gogynfeirdd poetry), Old Norse (Niðrstigningar saga), and Old Irish (In Tenga Bithnua, Aided Chonchobair), finding that each region represented hell uniquely in their vernacular literature, customizing it to meet local cultural and theological needs in their own language centuries before the Reformation.
Indexing (details)
Medieval literature;
British and Irish literature;
British & Irish literature
0297: Medieval literature
0593: British and Irish literature
