The Way to the Other World in Medieval Literature and ArtAuthor(s): Peter DinzelbacherSource: Folklore, Vol. 97, No. 1 (1986), pp. 70-87Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1260523Accessed: 20/12/2008 13:16

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Folklore vol. 97:i, 1986

The Way to the Other World in Medieval Literature and Art PETER DINZELBACHER

JUDGING by the sources, medieval man must have spent much time with thoughts, fears and hopes concerning the Other World. That there was a life to come was a conviction left nearly unchallenged during the Age of Faith. The speculations on the how and where of this afterlife show a marked difference when compared to those of most Christians nowadays: they are markedly concrete, realistic, palpable. The places, receptacula, of the other world were not situated beyond this cosmos, but formed part of our disk-like earth, or of the spheres towering up over it.' Hell, divided into different compartments as infernus superior, infernus inferior, limbus patrum, limbus puerorum (sometimes identified with one another), was thought to be in the middle of earth; purgatory bordered upon it. The earthly paradise was sought somewhere in the east and formed both a topic for map-makers to define, and a goal for regular expeditions. Heaven, or, more correctly the heavens (from three to seven), were spread out in hemispheres not in some unimaginable transcendence, but above where you stood, above the clouds.2

So it is quite natural that there existed a lot of traditions not only about the eschatological regions, but also about the ways leading thither. How the passage to the other world was imagined will be dealt with first. But often medieval sources also speak about another kind of way to the future life, i.e. the way a man covers during his lifetime. It is the allegory of the homo viator or the peregrinus in terris, which was to find its definite delineation in Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress from this World to That which is to Come. I shall give some few examples of this theme afterwards, and show some points of connection between these two conceptions in conclusion.

Though it is no easy thing to speak about popular culture during the Middle Ages, as all its utterances passed through the medium of the learned pens of the intellectuals (and I would not hesitate to call every one knowing how to read or write an intellectual at this period), it will be evident, I hope, that the sources presented in the first part of this paper stem from traditions current among the common people, as they never formed part of the official teaching of the church. This did not prevent the intellectuals from sharing these conceptions, because it was they who not only had such scenes painted or sculptured but thought them worth recording by themselves. I feel that there is much more concreteness even in philosophical and theological reflection than we today, with our minds used to a rather abstract way of speaking and thinking, are able to recognize in these texts. That hell, for instance, was a real cavelike prison beneath the surface of the earth was not only popular opinion, but was believed if not by Peter Abelard or Meister Eckhart at least by St Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theologiae 111,97,7 (176)). And it was Frederic II of Hohenstaufen, whose learnedness is beyond doubt, who asked his court philosopher Michael Scot where on or under or above this our earth hell and purgatory might be found, how many abysses existed, and, in connection with this, what one ought to think about volcanos.3

On the other hand the allegorical interpretations of the soul's journey through the

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world were items of metaphoric speaking and not of popular belief, similes created in order to describe man's situation and task in the world. They often can be traced back, if not to their inventor, at least to the intellectual and chronological milieu they were coined in. But here again they often cannot have been esoteric, as preaching on the one side and pictorial representations on the other spread these motifs among the lower classes as well, though we usually do not know to what degree they were accepted unless popular media such as cheap devotional woodcuts etc. adopted them.

It is the interaction between these 'two worlds' we can observe quite well by studying the conceptions of the afterlife at that period.

What did medieval people expect to happen to them in the hour of death? This moment was a dramatic beginning to a journey during which the soul was tested, judged and sentenced to eternal life or eternal death, or to a certain time of purification.4 No one expected to be transferred to the place of his further destiny in one instant, as we would today; during the first night after death, the soul stays with St. Gertrude (of Nivelles), the second with St. Michael and only on the third night does it reach its destination.5 It takes a thirty-years' voyage to come to the black hell- gullet, writes the author of the 12th century Irish Tidings of Doomsday, as hell's prison is so deep that a millstone had to fall for 1000 years to reach it.6 But the souls are falling quicker still.7 Though the specification of such precise figures is exceptional, the name given to the Eucharist as ministered to a dying person demonstrates the underlying idea: viaticum (the translation of Greek ephodion or hodiop6rion, compositions with hod6s, way) is explained by a German preacher of the 13th century in the following terms: viaticum dicitur a via ... that is His holy body and His blood prepared as provisions for the journey ... Pray ... that He mercifully will condescend to administer this high viaticum the day after this transitory life, when your soul has to meet her own death on the very unknown road ..."8 The pre-Christian custom of putting a pair of shoes into the grave, preserved in some districts during the Middle Ages and modern times,9 points to the same. The vast corpus of visions of the Other World recorded mainly from the 7th to the 13th century, but popular still as incunabula,'0 preserves many detailed descriptions of the terrifying paths leading to the nether world, as well of their beautiful counterparts leading to paradise. The visionary, who of course is only seemingly dead, usually has to take the very same way the really dead must follow. I quote just one example, the long vision seen by the peasant Godeschalcus in late December 1189. Under Henry the Lion, Godeschalcus had been forced to go to the front, notwithstanding his bodily weakness. He fell ill and into an ecstasy of five days and nights, during which he was led through the realms of the dead. Two angels took him by the hand, guiding him to the south. First they came to an unusually big and beautiful linden-tree. Each of its twigs was luxuriantly loaded with pairs of shoes, more than anyone could have thought to exist in the whole world. Beyond this tree a plain extended, a heathy ground wild and waste, filled with sharp unbreakable thorns standing densely like the teeth of a hackle. Here the souls of the dead congregated from all directions in order to be tested. But each of them recognized for himself whether or not he hadmerited a pair of shoes by works of mercy, accepting them from an angel, or sadly passing by barefooted. Godeschalcus himself after only a few steps onto this plain collapsed because of the unbearable pains, his feet completely penetrated by the thorns. In like manner most of the other souls had not got any shoes, 'miserabile nimis ... spectaculum': the pains made them wince and smart, creeping on now, then breaking down, every inch of their tortured bodies slashed." We cannot follow Godeschalcus and the dead on their way over the cutting sword-river which

71

WeK|~ 4 "'""..........~ I ^ 4. The Bridge of Souls. Mural, early 14th century(?); S. Maria in Piano, Loreto Aprutino, Italy (after Richard Cavendish, Visions of

Heaven and Hell, New York, 1977). 1. Purgatory. Panel, c. 1500; Schlossmuseum Linz, Austria

(P. Dinzelbacher).

5. The Other World. Mural, c. 1200; St. Peter and Paul, Chaldon, 7. Dagobert I Brought to Hell. Relief, c. 1265; St-Denis, Paris (after Surrey, England (after Eriksson, as note 94, fig. 1). R. Hammerstein, Diabolus in Musica, Bern, 1974, Abb. 12).

3. St. Michael. Mural, c. 1500; Aarhus Cathedral, Denmark (P. Dinzelbacher).

6. Tundal Crossing the Bridge. MS. germ 8? 60, 294v (late 16th century); Staatsbiblio- thek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, West Berlin

(courtesy N. Palmer).

9. Hortus Deliciarum by Herrad of Lands- 10. The Two Ways. Late 12th century berg. Late 12th century MS, now destroyed MS; University Library, Erlangen, West

(after Eriksson, as in note 94, fig. 5). Germany (after Eriksson, fig. 7).

forms the boundary to the different eschatological abodes,12 but let us notice that there were three paths: the one to the left, narrow, filthy and shut in between sky-high walls, the one to the right, very pleasant, friendly and shining, the middle one broad and bright. Wandering on them you reach hell, heaven and the resting-place of the good but not perfect.

