Abstract
Starting with an analysis of the main theme of Jacques Le Goff's La naissance du purgatoire (1981), the author argues that purgatory existed in the popular consiousness long before it was forced on the notice of the theologians. It was pressure, as it were from below, from the popular culture of the day, which brought about the theologians' transformation of the originally binary other world of heaven and hell, into the tertiary one, fully reflected in Dante's Divine comedy, of heaven, purgatory and hell. Attention is drawn to the importance of the two elements — popular and scholarly or official — in medieval culture as a whole. This paper, which was received in September 1981, has been translated by Michael Rocks from the author's typescript. The editor has been responsible for some revision, for preparing a version in accord with the journal's editorial conventions, and for this summary. The editor is grateful to the author for his help in the work of revision.
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