Publication details
Creating fear: The role of emotions in Geoffrey of Auxerre´s anti-heretical polemic.
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| Year of publication | 2018 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | The Cistercian monks, who engaged themselves in the Church´s fight against heresy in the 12th century, shaped in their polemical texts an atmosphere of widespread fear. By following specific rhetorical patterns, Cistercian authors, such as Geoffrey of Auxerre, a significant but nevertheless neglected figure of the ant-heretical struggle, created the image that the Church and the social order were under attack due to the religious dissidents (Kienzle: 2001). The creation of this atmosphere of danger and fear, which would legitimize the Church´s response against heresy, has been thoroughly discussed by modern historians, who saw in the Church´s reaction against the heretics, a struggle to attain more power (Moore:1987). Thus, the use of the emotions in the polemical texts is linked to political matters. In this paper, I will focus on Geoffrey´s polemical writings in order to shed light on this link. The main questions, that will be addressed, are how Geoffrey created, by applying rhetorics of fear, a serious enemy and how this fear could also play a preventive and productive power, that kept Christians away from heresy and made them obedient to the Church. |