Journal Article

Praying with Anselm at Admont: A Meditation on Practice

Fulton, Rachel

2006

Overview

“It is quite true,” Martin Luther assured readers of his Grosser Katechismus, “that the kind of babbling and bellowing that used to pass for prayers in the church was not really prayer. Such external repetition … while it may be called singing or reading exercise … is not real prayer.” What is prayer? This is a question that historians of religion, particularly historians of medieval Christianity, have been asking themselves a lot lately, with, as yet, somewhat limited success. Perhaps the greatest hurdle is a methodological one: historians are by training, if not also by temperament, more inclined to ask questions of their sources as to origin, function, and influence than they are of experience, including physical or psychological effect. From this perspective, that prayers were said daily—indeed, “hourly”—in the monasteries, churches, and private chapels of medieval Europe is of interest primarily for what this practice can tell us about the way in which medieval Christians conceptualized their relationships with each other and the social, political, and material objects of their desire (food, property, relief from sickness, victory in war, protection against enemies, political favor, and so forth). And yet, throughout the medieval literature on prayer, how to pray—at what times, with what words, with what spiritual and mental disposition—is as much, if not more, a concern for both critics and practitioners as for what or for whom to pray.

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press,Medieval Academy of America
• Subject: Choirs / Liturgy / Medieval literature / Meditation / Memory / Monks / Nuns / Prayer / Psalms / Religious history / Rites & ceremonies / Soul