The Role of the Senses in Medieval Liturgies, Rituals, and Devotional Practices

During the Middle Ages, rituals d shaped the daily life of the faithful, from the Divine Office and the Mass to individual devotional practices such as the reading of the Hours. They accompanied the lives of people from their birth to their last breath. These ceremonies aimed at engaging the devotees by stimulating their senses and triggering emotional and spiritual responses. This book aims to approach these practices from the lens of sensory studies, by giving the spotlight to the sensoria (i.e. the diverse sensory systems that existed in the Middle Ages) and the experiences of the faithful. In so doing, it aims to show that the experience of the sacred was not homogeneous and static. On the contrary, it was a multimodal and multisensorial activity, one that bore complex and overlapping layers of meaning, and was perceived in different ways by the diverse groups and individuals involved.