Dreams, Visions, and Spiritual Authority in Merovingian Gaul

Church History, Dec, 2001 by Ellen L. Babinsky

Dreams, Visions, and Spiritual Authority in Merovingian Gaul. By Isabel Moreira. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000. xiv 262 pp. $49.95 cloth.

Isabel Moreira traces the development of visionary literature preserved in Merovingian hagiography, from the late fourth to the eighth century. The study is basically a descriptive account outlining the patterns of hagiography in late antiquity and the ear? medieval era. In contrast to earlier portrayals of a kind of clericalization of visionaries, Moreira argues that clergy were far more likely to "promote an inclusive view of the community of Christian believers" (3).

Part 1, "Visionary Access," is a portrayal of the coming together of two visionary traditions in the notion that divine presence is communicated both to those who are the spiritual elite (clergy, monks, ascetics) and to ordinary believers. Attention is given to the vitae of Martin of Tours and Eugendus, abbot of the Jura monasteries. Part 2, "Visions and Authority in the Merovingian Community," describes the spiritual authority of the important visionary bishop Gregory of Tours, the significance of shrines as "ecclesiastically sanctioned channels" for visions, and Merovingian visions of the afterlife which signaled shifts in religious and cultural attitudes. Part 3, "Dreams and Visions in Merovingian Hagiography," focuses on the role of the hagiographer's use of visions, especially in the portrait of Radegund of Poitiers, and concludes with a study of the visions of St. Aldegund of Maubeuge, reportedly stemming from her own account.

Moreira attempts a sweeping study, offering details in a complex apparatus of notes and in two appendixes devoted to "Otherworld Visions and Apocalypses" and "The Earliest Vitae of Aldegund of Maubeuge." Moreira offers an account of Merovingian visionary literature beyond the "canon" of the great authors and texts of the time, namely, Sulpicius Severus, Gregory of Tours, Gregory the Great, the Vision of Fursey, and the Vision of Barontus.

Ellen L. Babinsky
Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary