Some years ago the youth justice system in the UK tried to shock young offenders into reforming their lives by giving them an experience of what life in prison was really like. They were taken to visit adult prisons and allowed to meet and spend time with the inmates and to see the regimes there. The hope was that by seeing how unpleasant prison life was and how intimidating some of the inmates were, they might be so scared they would think again about committing crimes or causing trouble. Recently I heard on the radio that research has shown that these visits have proved to be largely ineffectual and the program is to be wound down. But whether it was successful or not it certainly wasn't a new idea when it was introduced. About 1000 years ago a young Irish knight who had seriously 'gone of the rails' wrote an account of just such a visit. Just as in the modern schemes he was shown the punishment that awaited him if he didn't reform, in the hope that he would be so terrified he would be shaken out of his wicked ways and change his life. But it wasn't a prison he was taken to, it was hell itself. He was shown and experienced the tortures of the damned and felt (and smelt) their pain! Unlike the more recent schemes this 'scheme' worked and he came back to this world a reformed character. Here and in subsequent posts I want to try to describe this vision of the tortures of hell and trace some of the influences it had in later versions of hell and paradise, in literature and in art. I am terrible at organising. The papers, letters and forms which form part of modern day life for everybody lie scattered around me on the desk or on the floor or are simply stuffed unclassified (and ignored) into drawers. The main problem is that I just find it so hard to organise them, to know how to classify them. But the problem of classification and organisation is not a modern day problem. Those who wrote and illustrated medieval and Renaissance accounts of hell knew about it too. In their accounts and visionary tales about hell they knew there had to be sinners, (the damned), and there had to be punishments, (tortures and the like). There also had to be devilish creatures with some kind of prodding and poking instruments. But how on earth were they to decide which punishments came first? How could they organise the sinners and their punishments so that their punishments made sense? There are so many ways of sinning - which would they put first and which last? Which are more important and which are least terrible? Clearly I would have been rubbish at devising a hell, and would probably never have even got started. In the previous two posts I have discussed the images from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur which depict in graphic, gory detail the punishments of sinners in hell. Something I hadn't realised until I looked at that work was that visions of hell differed in the ways they classified sins and their punishments. In Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur the punishments are ordered according to the seven deadly sins or, as they are called more properly, the Seven Capital Vices; Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Avarice, Gluttony and Lust. Everything is more or less covered by these although the book also details specifically the punishments of tyrants and murderers, thieves and bankers . . oh sorry, usurers (slight difference but not much). But that wasn't the only way to sort out hell. Earlier visions of hell sorted their damned using different systems. One of the best examples of this earlier approach is the 12th century vision-journey to hell known as the Vision of Tundale. This work was hugely influential in the period before Dante. It seems as if it was originally written in Irish in 1149 and was translated into Latin by an Irish monk called Marcus at the behest of the abbess of the abbey in Regensburg in Bavaria when he stayed there. It was then translated from Latin into German and eventually, by the end of the 14th century, it had been translated into 13 vernacular languages including Serbo-Croation. Today an amazing 243 manuscripts survive. It seems that the text of the vision would often be appended to other spiritual and religious texts and even (because these visions were often believed to be reports of real events) to historical chronicles of the time. Eventually the vision of Tundale was translated into Middle English, a version that plays down the theological aspects of the work and highlights the dramatic and vivid imagery of hell. The translation quoted below is from a modern English translation of this Middle English text by Richard Alan Scott-Robinson which is available at his website here. I am using this partly because it is publicly available and copyright-free and partly because it is so easy to read and gives a very vivid sense of the journey and what Tundale sees and feels. At some points I will quote the English translation of the Latin Version by Eileen Gardiner. Just to make things a bit more confusing the illustrations come from a 15th century French translation Les Visions du chevalier Tondal commissioned by Margaret of York, a manuscript now held by the Getty Museum. These illustrations by Simon Marmion are stunningly beautiful. Simon Marmion was one of the greatest illustrators of Renaissance manuscripts. You can find out more about him here Tundale's vision of hellThe vision claims to be the experience of a young Irish Knight called Tundale. Tundale is described as young, good-looking and strong, but also as cruel and powerful. He had no time for the church, for God or for the poor and, we are told, wasted his time and money on "buffoons, mimes and jesters" (Gardiner). In the year 1149, Tundale, who lives in Cashel travels to Cork to get back some money he is owed for some horses. While there he is invited to share a meal with the man who owes (and can't repay) him the money and during the meal Tundale has a seizure. He collapses on the floor and at first the friends and the host think he has died. His body is still and gives every indication of being dead. However it is still warm and the friends decide to leave him lying there to see what will happen. Tundale is actually having an 'out of body' experience. From Tundale's perspective he has awoken on 'the other side' of life, and will soon begin a journey to hell and paradise in the company of his guardian angel. But when they were at the table, Tundale suddenly began to feel very unwell. After eating only a mouthful of food, his arm became paralysed. He cried out and looked as though he had seen a vision of Death. 