Summary
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the flourishing of the idea of Purgatory from C12th, when it was imagined as a place alongside Hell and Heaven in which the souls of sinners would be purged of those sins by fire. In the West, there were new systems put in place to pray for the souls of the dead, on a greater scale, with opportunities to buy pardons to shorten time in Purgatory. The idea was enriched with visions, some religious and some literary; Dante imagined Purgatory as a mountain in the southern hemisphere, others such as Marie de France told of The Legend of the Purgatory of Saint Patrick, in which the entrance was on Station Island in County Donegal. This idea of purification by fire had appalled the Eastern Orthodox Church and was one of the factors in the split from Rome in 1054, but flourished in the West up to the reformations of C16th when it was again particularly divisive.
With
Laura Ashe Associate Professor of English and fellow of Worcester College at the University of Oxford
Matthew Treherne Professor of Italian Literature at the University of Leeds
and
Helen Foxhall Forbes Associate Professor of Early Medieval History at Durham University
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is the BBC. |
| 0:02.0 | Thanks for downloading this episode of In Our Time. |
| 0:05.0 | There's a reading list to go with it on our website. |
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| 0:12.0 | I hope you enjoyed the programs. |
| 0:14.0 | Hello, in the Middle Ages, most Christians in the West hope that when they died, |
| 0:19.0 | their souls would go straight to purgatory. |
| 0:21.0 | Until what they believed was an imminent final judgment. |
| 0:25.0 | Only saints would go straight to heaven, there were a few of them, |
| 0:28.0 | while unrependant citizens, sinners would go directly to hell. |
| 0:32.0 | Purgatory was thought of as more than an idea. |
| 0:35.0 | It was a real place, somewhere, perhaps under Martetna, |
| 0:38.0 | or in a mountain in the southern hemisphere, or in an island on an Irish Loch. |
| 0:42.0 | And there, your soul would burn in purifying flames until made clean, |
| 0:46.0 | you would be ready to enter heaven. |
| 0:48.0 | And for how long, as for how long you spent there, that would depend on whether you'd |
| 0:51.0 | bought indulgences while alive, or been on a pilgrimage, |
| 0:55.0 | or were they also by being relatives, prayed for your soul. |
| 0:58.0 | With me to discuss the rise and fall of purgatory are Laura Ash, |
| 1:02.0 | Associate Professor Ebingrich, and fellow Worcester College at the University of Oxford. |
| 1:06.0 | Matthew Traherne, Professor Ebingtali Netraja, the University of Lise, |
| 1:10.0 | and Helen Foxwell Forbes, Associate Professor of Early Medieval History at Durham University. |
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