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Document Details :

Title: Een spookverhaal van Bate
Subtitle: Een bron voor Mediëvistiek
Author(s): GULDENTOPS, Guy
Journal: Ons Geestelijk Erf
Volume: 71    Issue: 3   Date: 1997   
Pages: 193-204
DOI: 10.2143/OGE.71.3.2003386

Abstract :
Henry Bate is the author of the Speculum divinorum et quorundam naturalium, a philosophical encyclopedia in which he expounds his Platonic-Aristotelian world-view. A few years after the completion of his Speculum, he added a story about a spirit of a robber. This story (an English summary of which is to be found in our edition of Speculum, XX-XXIII) is a rich source for the cultural history of the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century. It sheds light on several aspects of religious life, such as the relation between clergy and laity, the unity of popular and official religion, and especially the belief in the reality of spirits. An analysis of Bate’s story refutes Lecouteux’s claim that spirits were banished by Christian authors into the realm of the imagination.


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