Please send any replies to this forwarded query to Michael O'Connell
at the address given below as well as to our list: he is not a REED-L
subscriber.
AAY
Abigail Ann Young (Dr), Associate Editor/ Records of Early English
Drama/
Victoria College/ 150 Charles Street W/ Toronto Ontario Canada
Phone (416) 585-4504/ FAX (416) 585-4594/ [log in to unmask]
List-owner of REED-L <http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/reed-l.html>
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/reed.html => REED's home page
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~reed/stage.html => our theatre resource page
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~young => my home page
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 07 May 1999 10:52:13 -0700
From: Michael O'Connell <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
To: medieval-religion <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: risus paschalis
Dear List-members,
I wonder if anyone has any information they could share about "risus
pachalis,"
particularly instances of it in the British Isles or Northern Europe generally
in the late medieval period.
"Risus paschalis" appears to have been connected with Easter sermons, a rather
bizarre tradition of jokes and farcical skits designed, apparently, to lift
the
congregation's spirits after the rigors of Lent. The best description I've
found of it is contained in a defense of his own (non-jokey) preaching by the
Basel reformer Johannes Oecolampadius (1518). Oecolampadius finds the
practice offensive and puzzling, but gives an interesting description of it.
It's also mentioned in Erasmus in his final work, Ecclesiastes (1535), a
treatise on preaching — and also with distinct disapproval.
I know Bakhtin's references to the tradition and the book by Maria Caterina
Jacobelli, Il Risus Paschalis e il fondamento teologico del piacere sessuale
(1991). But I'd be grateful for references to other scholarship on it.
Michael O'Connell
University of California, Santa Barbara
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