Love and the Will

Abstract

Abstract In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, love and the will are increasingly portrayed as central to the contemplative life. This chapter address the will’s general role in human life with respect to the rational soul’s other relevant faculties (intellect, imagination, and sensation and sense appetite) and the specific role of will and love in the moral and spiritual life. The practice of imaginative meditation is widely recommended in this period, for it is seen as inspiring love, encouraging virtue, and increasing knowledge. Such meditation also serves as a bridge between our experience of the material world and experience of the immaterial God in higher levels of contemplation. The chapter concludes by explaining how the late medieval focus on imaginative meditation and love also creates space in which women, who are seen as better at loving and more closely connected with embodiment, can claim religious authority and be understood as contemplatives.