Pastoralia (genre)

Pastoralia is a genre of written practical and theoretical aids aimed at pastors, parish priests and curates that proliferated in Western Europe in the later Middle Ages.[1] It was the product of renewed interest in pastoral care after about 1200, especially after the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215.[1][2]

Pastoralia as a collective term for this new species of literature was coined by Leonard Boyle.[3] The word may also refer to the theology underlying this literature[4] or even to the techniques and capabilities it was meant to inculcate.[5] In these senses, it is closely connected in meaning with the terms pastoral theology and practical theology.[6]

The main areas of concern in the pastoralia are the sacraments, preaching, anointing of the sick and moral theology.[7] There are many subgenres, such as "guides to hearing confession, catechisms, compendia to canon law, and manuals for parish priests".[8]

References

  1. ^ a b Dykema 2000, p. 144.
  2. ^ Goering 2010, p. 7.
  3. ^ Goering 2010, p. 17–18.
  4. ^ Louth 2022 defines it as "the branch of theology concerned with the principles regulating the life and conduct of the parish priest."
  5. ^ Swinton 2022 glosses it as "those skills and practices that ministers require to be trained in in order to be effective in their pastoral practices."
  6. ^ Swinton 2022.
  7. ^ Louth 2022.
  8. ^ Dykema 2000, p. 145.

Sources

  • Boyle, Leonard E. (1985). "The Fourth Lateran Council and Manuals of Popular Theology". In Thomas J. Heffernan (ed.). The Popular Literature of Medieval England. University of Tennessee Press. pp. 30–43.
  • Dykema, Peter A. (2000). "Handbooks for Pastors: Late Medieval Manuals for Parish Priests and Conrad Porta's Pastorale Lutheri (1582)". In Robert Bast; Andrew Colin Gow (eds.). Continuity and Change: The Harvest of Late-Medieval and Reformation History. Brill. pp. 143–162.
  • Goering, Joseph (2010). "Leonard E. Boyle and the Invention of Pastoralia". In Ronald Stansbury (ed.). A Companion to Pastoral Care in the Late Middle Ages (1200–1500). Brill. pp. 7–20. doi:10.1163/ej.9789004183537.i-430.5.
  • Louth, Andrew, ed. (2022). "Pastoralia". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.
  • Swinton, John (2022). "Practical and pastoral theology". In Andrew Louth (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.