Rubrics, images and indulgences in late medieval netherlandish manuscripts.

• Author: RUDY, KATHRYN M.
• Place / Publishing House: [S.l.] : : BRILL,, 2016.
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Language: English
• Series: Library of the Written Word 55.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (338 pages) :; illustrations (some color), photographs.

What role did images play in the mania for indulgences during the decades prior to the Protestant Reformation? Rubrics, Images and Indulgences in Late Medieval Netherlandish Manuscripts considers how indulgences (the remission of time in Purgatory) were used to market certain images. Conversely, images helped to spread indulgences, such as those attached to the Virgin in sole and the Mass of St Gregory. Images also began depicting the effects of indulgences: souls escaping Purgatory. Drawing on numerous unpublished sources, Kathryn M. Rudy demonstrates how rubrics modified behaviour and expectations around image-centred devotion. Her work is the first to analyse systematically the way that indulgences and images interacted – indeed, shaped each other – prior to the Reformation.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Rubrics and the Performance of Prayer -- Indulgences -- Arma Christi -- The Body of Christ -- The Mass of St Gregory, the Man of Sorrows, and Prayers for the Arma Christi -- Prayers and Miracles before the Virgin’s Image -- Marian Indulgences -- Images That Thematize Indulgences -- Epilogue -- Appendix -- Bibliography -- Index.