The experiences of this North German peasant are shared by many other visionaries all over medieval Europe, be it the Norwegian noble, Olav Asteson; the Irish knight, Tundal; the English farmer, Thurkill; the Italian boy, Alberic; or the French monk, Barontus. All told how souls have to wander strange paths until they reach the places of the Other World where recompense according to their temporal lives awaits them.

It goes without saying that there existed also special regional conceptions, as documented for instance by the Inquisitorial protocols of the Occitan village of Montaillou. There people imagined the ghosts as being en route permanently: the dead are running quickly, the more culpable one is the quicker he runs - but on this world, if invisible to the living. During daytime, they move from church to church, from one pilgrimage-centre to the next; during the nights, they stay inside a church. As if alive, knights are still riding, ladies drive in a cart. These penitential pilgrimages finished, the souls may enter a place of repose, but still on this earth. Heaven will be their abode only after the Last Judgement; hell is reserved for the demons, Jews, and the great sinner, Judas Iscariot.13

Returning to the ideas on afterlife which were current in the whole of medieval Europe, we notice that this journey to the localities of future existence is not undertaken alone. Good or evil spirits are man's companions on his last way. This is testified not only by the visionary literature but also by texts belonging to nearly all other literary genres, as well as by countless figural representations painted or sculptured. That is, for example, what the very popular author of the 12th century, Honorius Augustodunensis, narrates in his Sermo ad pauperes: when an honest pauper's life was ended, 'multitudo angelorum venit, animam ejus cum gaudio de carcere corporis excepit, et ad coeleste palatium cum ymnis perduxit.' The case is quite the reverse when a rich man dies (who is eo ipso expected to be bad): 'repente caterva daemorium horribili aspectu domum intravit, quos aeger videns exclamavit: 'Domine adjuva me!...' Daemones vero crudeliter animam ejus extorserunt et ad tartara cruciandam pertraxerunt."4 These situations could be seen depicted in almost all medieval churches, because there are two typical scenes where this motif appears, viz. the story of Dives and Lazarus, and the Crucifixion with the deaths of the two thieves. The pictures showing souls elevated to heaven seem to outnumber those showing the passage to the underworld, because saints' legends were depicted more often than the stories of great sinners such as Judas Iscariot or Theophilus.'5 Whereas medieval art influenced by Byzantium often shows the soul being carried upwards by angels who hold it in a linen cloth, like that of Lambert of Saint-Bertin in a 12th century manuscript,'6 we also find the soul taken (and crowned) by the angels without intermediate device, as can be seen on a coloured 14th-century relief of the death of St. Theobald at St. Thibault in Burgundy, or a fresco of about 1340/50 in the Dominicans' church at Bozen (Siidtirol) in the Johanniskapelle, part of a life of St. Nicholas. It is striking that it is only in this latter way that the visions and exempla describe the souls' flight to heaven, whereas the motif of the cloth is restricted to pictoral representations. But if a saint is especially loved by God, the celestial hosts come down to his death-bed in order to accompany him or her to heaven.'8

It is not only to the realms of the blessed but to purgatory, too, that the good spirits

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bring the deceased. This is a constant theme of the visions; an interesting and rather rare representation is to be found on an Austrian panel (fig. 1). It shows an angel carrying a soul to the so often mentioned cauldron, another one helping a soul out of the fiery pit, obviously by virtue of the Rosaries said on behalf of this dead man by living friends, a third one fetching bread and drink, obviously alms bestowed on the poor in memory of the deceased; meanwhile, on the right hand, those sinners who have been cleansed from their faults take their refrigerium. 19 An example of devils catching dying men's souls comes from a mural showing an execution at S. Fermo Maggiore in Verona; another one, with the demons as hounds hunting naked souls over a rough path, is to be seen in the 'Taymouth Hours' (fig. 2).

Demons Hunt Souls. Taymouth Hours, first half 14th century; British Library, London (after Gibson, as note 78, Abb. 62).

Whether the innumerable Romanesque sculptures of animal-shaped demons clutching a human being may be interpreted in this sense, or whether they are meant to represent living men ensnared by personified vices, would be difficult to decide.

The authors of the New Testament thought that the Second Coming of Christ in order to separate sheep and goats, was to approach soon. As this day of doom was deferred further and further, a second conception was accepted: the personal judgment immediately after death. So it is an important station on the way to the future life's abodes. There are many texts which present the soul in front of Christ's Judgment Seat,20 but another concept was still more popular: judgment by weighing on the scales.21 This ancient motif, known from Egyptian and Greek antiquity, became widespread in Western Christendom during the central Middle Ages. The weighing angel was identified with St. Michael, whose picture was not lacking in any late medieval church. An Old Norse prayer of the 13th century runs: 'You I beseech, Michael, to deign to take my soul when she is brought away from my corpse and to protect her against the fiends' powers, so she can come through hell's door and the road of darkness, so she is not held back by lions or dragons who use to direct the soul to hell ... You I beseech, my Lord God, you almighty, that you send to me your holy angel for help.'22 It is with such prayers on their lips we should imagine medieval people looking at the representations of the weighing angel, whether they are as unpretentious as the one at Pulkau (Nieder6sterreich, 13th century), or as elaborate as that in the cathedral of Aarhus (fig. 3). Often the devils, as big and nearlyg s mighty as itas the heavenly spirits, are represented hoping for the slumping of the scale filled with the examinee's sinful deeds. That is, of course, what will happen to the risen at the time of resurrection, and it is in this connection that the act of soul-weighing was most often represented in the pictorial arts. Not rarely angels and devils are actually fighting for the departed's soul, a scene frequently described in the exempla-collections23 and

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PETER DINZELBACHER

visions.24 Sometimes the saints take part in the struggle, St. Peter hitting the demons with his keys,25 St. Laurence throwing on the scale the thurible which had been offered to him by the emperor Henry II,26 St. Mary putting her hand on the scale holding the sinner's good deeds.27

About this stage of the souls' way, the personal judgment, there is still another line of tradition. From the late sixth century on we have sources referring to the bridge to the Other World, the function of which is identical with that of the souls' balance, for it is the path to the upper regions, which only the just will successfully pass. We have a letter of St. Boniface to the abbess of Thanet, Eadburga, where he records the vision of an unnamed Wenlock monk, narrated to the saint by the visionary himself. This man during his illness fell into a rapture; angels carried him upwards, so that he could see the whole wide world from above,28 covered with immense fires. During the time of his ecstasy, he saw such a number of souls migrating from their bodies that they seemed to outnumber the world's inhabitants. As they gathered, countless evil spirits and holy angels also approached and entered into conflict over the souls, the former by accusing the sinners, the latter by excusing them. There was a river full of fire and burning pitch, and there was a tree over it in likeness of a bridge. The saintly souls hurried to the bridge, as they desired to pass over to the other bank. And some crossed without staggering, but some sliding down from the tree fell into the hellish stream. Some were wholly submerged in the flood, some to the knees, some to the middle of the body, and some to the ankles. All eventually came out of the fire, rendered bright and clean to ascend the other side. Beyond the river were walls shining with splendour, great in length and height - heavenly Jerusalem.29

