| The Search For Salvation: Lay Faith In Scotland 1480-1560. - Audrey-Beth Fitch |
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What exactly were the religious beliefs and practices of ordinary folk in Scotland in the century before the Reformation? In The Search For Salvation: Lay Faith In Scotland 1480-1560 author Audrey-Beth Fitch sets out to find the true answer. And what a revelation it is!
Because early death was much more common than today and because there was little concept of atheism as we understand it, the afterlife was a terrifying reality for most people. Life was seen as a preparation for Judgement Day “that dreidfull hour”.
Fear of judgement answered a real need for justice. Those who were good would be rewarded but the bad eternally punished. Judgement came in two stages; the first immediately on death while ultimate Judgement would come at the end of the world.
This fear of judgement stemmed from a very real fear of the pains of hell. Thus lay people needed to learn about the nature of heaven and hell while they were still on earth to take responsibility for their own spiritual well-being.
The concept of heaven, that place “of eternal glore” sought by all Christians, suggested that it was located high above Saturn, and run very like an earthly court, a place of eternal happiness and sinlessness where a stern and remorseless God held court with Jesus, Mary sat as “queyn maid” and princes walked around in plate and armour made of gold and inset with precious stones.
There was a hierarchy of virtue for only virtue mattered in heaven, not earthly status or bloodline.
Conversely, hell was ruled by a bestial devil who supervised unspeakable tortures. It was accepted that after death and the first judgement most souls would spend time in purgatory which was a concept central to all religious thinking for it offered people a second chance at heaven.
Imperfect souls were progressively purified of sin by the sacraments and devotional activities of people on earth. Purgatory, “a countrie full of cair”, was situated just below heaven, a midway point between judgement after death and the general judgement after the Second Coming.
Thus the religious attitudes and actions of the Scots were determined by their concept of the afterlife. The author maintains that the Reformation appealed to the laity not so much for their criticism of the abuses in the Catholic Church but rather that it appeared to offer a better means of attaining the worthiness necessary to attain heaven. The Reformation therefore was the next stage in man’s search for salvation.
This is a serious and interdisciplinary study of lay faith which uses the images in literature, art and the theological writings of the day to shape the author’s conclusions. The book is beautiful to look at, the text highly accessible and the illustrations go far to unravel the mysteries of the medieval mind. |
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