Anguish and Acedia as Disorders in Medieval Monasticism, Examples and Curative Resources
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/aem.2017.47.2.10Keywords:
anguish, acedia, liturgy, Missale Sarum, Evagrius PonticusAbstract
The spiritual and mental disorders typical of medieval monasticism had a common symptomatology expressed in anguish concerning their own existence, known as acedia. The therapeutic response of medieval monks to this situation involved certain liturgical variations, understood as therapeutic representation and as the healing word, both derived from the curatio verbi of the monks in the Egyptian desert. It is, in short, the performative capacity of liturgy. In this paper my objective is to present the most significant features of acedia in Christian monasticism and to analyze three liturgical texts as therapeutic instances of this disorder.
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