This idea of the test-bridge became very popular in the later centuries and was even interpolated into other eschatological texts such as the apocryphal Visio Pauli. During the eleventh or twelfth century the continental tradition, stemming from the widespread Dialogues of Pope Gregory the Great, blended with the Irish, which in my opinion had developed independently the motif of the moving and changing bridge, known for instance from the Fis Adamnain, the treatise on St. Patrick's Purgatory or the vision of Alberic. It is of this latter type that we have an illustration in a mural painting in S. Maria in Piano, Loreto Aprutino, Italy, (early 14th century?) (fig. 4). One is reminded of the bridge in Alberic's vision: a river of burning pitch was crossed by a very broad iron bridge, to be overcome by the just souls the easier and faster the more immune from sins ('immunes a delictis') they were found to be. But when those who were burdened by their sins' weight came to the middle of the aforesaid bridge, it became as narrow as a thread. So they fell down into the river, crawled out, came back, fell down again, and so on, till 'in morem carnium excocti et purgati' they were able to cross this bridge.30 But I do not feel that this painting was meant to be an illustration to the boy's ecstatic record, because details like the helping angel or St. Michael's balance do not occur in Alberic. So the model was more probably a lost vision, or else we have here a new formulation of the well-known subject by the patron who ordered the fresco.

As far as I know, there exists only one other picture of the eschatological bridge to be seen on a large scale, in a little church some miles south of London, Chaldon (fig. 5), about 1200. On the lower stage to the right, two gigantic devils (and gigas is a medieval synonym to 'demon')31 hold the bridge of spikes over the flames of hell or purgatory. Five human beings try to keep themselves on it - one can assume that the giants don't fail to shake the bridge. They are obviously dishonest tradesmen: a blacksmith, a mason or carpenter, two spinsters and a potter. It is evident that this bridge is a

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perversion of the original motif, the bridge as passage from this world to the other. This bridge leads nowhere save into the monsters' jaws, its only aim is to punish. Of exactly this function we find the bridges beset with nails in the visions of Tundal (1149) and Thurkill (1206). I will content myself with citing from the last one only. Thurkill was a simple Essex rustic who experienced a 48 hours' rapture during which he was led to a spacious church. On the outside was the pit of hell and a purgatorial fire; between this and heaven (situated on the mons gaudit), there was a long bridge full of spikes, the way over which is described in some detail: the souls who come to this bridge filled with desire for rest want to cross at all costs. With their bare feet they step on the long nails and very sharp spikes, and unable to stand the pains they put their hands on the spikes for help. These are pierced immediately, so they creep on their bellies very slowly until they reach the other side, stabbed and bloodstained on every inch.32 Again, neither Tundal nor Thurkill can probably have been a source of the aforesaid painting at Chaldon, but undoubtedly the same idea lies behind them: the bridge as instrument of punishment. The bridge-motif, so diffused in medieval literature, has, astonishingly enough, been illustrated only very rarely. I can cite e.g. the illuminations of a French version of St. Paul's vision, some late woodcuts in early prints, and a late 16th-century illumination of the Visio Tundali as mentioned by Martin Luther33 (fig. 6). The fashionably dressed knight Tundal meets another soul at the Bridge of Dread who is carrying stolen corn.

The bridge of the dead is the typical manifestation of the path the soul must travel, the concretization of the distance between the living and the defunct. In addition it is, as comparison with folkloristic and ethnographic material reveals, the difficult passage par excellence which has to be overcome before a man can reach a higher level of existence. Let us at least mention that the eschatological bridge also had a profane counterpart, the perilous bridge of the romances. The best known example is the sword-bridge in Chretien de Troyes' Lancelot, as shown in illuminated manuscripts or on a capital in St-Pierre, Caen.

Similar to the bridge is the ladder. While the first is quite usual in visions of the Other World, the ladder or steps are extremely rare. The bridge must be crossed both by the ecstatical seer and the dead; the ladder on the contrary seems to be restricted to either the visionary or some famous saint.

In 13th-century sources St. Dominic is said to have been seen ascending to heaven between two ladders held by the Virgin and Christ.34 There are not a few saints who are shown with a ladder as an attribute, but usually this refers to the apparition of this divine way,35 comparable to the dream which the patriarch Jacob was favoured with,36 not to the ascending of the visionary himself. Out of about 2()() texts of medieval visions, I know but a few containing our motif: one is the until now completely unnoticed dream-vision of the Hirsau monk Bernhard of 'ectcrshausen (late 11th century) who beholds an opening in the skies, from which the ladder is reaching down to earth. It is interpreted as mankind's way to the Last Judgment, but only Peter in his sleep and his companions climb up. He participates in the saints' meal, but discredits his story with the remark: 'When I awoke, I was glad that it was not true,' because he himself was to be thrown into the penitential flames.37 Better known is the second vision, one experienced by the English Cistercian novice Gunthclm in 1161. He in his agony is led by St. Benedict of Nursia to narrow and steep stairs apparently beginning in the air. On each stair sat two demons who beat and mocked Gunthelm violently until he and his leader reached the Lady's Chapel at the end of the steps.38 Another one is the dream the Norwegian king St Olav had before his death, seeing 'a high ladder,

77

upon which he went so high in the air that heaven was open.'39 And from England we have record of William Staunton who in 1409 visited St. Patrick's Purgatory on Lough Derg (Ireland) and described the 'ladder ... sharper than any razor' between purgatory and paradise.40

Are there further ways in which the journey to the Other World could be accomplished? There are, but they are not what the average medieval man would have expected to happen to him. They concern only people who became the heroes of legends because of their extraordinary life or (usually bad) deeds. An unusual example of this is the journey to hell by ski. Skiing was well known to the ancient Finns,41 and so we read in the late medieval ballad on the death of Bishop Henry of Uppsala, Finland's apostle, who was murdered in 1156: "But now the bishop is rejoicing,/Lalli (his murderer) is in dreadful torture./ The bishop with the angels sings,/ chanting a hymn of exultation,/ Lalli in Hell is skiing,/ sliding along with his glide-skis,/ into the dense smoke of torment,/ with his staff he pushes on./ Badly prick him all the devils

"42

Less eccentric is the conception of a boat-trip to the beyond. As we are speaking about journeys of souls, not of the living, I set aside St. Brendan and his voyage to the Isles of the Blessed,43 a combination of the Irish pagan tradition of a happy Other World and Christian paradise on earth, and also Alexander the Great's journey to paradise, much influenced by oriental sources.44 It was Teutonic belief, as we know from rich archaeological and literary sources, that the dead man had to cross a water- barrier in order to reach his resting-place.45 There remained some traces of this conception in the Middle Ages, e.g. the mention of the Rhine as stream of the dead in Caesarius of Heisterbach,46 or the story of an entrance to hell, broken by the Saviour on the occasion of his descensus ad limbum patrum, which is to be seen in the depth of a lake near Puteoli in Italy.47 But more current traditions were limited to two personages of the early Frankish monarchy, viz. king Dagobert I. (d.639) and the maior domus Ebroin (d.ca.680). When the good king Dagobert left this world, we are told, without having cleansed himself from all sins, the demons seized his soul and put her on a ship. But St. Denis did not forget his friend and came in company of other saints whom Dagobert had especially honoured. They fought the demons, who were defeated and thrown out of the boat into the sea. Then the angels received Dagobert's soul and all went back to paradise.48 Less fortunate was Ebroin, who had been confined by his enemies in a monastery (the usual early medieval method of political elimination) but left it after two years to regain his power. At night a victim of Ebroin's cruelty49 heard the sound of hard rowing. Having asked where the ship was bound to, he was told: 'we are bringing Ebroin to the Volcano where he shall pay for his misdeeds.'50 The first of these two stories has been carved into stone on the appropriate place, i.e. on the king's cenotaph standing in the royal necropolis of St. Denis (fig. 7), about 1265.

