Understanding the Good
Medieval Inquisitions and Modern Religion
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3840152 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Christine Caldwell Ames (University of South Carolina, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 93 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 239-262 |
| Publication date | 2024-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Church History (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0009-6407 • E-ISSN: 1755-2613 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0009640724000714 |
| OpenAlex | W4403475385 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 19 |
This essay responds to scholarly arguments that "religion" arose in the particular circumstances of the modern West, distinct chronologically and conceptually from medieval religio. It argues that in the Middle Ages, Christian persecution helped to form that very notion of religion. It does so via the register of heresy inquisitions conducted by Bishop Jacques Fournier in Pamiers (1318-1325), which contains a curious and overlooked Occitan phrase: entendensa del be ("understanding of the good"). In three provocative ways, entendensa del be helps us to reconsider the origins of "religion." First, one possibility is that the phrase represents an organic proto-religion among the heretics known as Good Christians. A second possibility is, conversely, that scribes presented an insignificant phrase as a technical term, helping to identify the group as heretical. This would highlight coercive inquisitorial agency in reinterpreting language and behavior, anticipating early-modern and modern constructors of "religion." Third, by its links to troubadour culture, the phrase reminds us how in Occitania, conquest and resistance intertwined with inquisition's policing of "religious" behavior in a way that resembles claims for modernity. Regardless of which possibility, and most importantly, we discover how medieval persecution helped to form modern religion
Ancient history · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
Savage systems
Christianity, Empire, and the Making of Religion in Late Antiquity
The Western Construction of Religion
Before Religion
The Meaning and End of Religion
The Invention of Religion in Japan
Manufacturing Confucianism
Religion before the Academy
Words and the Medieval Notion of ‘Religion’
Policing the Empires
Mapping Sacred Geography in Medieval India
"Orientalism and the Modern Myth of "Hinduism
The Category “Religion” in Recent Publications
Paradigms Behind (And Before) the Modern Concept of Religion
Finding the Way
Some Elementary Forms of Durkheim
The Invention of World Religions
Who Invented Hinduism
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |