Birth of Purgatory

InThe Birth of Purgatory, Jacques Le Goff, the brilliant medievalist and renownedAnnaleshistorian, is concerned not with theological discussion but with the growth of an idea, with the relation between belief and society, with mental structures, and with the historical role of the imagination. Le Goff argues that the doctrine of Purgatory did not appear in the Latin theology of the West before the late twelfth century, that the wordpurgatoriumdid not exist until then. He shows that the growth of a belief in an intermediate place between Heaven and Hell was closely bound up with profound changes in the social and intellectual reality of the Middle Ages. Throughout, Le Goff makes use of a wealth of archival material, much of which he has translated for the first time, inviting readers to examine evidence from the writings of great, obscure, or anonymous theologians.Le Goff, Jacques is the author of 'Birth of Purgatory', published 1986 under ISBN 9780226470832 and ISBN 0226470830.