While this popular notion is a relic from Germanic mythology,51 the learned poets especially during and after the renaissance of the 12th century referred to classical conceptions of tartarus with its infernal streams and the ferryman Charon.52 It is in this Vergilian tradition that Dante created his Inferno where Caron dimonio53 brings terror- struck souls to the land without hope. Also the Stygian swamps have to be traversed by boat, this time steered by Flegias, personification of wrath.54 The subject was still treated by Renaissance painters such as Joachim Patenier (d.1524), Dfirer's host in Antwerp, and was frequently used by the most famous Portugese renaissance dramatist Gil Vicente.55

The journey on horseback usually also remained reserved for one prominent

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member of the early medieval aristocracy who had to be damned as an adherent to Arianism, the Gothic king Theoderic the Great. His hell-ride has been represented quite often; the most famous example is the relief at the portal of S.Zeno, Verona (ca. 1130). The legend, which can be reconstructed by the help of many texts, tells how the king, having killed Pope John I, Symmachus and Boethius, was bathing when a hart, sent by the demon, came into his view. He jumped out, mounted a jet black horse, sent by the demon as well, and hunted the animal. But he was not able to dismount the horse which carried him straight into hell through a volcano.56 Another variant of this legend says it was the Pope and the consul themselves who threw Theoderic into the fiery mouth of hell,57 but the hunting-version was more esteemed in the arts, for example on a relief of the 13th century at the charnel-house of Modling (Niederosterreich). One can suppose that the king's famous equestrian statue brought to Aachen by Charlemagne was the nucleus of this whole tale.58 Possibly Germanic mythology, as expressed in Hermodur's hell-ride, had prepared the ground for this motif.59

A Pushcart to Hell. Late 13th century MS; Bibliotheque Municipale, St. Omer, France (Hammerstein, Abb. 8).

Incidentally I mention a last and unusual vehicle: the cart. To heaven it brought only the living Elijah in the Old Testament,60 so it hardly could be used in later Christian legends.61 Alexander's attempt to fly to the heavens in a cart drawn by gryphons was understood by the medievals as a symbol of his superbia.62 To the opposite realm in the depth no carts are prepared for offenders in serious eschatological literature, but they appear in a satirical drawing in the margin of a Franco-Flemish bible (fig. 8) and on a fresco in Bagnot church, Burgundy.63 As regards St. Francis, who was seen by his followers in a fiery chariot (a scene immortalized by Giotto in his church at Assisi), this simply signified his position as governor of spiritual men, as St. Bonaventura writes,64 not that he was believed to have ascended by this device.

So far, we have briefly surveyed the more realistic concepts of the souls' ways to their further abodes.65 Equally prolific were the allegorical notions which depict this our temporal life as a way to the other world. They of course were created in the reflections of intellectuals, not by popular imagination, but as at least from the 13th century onwards they were used by preachers speaking in the vernacular to the laity, they could gain a more widespread currency too.

The basic conception is the biblical view of this world as a vale of tears66 through which we in statu viatorum are wandering as pilgrims. Our homeland is not this evil

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saeculum but the coelestis patria. The allegorical literature provides symbolic paths analogous to those on which it was thought the dead really had to go. The two ways (as expressed e.g. in Proverbs 4.1 ff.: '. . . iustorum autem semita quasi lux splendens, procedit et crescit usque ad perfectam diem. Via impiorum tenebrosa, nesciunt ubi corruant .. .') were treated in a thousand ways by medieval homilists. "leten we po brode strete and'ane wei benne/ bet leded'fo nijende del to helle .. ./ go we Pane narewe wei and 'ane wei grene,/ .. a..t is vair and schene", are we exhorted by the late 12-century author of the Poema morale.67 The later path is God's word, leading over rock and mountain, the former man's own will, bound to a barren wood and a bare field.

More sophisticated is the Swabian Freidanc who wrote his Bescheidenheit about 1225. Three roads go down to hell, open everyday: desperation, bad deeds and postponing amendment. To heaven there are three ways, too: self-denial, discreet goodness and almsgiving.68 The upper ways are infested by enemies, devils69 or vices.70 These are the wegewerende (those hindering the way), as Walther von der Vogelweide had said. In the later Middle Ages the allegory of men's pilgrim's way was treated in some lengthy works such as Guillaume de Digullevilles' Pelerinage de la vie humaine and Pelerinage de l'dme (1330-58, several times translated into other languages) with a detailed symbolical apparatus: River of Baptism, pilgrim's staff as bridge over the River of the World, broad road to pleasure and narrow way to duty, thorny hedge of penitence, Ship of Religion and so on.7' The way to hell could also be described in similar terms. Thus Raoul de Houdenc (d.ca. 1230) in his Songe d'Enfer imagines that he is a pilgrim to the city of Hell, journeying on a broad and pleasant route. His way leads him through such places as Convoitise la Cite (greediness) and Foi-Mentie (perjury) over the river of Gloutonie (gluttony) to Ville-Taverne (tavern), then to Chastiau-Bordel (brothel) through Cruaut6 (cruelty) to Desesperance (despair), the Montjoie (hill) of Hell. Close by is Mort-Soubite (sudden death), a kind of infernal outpost. The people whom he meets are sins and vices personified like Envy, Treachery, Avarice, Robbery, Gambling and so on.72

The motif of the two ways often is given in the ancient form of the Y, well-known from the story of Hercules-Prodikos, transmitted to the Middle Ages through Cicero,3and combined with Matthew 7,13f, the parable of the narrow and the broad way. This is the subject of many exempla74 like this one: Two pilgrims, sometimes explained as homo carnalis and homo spiritualis, reach a road fork, the path to the left leading to a town where the guests are cordially received and given gifts, but robbed and hanged after three days; the one to the right being difficult, but leading to a town where they will be crowned. 'Peregrinacio est vita presens, civitas et premia mundus est, vbi post ... vite huius cursum ... ducuntur nudi ad suspendium, id est, ad mortem eternam. Via aspera confessio, contricio, satisfaccio .. .'75 Though there are some illuminations of such allegorical texts,76 during the Middle Ages they remained limited to the manuscripts carrying these stories and, as far as I see, no iconography of its own was developed. The homo viator became more often pictured during the Renaissance; an instance would be Hieronymus Bosch's well-known triptych The Hay-Cart.77 When its wings are closed one sees the wanderer passing through the dangers of this life; he turns his back upon crime and looks away from luxuria (as sexuality was called in the Middle Ages), symbolized by the dancing couple. Death menaces him (he looks at the bones, the gallows are over his head). With his staff the pilgrim keeps off slander (the barking dog), but the bridge on his way, will it hold out? Maybe this is an allusion to the eschatological bridge mentioned above.78 More

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elaborate pictures of this theme will be found in later times; e.g. a mural painting in the Minster at Konstanz (Baden-Wiirttenberg, 1593): the guardian angel leads the soul, represented as child with staff and knapsack, on the meandering path to brightness. The animals along this path can be interpreted as different spiritual dangers.79 Devotional pictures (woodcuts and prints) illustrated Matthew's parable and were on the market until the beginning of our century.80

