Dreaming in the Middle Ages (review)

Abstract

150 Reviews Kruger, Steven F., Dreaming in the Middle Ages (Cambridge studies in medieval literature, 14), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992; cloth; pp.xii, 254; R.R.P. A U S $ 120.00. This book is not a comprehensive account of 'Dreaming in the Middle Ages'. Perhaps a more accuratetitlewould have been 'Ambivalence and mediation in late antique and medieval dream theory'. Even so, to have given such detailed coverage in the space allotted is no mean achievement. The fifty eight pages of notes give some indication of the pruning to which this prize-winning doctoral dissertation has been subjected. The book also boasts a valuable bibliography and a passable index. Kruger quotes extensively from primary sources, thoughtfully providing translations for all but the Middle English. Like so much else in medieval intellectual culture, medieval dream theory was essentiaUy a development of classical and patristic models. After a few preliminary remarks on m o d e m dream theories, and a brief but thorough treatment of medieval dreambooks and then audiences, Kruger turns to a detailed analysis of Neoplatonic dream theory as exemplified by Macrobius and Calcidius. Discussing 'the doubleness and middleness of dreams', he stresses the Neoplatonic preference for graded hierarchies over stark oppositions. Moving to Augustine, Tertullian, and Gregory the Great he notes that dreams still occupied a middle position between true and false but that this was complicated for Christian writers by uncertainty over the divine or demonic source of the dream. He concludes the chapter with Prudentius' Hymnum ante somnum which recommends mistrustful vigilance. Macrobius' classification, Augustine's triple vision, and Gregory's moral dualism dominated dream theory until the twelfth century, when Aristotelian and medical translations reintroduced materialist dream theories. In the chapter on Aristotle and late medieval dreams, Kruger acknowledges the importance of materialist theories but argues that then impact was limited by then ultimate incompatibility with Christianity. However mistrustful the Church may have been of dreams in general, it had to leave room for divinely inspired visions. Kruger does not take up the question of how far Aristotelianism promoted an opposition between dreams and visions which was foreign to the early medieval Neoplatonic tradition. H e pays particular attention to Albertus Magnus and Vincent of Beauvais, followers of the 'new science' with a strong interest in dreams. Unfortunately, one of the problems in Reviews 151 assessing the degree to which Aristotelianism discredited dream revelation is that writers who do not take dreams seriously rarely bother to mention them. Pursuing his theme of ambivalence, Kruger examines Walafrid Strabo's Visio Wettini and Nicolas Oresme's Tractatus de commensurabilitate vel incommensurabilitate motuum cell as examples of the dream vision form in fiction and philosophy, pausing on the way to reflect on the partial truth which linked dreams, mirrors, andfictionin the medieval mind. The book concludes with the autobiographical dreams of Guibert of Nogent and Hermann of Cologne. A s a history of a male intellectual tradition the work ignores questions of social context. Hildegard of Bingen's Causae et curae is briefly discussed as an example of moral dualism but her use of physiological theories is not dealt with. Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe are mentioned in passing to show then conformity to the Augustinian tradition. Kruger's scholarship is impressive and his choice of examples occasionally refreshing. If his thesis of continuous ambivalence lacks nuance it has the virtue of staying true to the spirit of his subject and tracing an important theme in medieval thought. L. Sharon Davidson Department of Economic History University of Sydney Le Goff, Jacques, Intellectuals in the Middle Ages, trans. Teresa L Fagan, Cambridge Mass. and Oxford, Blackwell, 1993; paper; pp. xxix, 194; 45 plates; R.R.P. A U S $ ? [distributed in Australia by Allen & Unwin]. This is a slapdash book which, despite the reputation of its author, did not need to be translated into English. The original was published in 1957 and is now very dated. The woolly, opinionated introduction to the translation, which raises more questions than it answers, cannot hide the shortcomings of a book whose author has eschewed the hard, critical labour necessary for the topic. Any 'definition' of 'intellectual' that excludes all Carolingian...