'Dear Lady,' he called to the mistress of the house, 'for mercy, fetch me my weapons and help me to your door, for I think that my end is near. I feel my strength ebbing! I sense that I am nigh to death! I am certain of it! Oh Jesus Christ! Have mercy upon me!' And Tundale made an effort to rise from the table, but instead, he collapsed to the floor. (Translation by Richard Alan Scott-Robinson from the Eleusinianm Website) At first it isn't clear if he is alive or dead. He showed all the 'usual' signs of being dead but his body is still warm. His friends and family leave him lying where he fell. Tundale's close friends, his nephews and cousins who had accompanied him, sensing immediately that something was wrong, came running up only to find him lying dead on the ground. They had the bells rung for him and sang the Placebo and the Dirge. All his clothes were removed and he lay there as cold as a stone; except for a little warmth in his left side. Because of this warmth some declared that he might not be dead after all and therefore they left him lying there. But nonetheless, he lay like a dead man from mid-day Wednesday until Saturday afternoon. And when he regained consciousness he could recall all that had happened to him as he was stretched out there dead! And listen to what this was! Listen please! (Translation by from the Eleusinianm Website) What Tundale is experiencing is not death but what we in our age would call an 'out of body experience'. As his body lies still and unmoving on the floor his soul 'awakes' to discover that he has 'passed over to the other side'. And as soon as he was dead his soul came into a dark place, alone and wretched – it wept and was very distressed. Tundale thought that he had come to the place of eternal pain and damnation! He thought he would never exist in his body again, because of the sins that his flesh had committed and that he would not be able to conceal. He would rather that the Earth could have returned! But he was to suffer and witness many hideous things and understand the range of joys and punishments that await us all, as this story shall bear witness (Translation by Richard Alan Scott-Robinson from the Eleusinianm Website) The first thing that happens is that he is approached by collection of terrifying ghostly creatures from that other world who claim that he has been sent to join them in hell as punishment for all the terrible sins he has committed during his life. They say: You have lied and deceived! You love conflict, as we all do! You have had sex with married women! Every vice imaginable is ingrained into your character! You could have mended your ways while you lived but you chose not to! And where is all your wealth now? Where is your gold and your treasure? What good can it do you now? All the wealth on Earth, and all the prayers that may be said for your soul, all the Matins and Masses, cannot save you now from the pain of Hell and eternal damnation! 'You concealed your sins from the Church and confessed nothing. Therefore you must come with us! Your life has shown you to be one of us, you villain! Come with us then, to eternal damnation!' (Translation by Richard Alan Scott-Robinson from the Eleusinianm Website) Understandably Tundale is terrified. He thinks that he has died and that he wil soon go to hell to join the damned for all eternity. He thinks his situation is hopeless. But then, unexpectedly, he sees a brilliant light, like a star, which soon materialises into the form of an angel. In the theological thought of the middle ages angels were sometimes thought to be stars. It becomes clear that the angel is Tundale's guardian angel and that the angel has been with Tundale since his birth guiding and directing him. The problem is that Tundale has bean deaf to his angel's voice. Pointing at one of the terrible creatures who first assailed Tundale, the angel points out that Tundale had been listening to that creature throughout his life instead. But now God in his mercy had given Tundale a final chance by letting him visit hell and share some of the 'lighter' punishments in the hope that it would save his soul. The angel tells him that as he travels through hell he must watch and remember because he must take the same path back to his body to be reunited with it. He also reassures him that the ferocious 'evil creatures and demons' (Gardiner) that he sees cannot harm him. The valley of murderersThe angel leads him into hell through a 'dark tunnel' where the only light is emitted by the angel. Tundale finds himself in a terrible, bleak, foul-smelling landscape which stinks of hot metal and death! Here those guilty of murder in this life find their punishment. Tundale is shown a vast valley whose floor is covered with burning coals. Above the coals there is a grid of iron bars like a grating where the souls of murderers are laid. The heat pulses through the iron bars of the grating and the murderers, in incredible torment, are 'melted' so they ooze though the bars and slip down into the coals below (where their slushy remains continue