If we quickly survey the remaining means of travelling to the Other World we see some of them again in allegorical use. Thus the ship: it is the famous symbol for the church on which the Fathers wrote since Tertullian, and which was represented in the arts from the fourth century onwards.8' We are divided, writes Honorius Augustodunensis, from our homeland of paradise as if a sea lay in between, i.e. the saeculum, perturbed by much bitterness. The ship is Christian religion.82 About the allegorical chariot we read in the same author: When the Lord constructed His palace, one wall broke down (the apostate angels), so His Son collected many new stones (the elect) in His chariot which was drawn by horses (the Apostles). The quadriga itself is the Evangelists; the stones that fell out of it symbolize the heretics and schismatics.83 This allegory reminds one of the stones used to build the tower in Hermas' Poimen of the second century. Another representation of the allegorical chariot is of course Bosch's Hay-Cart, dragged to hell by the devils.84

More often the bridge was used as an allegory, especially for the life of man as counted by his age. In the Livre de Lancelot a bridge of 45 planks suggests the span of life.85 From the 15th century onwards there exist woodcuts (very popular in Scandinavia till the 19th century) on which the analogy between the span of life and the bridge's span is expressed conspicuously: a pilgrim, homo viator, is on his way to the passage: the devil attacks him, and on the other end death awaits him.86

In a completely different way St. Catherine of Siena speaks at length about this metaphor: when the road whereby man could reach heaven had been broken by Adam's disobedience, God made of his Son a bridge across which one can pass. Since the original sin there streams a stormy river, carrying the molestations of the demon and of the world. This river is the tempestuous sea of this dark life. 'Vedi quanto e tenuta la creatura a me!' the Lord comments.87

I must leave aside certain other symbolical images of the earthly pilgrimage, such as the maze, which is difficult to interpret; it was found on the pavements in many French cathedrals before the Age of Enlightenment, and is said to be a device to act as substitute for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, whence the name chemin de Jerusalem, but it occurs also on walls and vaults.88 I finally come to the most widespread symbol, viz. the allegorical ladder. Whereas the ladder as real help for ascending through the spheres is extremely rare, as a symbolic motif it is abundant. Already one of the earliest Christian visions, that of the martyr Perpetua (d.202), includes this image; in jail, awaiting sentence with her fellow believers, the young woman asked for a vision about the future, and was shown in answer a very narrow iron ladder studded with swords, knives and spears, a gigantic dragon lurking beneath. Perpetua kills the animal and climbs up to where she is received by the Good Shepherd. There is no hint that she thought her soul would have to pass this ladder after death, but they understood it as a symbol foretelling that they were to win the martyr's crown, the martyrdom itself being expressed by the weapons.89 In view of the number of manuscripts, Perpetua's ladder must have been a well-known motif; this is testified by the illuminations of the Speculum Virginum, a 12-century treatise on the virtues of the Christian virgins, whose spiritual progress the devil tries in vain to stop.90 Probably also the motif of the knife-

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studded column which Mephistopheles would be willing to ride in order to regain his lost beatitude, and cognate items, are not uninfluenced by this early vision.91

But there existed still another conception of the perilous ladder, coming from the East. In the seventh century Johannes Scholastikos had described the Klimax tou paradeisou leading to the Lord's realm in 30 steps (corresponding to Christ's years). They stand for different virtues, but ascending them is difficult, as demons try to beat down the monks.92 The best known Western illustration of this type is a picture in Herrad of Landsberg's Hortus deliciarum (fig. 9), showing the tension between temporal life (the dragon) and eternal life (the crown): who from all ranks is able to overcome it? The layfolk, the cleric, the nun, the recluse and the hermit, they all are attracted by delicious dishes, the soft couch and heaped gold. To this complex the ladder at Chaldon may belong. It obviously begins down in hell or purgatory where a devil is busy plucking the climbing souls. It ends in heaven; one recognizes the Saviour with his cross in the clouds. Hardly by chance it points exactly to the only window in this wall, so that it seems to reach to the sky, nay, to heaven itself (fig. 5). As it is located just in the middle of the wall and of the painting it reminds us of this archetypal idea of the axis mundi in the centre of the world. Its eight rungs are paralleled by those ladders which represent the eight virtues by which blessedness is to be reached. Ladders of this kind were often used in explaining man's spiritual progress, because this motif appears in one of the most widespread texts that medieval Christianity knew, the Regula Monasteriorum of St. Benedict. Jacob's ladder, he teaches, is our life in the world, which is erected to heaven by the Lord when our heart humbles itself. The ladder's sides we understand as our soul and body; in between, divine vocation has joined the rungs of humility and discipline.93 But there are some difficulties about the ladder at Chaldon. If it is the virtues' ladder,94how can it have its base in hell? And how can it be that some souls ascend it only from the sixth rung? So maybe we should interpret the fresco as follows: The weighing of souls, on the upper left, is taking place in the air above the world but beneath heaven, that is, in the first cosmological sphere. The descensus of Christ, on the upper right, is taking place in a compartment of hell, the limbus patrum, situated usually over the actual hell (infernus), which is represented on the lower left. Here the tree of knowledge indicates Original Sin, because of which Christ's work of redemption became necessary. From hell nobody can escape (in spite of what the legends say about Trajan, St. Odilia's father, and king Edwin of Northumbria),95 therefore the demons here turn their backs to the ladder. But from purgatory (on the right) one may ascend to the upper regions, having been sufficiently cooked. Here a devil has to watch that only justified sinners take this way; he fills the same function as the bridge over the river called purgatorium had in Alberic's vision. This of course is only a suggestion of how one should read this painting: the ladder at Chaldon leads out of purgatory, as did the real one upon which the pilgrims descended and ascended in St. Patrick's Irish cave.96

I close this rapid survey of allegorical paths with a very unusual representation of this ladder from a 12th century German manuscript (fig. 10). It excellently shows man's possibility of choosing between the devilish allurements (the seven deadly sins) and God's attractions (seven virtues). The ladder divides itself into a part to the left, i.e. to hell, and a part to the right, i.e. to heaven's palace: 'arbitrii dextrum ramum pete, sperne sinistrum. Nam dexter celum tibi pandit, levus abyssum' runs the inscription.97

Let us now survey which ways to the other world we have found in what contexts.

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The path is common both in real expectations and in allegory; so is the bridge. Being carried by angels or dragged by demons is the most widespread expectation, but does not appear in allegory. The ladder is frequently symbolic, whereas accounts of a real ladder occur only very seldom. Travelling by boat and cart appear in both mediums, but in rather different ways; riding a horse only happened to one or another great man. So points of contact between believed eschatology and invented symbolism have become evident, as well as differences: for instance, whereas the image of the ladder was limited nearly exclusively to allegorical texts, transport effected by good or evil spirits did not become a theme for allegorists. Further, it may be noticed that which way was described, also depended on the literary genre: the visions often mention the bridge, but it does not occur in prayers; the boat is restricted to pious folktale and chronicles.

