The Humanisation of God’s Image in Pre-Conquest English Manuscripts and the Development of Affective Piety

English manuscripts of the second half of the tenth and first half of the eleventh centuries display a great interest in humanising the divine image. The following article discusses four themes testifying to this phenomenon: Crucifixion, the God of the Old Testament, God the Father, and the beatific vision. It confronts them with the devotional uses of the manuscripts in which they appear, as well as with certain contemporary or earlier texts, especially prayers and vernacular religious poems. It tends to demonstrate that the images sought to develop compunction, love of God, desire for imitatio and, perhaps, compassion

Adoration · Eleventh · Piety · Religious experience · Vernacular · Historical and Religious Studies of Rome · History of Emotions Research · Medieval Literature and History