The Word Made Flesh: Lutheran Bodies, 1600 1720

From children's visions of angels to the cancerous belly of a king, this book shows how the body was at the centre of religious experience in seventeenth-century Lutheran culture.

Autorentext

Karin Sennefelt is Professor of History at Stockholm University.

Inhalt

Chapter 1

All flesh is grass

Can bodies be Lutheran?

The materiality of the Word

Lutheran senses and emotions

Real bodies

Chapter 2

Bare feet: the body and the weather

Weather reports

Finding the way

The great chill

Battering storms

The Fall and God's fatty footprint

Sweetness of the earth

Being human

Chapter 3

Tending carnality: spiritual hygiene

The worldliness of the body

Relieving oneself of emotion

Digesting the sacrament

Making material bodies

Chapter 4

Blushing cheeks: prophecy and possession

First sensations

Wrestling with the devil

In bed and out of body

Knowledge, truth and the word

The blush of truth

Chapter 5

Aching bellies: the body politic

The King's illness

Putrid intestines and a healthy heart

The King and his people wasting away

The second coming of Charles

The King's belly and the law

Body politic

Chapter 6

Wide awake: bodies in dissent

Stiff necks and angry souls

The bounds of inward attention

A journey into the wilderness

Spiritual and conjugal unions

Attention and the separation of body and soul

Chapter 7

Down to earth