So far, so good. But we also have texts where our neat division between expected reality and fictive allegory does not work. Here for us, I feel, begins the difficulty in understanding medieval thinking. I give one example: Gautier de Coincy (d.1236) in his legend of St. Leocadia has an interpolation about the Holy Virgin's power. This he exemplifies through the well-known bridge, but continually shifting from real bridge of souls to allegorical bridge of life. There is a bridge long and perilous, and so many wolves and lions; no soul (nule ame and not nul ome!)98 can pass over without St. Mary's help. So far it is the bridge for the dead, but then he says that the sea of the world streams beneath the bridge - so it is meant allegorically? The poet goes on: the devils who pull away the planks in front of everybody, hide themselves before those who pray to Our Lady. She defends them against the hideous animals, i.e. the devils, who cannot become satiated by biting us. 'Cil ponz, cele mers, c'est cis mondes/ Nus n'est si justes ne si mondes/ Qui ne perisse a ce passage/ Se Nostre Dame outre nel nage:'99 this bridge, this sea, that is this world, no one is so just and pure that he would not perish at this passage, if Our Lady did not consent to the voyage. So Gautier changes from the real bridge, with the animals under it as described in so many a vision, to the symbolical bridge of life.

This shifting, which is not 'imposed allegory,'00 surely must not be considered as peculiar to this French author, but is to be found often from the central Middle Ages onwards. One could quote Mechthild of Hackeborn (d. 1299) on the three ways of Our Lord which alternate between the real, as Christ's way to Golgotha, and the figural, as his poverty being a dry path;'10 or the Sacrum Commercium which shows St. Francis beginning his quest for the way to Lady Poverty in the narrow streets of his home town Assisi. 102

But these are only examples of one kind of pictorial self-expression of medieval man, to understand which in its proper meaning still remains an open task for modern man.

Historical Institute, University of Stuttgart.

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NOTES

Paper read at the Third British Colloquium of the Commission Internationale d'Histoire Ecclesiastique Comparee, Sept. 3 and Sept. 5 1981, and at the Colloquium on Popular and Learned Culture at the University of Haifa, June 1, 1983. I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Harald Kleinschmidt and Esther Heszler, who pointed out some incorrectness of language to me.

1. Cf. Peter Dinzelbacher, Vision und Visionsliteratur im Mittelalter, Stuttgart 1981, 90-115, with vast literature to which should be added M. Aubrun, 'Caracteres et portee religieuse et sociale des "Visions" en Occident du Vie au XIe siecle,' Cahiers de Civilisation medievale 23, 1980, 109-130. See also Peter Dinzelbacher, Mittelalterliche Visionsliteratur, Darmstadt 1984; id., 'Jenseitsvisionen/ Jenseitsreisen,' in: Ulrich Miiller et al edd., Die epischen Stoff des Mittelalters, Stuttgart (1984, 61-80).

2. Cf. e.g. Walther v.d. Vogelweide 54,lff.:,'ob ichz vor siinden tar gesagen,/s6 saehe ichs iemer gerner an/dan himel oder himelwagen.' Ed. Karl Lachmann, Hugo Kuhn et al, 13th ed., Berlin 1965, 75f. So Walther counts it as a sin that he likes to look at the face of his lady more than to look at the sky, which therefore must be identified with heaven.

3. K. Hampe, 'Kaiser Friedrich II. als Fragensteller,' in: Festschrift fir Walter Goetz (Kultur-und Universal Geschichte), Leipzig 1927, 53ff.

4. Cf. P. Dinzelbacher, 'Klassen und Hierarchien im Jenseits,' Miscellanea Mediaevalia 12, 1979, 20-40. 5. Leopold Kretzenbacher, Die Seelenwaage, Klagenfurt 1958, 112-116; Kulturhistorisk Leksikon for

Nordisk Middelalder 5, 276-280. 6. Ed. W. Stokes, Revue Celtique 4, 1879/80, 245ff., 255; cf. St. J. D. Seymour, 'The Eschatology of the

Early Irish Church,' Zeitschrift fur celtische Philologie 14, 1923, 179ff., 186. 7. German book of devotion (1493), cit. Vincenz Hasak, Der christliche Glaube des deutschen Volkes,

Regensburg 1868, 148; cf. also William Edwards, A Mediaeval Scrap-Heap, London 1930, 91f. 8. Anton E. Sch6nbach ed., Altdeutsche Predigten, Graz 1886ff., III, 11. 9. J. v. Negelein, 'Die Reise der Seele ins Jenseits,' Zeitschrift des Vereinsfiir Volkskunde 11, 1901, 16ff.,

151; Handworterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens 5, 1080; 7, 1336f.; M. Ebert ed., Reallexikon der Vorgeschichte 13, 418ff. P. Dinzelbacher, 'Verba tam mystica,' in Volks-religion im hohen und spaten mittelalter, ed. id., Paderborn 1986.

10. Dinzelbacher (as note 1), 265. 11. Godeschalcas und Visio Godeschalci ed. Erwin Assmann, Neumiinster 1979, 54ff. For a commentary

on this text, see Dinzelbacher (as in n. 9). 12. Cf. Peter Dinzelbacher, Die Jenseitsbriicke im Mittelalter (Dissertationen der Universitat Wien 104),

Wien 1973, 85ff., 99ff., id. and H. Kleinschmidt, 'Seelenbriicke and Briickenbau im mittelalter lichen England,' Numen 31 (1984), 242-287.

13. The eschatology of Montaillou is given by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou, village occitan de 1294 a 1324, Paris 1975, 576ff., esp. 592ff. (The English and German translations of this book are not to be used, being very much shortened).

14. Migne, Patrologia Latina 172, 864; Cf. Frederic C. Tubach, Index Exemplorum, Helsinki 1969, nums. 1050% 1492, 247, 1669, 5037.

15. Cf. Peter Dinzelbacher, Judastraditionen, Wien 1977, esp. 53ff.; Albert Gier, Der Sinder als Beispiel Zu Gestalt und Funktion hagiographischer Gebrauchstexte anhand der Theophiluslegende, Frankfurt 1977.

16. Hanns Swarzenski, Monuments of Romansque Art, London (new ed.) 1974, fig. 289. 17. Cf. D. de Chapeaurouge, 'Die Rettung der Seele,' Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 35, 1975, 9-54

(covering the early Middle Ages only). 18. Five times Christ and his mother have to appear in order to bring to heaven St Dorothea of Montau

(d.1394); Siegfried Ringler, Viten- und Offenbarungsliteratur in Frauenklostern des Mittelalters, Zurich- Miinchen 1980, 323.

19. Similar representations are dealt with by Ph. Halm, 'Ikonographische Studien zum Armen-Seelen- Kultus,' Minchner Jahrbuch der Bildenden Kunst 12, 1921/1922, 1-24.

20. Tubach (as note 14) nums. 1606, 869, 3705, 4118, 4407, 4982; Edwards (as note 7) 127 (15th century illumination); Helene Nolthenius, Duecento, Wiirzburg 1957, P1.72 (excellent romanesque relief).

21. The literature is quoted in the Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie 3, 1971, 255-265, supplemented by Dinzelbacher (as note 1) 2191088 and T. Petersen, 'Budskabet til meningheden,' Den Ikonografisk Post 1, 1975. The fullest account remains Kretzenbacher (as note 5).

22. F. Paasche, 'St. Michael og hans engle,' Edda 1, 1914, 33ff., 69. Cf. Moltke Moe, Samlede Skrifter III (Instituttet for sammenlignende kulturforskning Serie B/IX), Oslo 1927, 293ff.

23. Tubach (as note 14) nums. 232, 1492a, 4031. 24. E.g. Vita S. Fursei c.7-13, ed. W. W. Heist, Vitae Sanctorum Hiberniae (Subsidia Hagiographica 28),

Bruxelles 1965, 39ff.

