Inside the Medieval Mind : Belief

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Summary

Founded in 1230, Scotland's Pluscarden Abbey still pulses with the prayers and spiritual pursuits of Benedictine monks. Abbot Hugh Gilbert describes their work in reassuringly human terms, framing ...

Founded in 1230, Scotland's Pluscarden Abbey still pulses with the prayers and spiritual pursuits of Benedictine monks. Abbot Hugh Gilbert describes their work in reassuringly human terms, framing the Christian battle against Satanic evil as an inner struggle within one's own psyche. But, as this program shows, the culture which brought Pluscarden into existence was rigidly institutional-and entrenched in the cosmology of heaven and hell. The film explores demonic possession and brushes with the afterlife, as recorded in documents of the period; the ways in which wealthy believers sought to "purchase" heavenly redemption; and the sanctity conferred upon the bones of martyrs and other religious relics.

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