Peasants And Prayers

Prayer Life of Peasant Communities in Late Medieval Sweden : A Contrast of Ideals and Practices

It all began in 1821 with the finding of the Kingittorsuaq stone, the first evidence of runic writing in Norse Greenland. For the first time, researchers were faced with the language spoken by the Norse inhabitants of medieval Greenland. In the following almost 200 years, more than 160 additional finds of runic and Roman letter artefacts were retrieved from the soils of Greenland.0The Norse settlement was founded in the late 10th century and given up in the mid-15th century. The inscriptions had been carved on gravestones, crosses, amulets and on items of daily use. Because of the exceptional preservation conditions, the Greenlandic runic material provides us with the opportunity to study the medieval tradition of writing in a rural society at close range. In many other corners of the world, we do not have this opportunity, and this is why the Greenlandic inscriptions are so important; not only do they contribute to the history of Norse settlement in Greenland, they also contribute to our overall understanding of medieval runic writing.0Since the first findings, many researchers have participated in the discussion of the Greenlandic runic inscriptions, and in the years 2009-13, the National Museum of Denmark hosted a research programme, which led to this publication about the tradition of writing in medieval Greenland. The book focuses on the use of runic writing in medieval Greenland and on the writing process. The book also contains a large catalogue with information on the inscribed artefacts, including drawings.

A lot of people would like to learn to pray all over again. Others are not so sure they ought to pray. They want to know whether prayer will help them and, more than that, whether it will be of any use at all to our world. This book gives an answer—not in the form of glib instructions, but by introducing the reader to the theology of prayer. It refers again and again to the Bible, especially the Psalms. At the same time, it speaks about personal experiences as well. Gerhard Lohfink writes in inviting, easy-to-read language, answering questions such as: “To whom do we pray?” “Does it make any sense to ask for things in prayer?” “What happens in the Eucharistic Prayer?” “What is so special about the Psalms?” “How can I practice Christian meditation?” This book offers an inviting approach to Christian prayer.

While some of the chapters focus on systemic issues, others probe the depths of individual Gospel passages. The author's keen eye for textual detail, archaeological data, comparative materials, and systemic overviews make this volume a joy for anyone interested in understanding Jesus in his own context. The volume is organized into three interrelated parts: 1) political economy and the peasant values of Jesus, 2) the Jesus traditions within peasant realities, and 3) the peasant aims of Jesus.

This book examines the relationship between economics, politics and religion through the case of Olivorio Mateo and the religious movement he inspired from 1908 in the Dominican Republic. The authors explore how and why the new religion was formed, and why it was so successful. Comparing this case with other peasant movements, they show ways in which folk religion serves as a response to particular problems which arise in peasant societies during times of stress.

France achieved national unity much later than is commonly supposed. For a hundred years and more after the Revolution, millions of peasants lived on as if in a timeless world, their existence little different from that of the generations before them. The author of this lively, often witty, and always provocative work traces how France underwent a veritable crisis of civilization in the early years of the French Republic as traditional attitudes and practices crumbled under the forces of modernization. Local roads and railways were the decisive factors, bringing hitherto remote and inaccessible regions into easy contact with markets and major centers of the modern world. The products of industry rendered many peasant skills useless, and the expanding school system taught not only the language of the dominant culture but its values as well, among them patriotism. By 1914, France had finally become La Patrie in fact as it had so long been in name.

Drawing on Soviet archives, especially the letters of complaint with which peasants deluged the Soviet authorities in the 1930s, this work analyzes peasants' strategies of resistance and survival in the new world of the collectivized village

This book features 107 of the finest examples of illuminated pages from medieval and Renaissance Books of Hours. Roger Wieck's comprehensive text introduces the Book of Hours -- a "bestseller" for three hundred years -- to the general reader, discussing its iconography, the artists who illuminated this genre, and its role as a religious text in the lives of its owners. As a collection of both stirring words and inspiring images, the Book of Hours thus comprised a series of "painted prayers".