THE WAY TO THE OTHER WORLD

25. Visio Baronti c. 12, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, SS rer. Merov, 5, 386f. 26. B. de Gaiffier, 'Pesee des ames,' Recherches de science religieuse 39/40, 1951, 52, 222ff. and

Kretzenbacher (as note 5), 120-126. 27. Tubach (as note 14), num. 4180. 28. A very common motif on which I am preparing a study. 29. Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistulae selectae 1, 7ff. I partly use the translation of Howard R.

Patch, The Other World According to Descriptions in Medieval Literature, Harvard 1950 (reprint New York 1970), 101. There is an Old English translation of this letter, ed. M. Konrath, 'Eine altenglische Vision vom Jenseits,' Archiv fiir das Studium der neueren Sprachen 139, 1919, 30ff., and, without knowledge of Konrath's print: K. Sisam, 'An old English Translation of a letter from Wynfrith,' Modern Language Review 18, 1923, 253ff.

30. Visio Alberici, ed. M. Inguanez, Miscellanea Cassinse 11, 1932, 81ff., cf. P. Dinzelbacher (as note 12), 32ff., 60f.; id., 'Die Vision Alberichs und die Esdras-Apokryphe,' Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Beneditkinerordens 87, 1976, 435-442.

31. 'Quare daemones appellantur gigantes? Quia daemones superbi et elati sunt ...' Honorius Augustodunensis, in Prov. 16, Migne, Pat. lat. 172, 323. Folktales also idenitfy giants and devils, c.f. Valerie H6ttges, Typenverzeichnis der deutschen Riesen- und riesischen Teufelssagen, Helsinki 1937.

32. Visio Thurkilli, ed. Paul G. Schmidt, Leipzig 1978. 33. Weimarer Ausgabe 32, 502ff. Cf. Nigel Palmer, The German and Dutch Translations of the 'Visio

Tundali', Thesis Oxford 1975, 182f, now printed as Visio Tnugdali, Miinchen 1982, 209f. 34. Tubach (as note 14) num. 1727; Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, transl. Richard Benz,

Heidelberg 8th ed. 1975, 552f. (I quote this translation and not the edition by Grasse, because Benz claims to have used better manuscripts, cf. ibid. xxxvii).

35. Cf. Otto Wimmer, Handbuch der Namen und Heiligen, Innsbruck, 3rd ed. 1966, 586, 591, 604. 36. Gen. 28, 11ff. 37. Chroni .,. Petershausen c. 18, ed. Otto Feger, Schwdbische Chroniken der Stauferzeit III, 1956 (reprint

1978) (to be found as well in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, SS 20, 624-682). 38. Visio Gunthelmi, ed. G. Constable, Revue BeIndictine 66, 1956, 92-114, with addenda: id., Cluniac

Studies, London 1980, vi, 106f. 39. Snorri Sturlson, Heims Kringler, transl. Samuel Lang, London 2nd ed. 1964, 1/2, 364. A pictorial

representation is to be found on a panel in the cathedral of Trondhem (ca. 1280), Eugen Kusch, Alte Kunst in Skandinavien, Niirnberg 1964, nr. 174.

40. Ed. George Ph. Krapp, The Legend of St. Patrick's Purgatory ... Baltimore 1900, 72; cf. Dinzelbacher (as note 12), 153f.

41. Cf. Aurelien Sauvageot, Les anciens Fin,nois, Paris 1961, 80 and Pl.V. 42. Piispa Henrikin Surmavirsi, ed. and transl. Urpo Vento, Helsinki 1967, 9. The legend came into

existence in the late 13th century, cf. M. Kuusi, S. Konsala edd., Suomen kirjallisuus I, Helsinki 1963, 303. 43. The literature is given in the Lexikon des Mittelalters II, 606, s.v. Brendan. 44. The literature is given idid. I, 354-366; in the Lexikon der Christlichen Ikonographie I, 94-96, and in

the Kindler Literatur Lexikon I, s.v. 'Alexanderroman' (ed. 1970: 899-911). 45. M. Ebert, 'Die Bootfahrt ins Jenseits,' Prdhistorische Zeitschrift 12, 1920, 179ff.; Hermann Usener,

Religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen, Bonn 1889ff., III, 214ff.; Hilda R. Ellis, The Road to Hel, Cambridge 1943; K. Straubergs, 'Zur Jenseitstopographie,' Arv 13, 1957, 56ff., 67; Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde III2, 241 ff.

46. Dialogus Miraculorum 11, 33, ed. Joseph Strange, Koln 1851, II, 296: 'ad Rheum ire' = to die. Cf. also Prokopios, Gothika 4, 20, where the dead have to cross the Channel.

47. Felix Liebrecht ed., Gervasius von Tilbury Otia Imperialia, Hannover 1856, 18. 48. The source of this story are the 'Gesta Dagoberti' c.44, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, SS rer.

Merov, 2, 421f. Cf. Patch (as note 29) 23518; Dinzelbacher (as note 1), 94. The Brothers Grimm inserted it into their Deutsche Sagen num. 439, giving the reference 'Chronique de Guill(aume) de Nangis' (cf. the edition of the Sagen by Lutz Rihrich, Zurich 1974, 621), but it is not in the edition of Guillaume by H. Gerand, 1843.

49. I follow Ado of Vienne (d.875), Chron. a.a.696, Migne, Patrologia Latina 123, 117. 50. A typical change is to be noted in Jacobus de Voragine's Legenda Aurea: here some monks hear the

demons rowing and are saved themselves only by appealing to the Blessed Virgin; cf. Benz (as note 34) 597. Many other legends too were altered in order to use them for the growing devotion to St. Mary. 51. Think of the ship Naglfar, made of the nails of dead men, too; cf. e.g. Karl Weinhold, Altnordisches Leben, Stuttgart 1938, 328.

52. E.g. Huon d'Auvergne (12/13 century); cf. D. D. R. Owen, The Vision of Hell, Edinbugh 1970, 185. 53. I. 3, 109. Cf. Th. Silverstein, 'The Passage of the Souls to Purgatory in the Divina Commedia,'

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Harvard Theol. Rev. 31, 1938, 53-63. 54. 18, Iff. 55. Cf. P. Quintela, 'Motivgeschichtliche Betrachtungen zu den "Barcas" des Gil Vicente,' Romanische

Forschungen 56, 1942, 345-385; E. Asensio, 'Las fuentes de las "Barcas" de Gil Vicente,' Bulletin d'Histoire du Theitre Portugais 4, 1953, 207-238.

56. Reinhold Kohler, Kleinere Schriften II, Berlin 1900, 267ff.; Wolfgang Stammler, Wort und Bild, Berlin 1962, 45ff. About the volcanos cf. Dinzelbacher (as note 1), 94ff.

57. Ibid. 58. The importance of material things as nuclei of crystalization for oral traditions has been stressed by

H. R. Ellis Davidson, 'Folklore and History,' Folklore 85, 1974, 73-92. The many instances of sinners tormented in hell by fiery horses (cf. e.g. Owen (as note 52), 16, 21, 180, 186, 199, 286ff.) do not seem connected with Theoderic's legend.

59. The examples for the use of the Pegasus in medieval art cited in the Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie III, 414, are not unquestionable.

60. Cf. ibid. I, 607ff. 61. There is perhaps an allusion in a text quoted by Patch (as note 29), 262. 62. Cf. note 44 and Tubach (as note 14), num. 125. 63. R. H. Moormann, Church Life in England in the Thirteenth Century, Cambridge 1955, PI.III.