to burn!). But then they are revived, reformed, and the whole process happens again. Lovely! When the angel had finished speaking he led Tundale through a dark tunnel. There was no light except for that which the angel himself emitted and soon they came into a gloomy valley. What Tundale saw there worried him greatly and he shook with anxiety as he studied the dismal landscape and smelt the stench that filled the air. The ground was an expanse of burning coals and over the hot coals was laid iron that was glowing red from the heat; the bars of metal rose to the height of a man and the flames passed through them as though designed to inflict the severest pain from the intense heat it gave to the iron and the acrid stench of carbon and sulphur. Nothing before had ever frightened Tundale so much as this sight did, for fiends were laying souls out upon the iron and these souls were consumed in the stinking heat and melted like wax in a pan and the molten liquid passed through the iron and the coals like paraffin through a cloth to be collected and re-formed and put back by the fiends onto the iron once more for the torment to begin afresh. (Translation by Richard Alan Scott-Robinson from the Eleusinianm Website) As the commentary at the Getty Museum website helpfully puts it "Those who have killed people are repeatedly burned, roasted, then liquefied and strained into a cauldron of burning coals." When Tundale asks the angels who these poor souls are he is told that they are the souls of those who have taken human life, those guilty of homicide, patricide and matricide. Tundale (who as a young nobleman has himself killed a quite a number of people) is terrified and asks if this will be his fate. The angel replies that because he has never killed his parents he is slightly less guilty than those he sees but that he would suffer their fate had God not decided to show him mercy. and give him one last chance. Yes, he is guilty, but he is 'on probation'! Hot and cold running punishmentNext Tundale sees a mountain, each side of which has its own micro-climate. On one side there is nothing but fire and ferocious heat on the other an arctic landscape, blasted by blizzards. This is not just hot and cold - these are the extremes of weather and temperature. Here Tundale sees souls pushed from one side to the other by demons with 'tongs and forks in their hands' and 'red hot skewers', Eileen Gardiner's version translates these tools of damnation more traditionally as 'flaming iron pitchforks' and 'red hot tridents'. These damned souls are alternately burned and frozen again. There is some difference of opinion between the manuscripts as to who these roasted-and-frozen souls are. According to the Middle English translation I am using this is the punishment of thieves, while according to Eileen Gardiner's translation of the Latin version these are 'spies and traitors'. According to the Getty Museum website and the 15th century French version these are the 'unbelievers and heretics'. Not much interfaith dialogue here then! They moved on and came to a great mountain and here Tundale heard cries of distress. One side of the mountain, it seemed, was alight; there was smoke and fire and it stank of tar and sulphur. On the other side of the mountain the ground was covered with thick snow and ice and the air was lashed by blizzards. Tundale saw many wicked fiends filling the air with their roars and yells and they held tongs and forks in their hands and red-hot iron skewers which they used to prod at the wretched souls, snatching them out of the fire and thrusting them towards the cold snow, then out of the snow and back again into the fire. And so their pain alternated from burning to freezing and back again to burning. (Translation by Richard Alan Scott-Robinson from the Eleusinianm Website) Pride cometh before a fall . . . literallyNext Tundale is shown the fate of the proud, those who in life thought to much of themselves. Tundale is shown a dark valley whose bottom is filled with burning bubling sulphur. At first he can't see anything and only hears the sulphur bubling beneath him. Across the valley stands a long, narrow bridge or causeway. To continue with his journey Tundale must cross the valley on this bridge without falling in. He sees others trying to cross and sees that the bridge ves ad wobbles and he sees the other travelers falling in and hears their terrible cries. He is terrified and tells the angel he can't do it. He is sure he will fall down and spend eternity bubbling away in the sulphur. The angel explains that below them the proud are punished for ever in this terrible pit and that yes it is hard to cross the bridge - in fact only those who have lived a perfect life can do so. The path is indeed narrow! As an example Tundale sees a humble pilgrim monk crossing safely. Tundale knows he isn't perfect but the angel reassures him that he will lead Tundale safely across. The angel led the way and Tundale followed behind him, fearful and afraid, until they came to another valley. It was dark and deep and Tundale's soul was apprehensive when he saw it for he had seen nothing like it on Earth. The floor of the depression was so far beneath them that it was hidden from sight, but they could hear the cries and screams of burning souls coming from below. Out of the great pit came a horrible stench of tar and sulphur and it seemed to Tundale to be by far the most evil place that he had ever been. According to the version at the Getty Museum, "Tondal's soul hears the piteous moans of souls of "the proud, the ungrateful, and the presumptuous" from below as they tumble into the deep valley". Smells and hellsOne of the remarkable things about this vision is that it is a multisensory experience for Tundale. Not only does he see the terrible punishments he hears the groans and cries of the