Die Passion Christi in Literatur Und Kunst Des Spätmittelalters: [Überarb. Fassung Der Beiträge Zum 8. Reisensburger Arbeitsgespräch Vom 29. November Bis 1. Dezember 1991]

Hardly another subject was as of much interest to theologians and the pious and to poets and artists in the centuries of the late Middle Ages as that of Christ's Passion. The tracts, prayer cycles and meditation guides of this period gave birth to a reconstruction of Christ's suffering which is peopled by moving figures, a development whose influence on later centuries was by no means restricted to the Catholic Church. Late medieval devotion to the Passion seems to have laid the cornerstone for the typical, "modern" pattern of religious experience. The attainment of salvation through the character of the believer has become a central theme, the path to salvation often leading through suffering and descent, to a feeling of helplessness and the recognition of how far away God is.