The notion of purgatory has come up in discussion a time or two in class. My general understanding marks purgatory as the waiting area at the DMV. All you know is that you are left waiting, for how long no one can really say. There are no magazines, no familiar faces, food and drinks are out of the question and it smells a little funky. On top of all that your ass is starting to hurt because you have been sitting and waiting…forever and it appears that no one is leaving anytime soon. A general unpleasantness of waiting for an undetermined amount of time, otherwise enforced by the expression “however long it takes”.
Poem 33 Stimulus Conscience Minor describes purgatory a little more in depth. In addition to the nasty DMV imagery I have provided one can also look forward to it being hot as hell. You thought fire was only in hell but it is in purgatory as well to help burn off your sins in order for your soul to be pure once more. The fire burning away at your sins is intolerable pain. The pain of childbirth cannot compare and would seem like a day at the spa compared to the burning pain of purgatory. While this may be an intolerable amount of pain, it becomes much more tolerable in comparison to spending an eternity in hell.
I’m with you on the abstract nature of purgatory. I’ve always known about the fires of purgatory, and I thought this was kind of contrary to the way people sometimes refer to purgatory as the “in-between.”
To me, the “in-between” sounds more like a waiting room, some kind of place where souls are floating and waiting; but given the emphasis on penance in the ME society (at least from things we’ve read–especially the hagiographies), I am now of the opinion that the people in the medieval society would not have purgatory any other way aside from this kind of harsh. hell-fire place Poem 33 describes.
We’ve seen how forgiveness has been highlighted in poems like “The Incestuous Daughter” which showed that people need not have the intercession of a priest to make it to be forgiven and admitted into Heaven. So I wonder how purgatory worked in the realm of literature. For me, I think many of the poems in Ashmole 61 were used by priests or clergymen to teach laypeople about Christianity and how to live their lives in a more Christian way.
It would make more sense for the Incestuous Daughter in the poem to be admitted directly into Heaven (no purgatory) for the sake of the poem’s message–the power of God’s forgiveness, but this makes me wonder exactly WHO the medieval people thought went to purgatory, and how this idea/concept worked in conjunction with the idea that Christ is exceedingly, unbelievably forgiving.