Another example which shows a French illumination of the 14th century is in Pierre Boglioni, ed., La Culture populaire au Moyen Age, Quebec 1979, 213.

64. Giancarlo Vigorelli, Edi Baccheschi, L'opera completa di Giotto, Milano 1966, num.27; Henry Thode, Franz von Assisi und die Anfdnge der Kunst der Renaissance in Italien, Wien 1934, Tafel 1 If.

65. Many of the aforesaid conceptions were still popular in the 19th century (the soul travelling by cart, horse, ship, etc.); cf. Oskar Schwebel, Tod und ewiges Leben im deutschen Volksglauben, Minden i.W. 1887, 276ff. It goes without saying that most of these ideas appear in various non-European mythologies as well; cf. e.g. M. Gouweloos, 'Les aventures et le voyage de 'Fame apres le deces,' Le Folklore Brabancon 1971, 93-139.

66. Psalm 83:7. 67. Ed. Hans Marcus, Palaestra 194, Leipzig 1934, vs. 339ff. 68. Ed. Franz Sandvoss, Berlin 1877, 49 (vs. 66, Iff. = ? 29). 69. Cf. e.g. a sermon edited by Franz K. Grieshaber, Deutsche Predigten des XIII. Jahrhunderts, Stuttgart

1844, II, 92: the devil binds the sinner with chains, "dc ist dc er in ierret an allen den wegen die zum himelrich gant", in order to hinder him on all ways leading to heaven.

70. Cf. e.g. Walther von der Vogelweide 26, 13ff. (as note 2, 34), mord, brant, wuocher, nit, haz, gitekeit (murder, arson, usury, envy, hatred, avarice).

71. Cf. Patch (as note 29) 188f. 72. Ed. Phileas Lebesgue, Paris 1908; cf. Owen (as note 52) 158ff. 73. Cf. Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie II, 243ff., and Wolfgang Harms, Homo Viator in Bivio,

Miunchen 1970, esp. 158ff. I have not been able to see W. Knippenberg, 'De brede en de smalle weg,' Brabants Heem 33, 1981, 106-114.

74. Tubach (as note 14), nums. 4111-3. 75. Ed. Josef Klapper, Erzdhlungen des Mittelalters, Breslau 1914 (reprint Darmstadt 1978), 165, cf.

312f. 76. Some examples, illuminations of Guillaume de Digulleville's works, are given by G. Ludwig,

'Giovanni Bellinis sogenannte Madonna am See in den Uffizien,' Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 23, 1902, 163-186.

77. Dino Buzzati, Mia Cinotti, L'opera completa di Bosch, Milano 1966, num. 21A. 78. I do not doubt that this interpretation of mine, suggesting itself, can be found in the very vast

literature on Bosch; cf. at least Walter S. Gibson, Hieronymus Bosch, Frankfurt 1974, 101ff. 79. Cf. Heribert Reiners, Das Minster unserer Lieben Frau zu Konstanz, Konstanz 1955, 240. 80. E.g. Samuel C. Chew, The Pilgrimage of Life, New Haven 1962, fig. 132; Lenz Kriss-Rettenbeck,

Bilder und Zeichen religiosen Volksglaubens, Miinchen 1963, Abb. 52. 81. Cf. Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie IV, 61ff. 82. Scala coeli mj., Migne, Pat.Lat. 172, 1230; cf. id., Speculum Ecclesiae, ibid, 857. 83. Ibid. 1176. 84. As note 77, num 21C. 85. Oskar H. Sommer ed., The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances IV, Washington 1911, 23ff. 86. Chew (as note 80), fig. 101e, shows a later version; for the woodcut cf. ibid. 147. 87. Libro c. 21, cf. 49, 76, ed. Umberto Meattini, s.l. 1975, 78f. 88. Cf. Janet Bord, Mazes and Labyrinths of the World, London 1976.

86

THE WAY TO THE OTHER WORLD 87

89. Passio c.4, ed. Herbert Musurillo, The Acts of the Christian Martyrs, Oxford 1972, 106-131. 90. A. Watson, 'The Speculum Virginum with special Reference to the Tree of Jesse,' Speculum 3,

1928, 445-469; the later literature (which does not deal with the ladder especially) is given in the Lexikon der christlichen Ikonographie IV, 185-7.

91. P. Dinzelbacher, 'Die Messersaule,' Bayerisches Jahrbuch fir Volkskunde 1980/81, 41-54. 92. Cf. Dinzelbacher (as note 12) 145f. 93. 7,5ff. On further spiritual ladders see ibid. 142ff. and the Dictionnaire de Spiritualite ascetique et

mystique IV, 62ff. A most impressive late medieval example would be the ladder described in a lauda attributed to Jacopone da Todi (d.1306), ed. Franco Mancini, Rome 1980, 319ff. (4a).

94. As proposed by T. Eriksson, 'L'chelle de la Perfection: Une Nouvelle Interpretation da la Peinture Murale de Chaldon,' Cahiers de civilisation medievale 7, 1964, 439-449.

95. Trajan and Odilia: cf. Leopold Kretzenbacher, Legendenbilder aus dem Feuerjenseits (Osterreichische Adademie der Wissenschaften Philosoph.-Hist.K1., Sitzungsberichte 370), Wien 1980, to be supplemented by J. Szoverffy, Irisches Erzdhlgut im Abendland, Berlin 1957, 48ff. Edwin: Edwards (as note 7), 83.

96. Cf. my forthcoming study on this subject. 97. Eriksson (as note 94), 449. 98. Vs. 509, ed. Eva Vilamo-Pentti, De Sainte Leocade (Annales Academiae Scientarum Fennicae ser.B

67,2), Helsinki 1950, 139. 99. Vs. 541ff., ibid. 141. 100. Cf. Dinzelbacher (as note 1) 169ff. 101. Liber specialis gratie 4,36, ed. R. L. J. Bromberg, Het boek der bijzondere genade van Mechthild van

Hackeborn, Zwolle n.d. (1965), 242. 102. Cf. Kajetan Essler, Engelbert Grau, Der Bund des Hl. Franziskus mit der Herrin Armut, Werl 1966,

91f. (c.5).

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Issue Table of ContentsFolklore, Vol. 97, No. 1 (1986), pp. 1-120Front Matter [pp. 1-2]Ghost and Witch in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries [pp. 3-14]May Morning and Magdalen College, Oxford [pp. 15-40]Predictive Sayings in Gujerati [pp. 41-55]Rab Channing: Life and Legends [pp. 56-62]The Treatment of Myth and Legend in the Windows of St. Neot's, Cornwall [pp. 63-69]The Way to the Other World in Medieval Literature and Art [pp. 70-87]Cain's Wife [pp. 88-95]Jackals, Vultures and Dirty Bodies: Four Ingessana Fables [pp. 96-100]Eulenspiegel and Mnchhausen: Two German Folk Heroes [pp. 101-108]ObituaryChristina Hole 1896-1985 [pp. 109-110]Kurt Ranke (1908-1985) [pp. 110-111]

Society Meetings and Reports [pp. 112-113]ReviewsReview: untitled [p. 114]Review: untitled [pp. 114-115]Review: untitled [pp. 115-116]Review: untitled [p. 116]Review: untitled [p. 117]Review: untitled [p. 117]Review: untitled [p. 118]Review: untitled [p. 118]Review: untitled [p. 119]Review: untitled [p. 119]Review: untitled [pp. 119-120]Review: untitled [p. 120]

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