Prosperity Of The Medieval Western European Worship Of The Virgin And The Reason

The western scholars have already done comparatively systematic research on the Blessed Virgin Mary, and have made fruitful achievements. For example, Jaroslav Pelikan has studied it from the culturology' view, Mary Clayton has studied it from the history' view, Helen Hackett has studied it from the sociology' view, etc. But the western scholars mainly concentrated on the origin and the early development of the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. Prosperity and its causes of Mariolatry in the high and late Middle Ages of Latin West have almost been neglected. In China, researches on this subject are also neglected, only a few scholars came down to it in their writings. So I hope to do some preliminary discussions on it, and try to put forward my own opinions.I will analyze it carefully from the culture-history' view. Firstly, I introduced the origin of the devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and its early development briefly. From fuzzy image in " the Holy Bible " to a great deal of argumentations in Fathers' times, Mariolatry became a part of Christianity gradually, and acquired legal status." the Holy Bible " and church fathers' speech became the theoretical foundations of Mariology. In the early middle age, the devotion to the Virgin Mary spread slowly, the form and content of the worship increased day by day. Secondly, I introduced all sorts of phenomena of the devotion to the Virgin Mary in the high and late Middle Ages: Mariology flourished; liturgies devoted to the Virgin Mary was numerous; the place of Mary in the daily life of people was more outstanding; literatures and artistic works on Mary increased rapidly, etc. In a word, during the high and late Middle Ages, Mariolatry came to climax. Thirdly, I applied the theory of science of religion, culturology and sociology to probe into the causes of the prosperity. On one hand, I inquired into reasons of the prosperity from the female' view. I think, the church's attitudes to women and the increases of the women's rights in western society had a great impact on the prosperity. On the other hand, I have investigated the reasons of the prosperity from the...