damned and he smells the terrible stench of the place. At each of the punishments listed above there is a distinct, horrible smell associated with it. According to Eileen Gardiner's translation when he stands at the place where the murderers are liquified and cooked "the stench of this exceeded all the other tribulations that the soul had suffered up to this point". As he crosses the bridge Tudale notices that "out of the great pit came a horrible stench of tar and sulphur". Every sense is assaulted in this place. He hears sees and smells judgement. This is a 'holistic remedy' for sin! A spooky worldIt's also fascinating that when Tundale leaves his body and first wakes on the 'other side' he finds himself still in the same room where his body lies but now he sees that place filled with the souls of the dead. Gardiner translates it like this: Finally he saw a great multitude of unworldy spirits coming towards him so that they filled not only the whole house and courtyard where his body lay but actually there was no place that was apparent in all the streets and ways of the city that was not full of them. This is a depiction of a world with two sides to it. From the side of the living it looks like the normal world we are all used to but from the other side, from the side of death, we see the world populated by the spirits of the dead. These are not safe spirits, waiting to talk to us like in the film Ghost, but terrible, angry, accusing figures who are so ferocious that they gouge their own cheeks with their 'claws'. The striking point is that these souls are not in hell, but they fill our world, and Tundale sees the streets and houses of Cork overflowing with them. The world in which Tundale lived was a world in which the dead were very, very close . . . just on the other side of life. The dead were all around. Such a painThe third striking feature is that there is nothing but physical pain here. This really is a hell of physical torture and each scene seems designed to terrify the reader by specifying just how awful the pain is/will be. The concern is not so much with making the punishment 'fit the crime', as it is in the more refined hands of Dante a hundred years later, but with accentuating the sense of physical suffering and agony. Here the demons have red hot pitchforks and tridents and great hooks with which they impale the flesh (of bodiless souls!). Here the souls are literally liquefied by heat and spend eternity bubbling away in a sulphurous river. What comes over from the texts (as well as the smell) is the sheer awful physical torment. If you (like me) have a low pain threshold, be warned! Repent! Avoid this hell at all costs. You might also be interested in . . .
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Archives
April 2016
GalleryThis blog is as much about images as it is about text. Below is a slideshow of the pictures and images used in this blog. Click on any of the pictures to go to the post where that image is featured.
PostsLocating Paradise #1 In a Garden, Far, Far Away
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #5 'Stuck in the Middle With You'
The Resurrection According to Rahner
Today You Will Be With Me in Paradise
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #4 'And Who by Fire'
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #3: Held in the Balance
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #2: Once, Twice, Three Times a Sinner
The Testament of Abraham and the Threefold Judgement of God #1: The Broad and Narrow Gates
Daily Dante 7: Many Rivers to Cross
Daily Dante 6: 'You Gotta Serve Somebody'
In Hell Everyone Can Hear You Scream. The Vision of Tundale #3
Teeth, Spikes and Cleavers: At the Sharp end of Hell. The Vision of Tundale #2
'No Pain No Gain': The Vision of Tundale #1
'Hellzapoppin':
Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #2 'It's The End of the World as We Know It (and we feel fine)'. Illustrations from Le Livre de la Vigne nostre Seigneur, #1
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #2 Blinded by the Light
Visions of Heaven. Botticini's Assumption of the Virgin #1: Glorious and Immortal
Daily Dante 5: What the gates said.
Daily Dante 4: When I find myself in times of trouble
Daily Dante 3: I'll take you there
Daily Dante 2: Fierce creatures
Daily Dante 1: If you go down to the woods today
In Seventh Heaven or 'What Enoch Did Next'
A World of Fire and Ice: Heaven according to Enoch
The Power and the Glory: Visions of God as king in the Hebrew bible
The Beautiful Bestiary of Catherine Cleves: Monsters and Demons in detail.
Heaven is for Real: Heaven as a physical space up above the sky
Resurrecting the Dead or Reviving the Flowers? The loss of resurrection faith in Judaism.
The Defeat of Death #1: The promise of resurrection in the Isaiah Apocalypse.
The Defeat of Death #2: Death as a hostile power and promise of God's victory in Isaiah
Scary Monsters and Super Creeps: The 'Last Judgement' according to Stefan Lochner
Hell in the Hospital: The 'Last Judgement' of Rogier van der Weyden in the Beaune altarpiece.
'Hell' in the New Testament #2: The gates of Hades shall not prevail
The Hours of Catherine Cleves: Imagining hell and purgatory in Catherine's prayer book
'On Earth as in Heaven': The kingdom of God as a revelation of heaven
'Hell' in the New Testament #1: Gehenna
Lost in Translation #1: How the King James version got it so wrong about hell
Heaven is not our home
Domes, Depths and Demons: The cosmology of the Hebrew world
A Bigger God
"See you in Sheol" - Sheol, the common destination of all
Heaven, Hell and Christian Hope
BooksBelow are some of the books which have helped me the most in the research and writing for this blog. Click on any image to find out more about that book at its page on Amazon uk.
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