Pastoralia (genre)

Pastoralia is a genre of practical and theoretical aids aimed at pastors, parish priests and curates that proliferated in Western Europe in the later Middle Ages. ^[1] It was the product of renewed interest in pastoral care after about 1200, especially after the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. ^{[1] [2]}

Pastoralia as a collective term for this new species of literature was coined by Leonard Boyle. ^[3] The word may also refer to the theology underlying this literature ^[4] or even to the techniques and capabilities it was meant to inculcate. ^[5] In these senses, it is closely connected in meaning with the terms pastoral theology and practical theology. ^[6]

The main areas of concern in the pastoralia are the sacraments, preaching, anointing of the sick and moral theology. ^[7] There are many subgenres, such as "guides to hearing confession, catechisms, compendia to canon law, and manuals for parish priests". ^[8]

References

1. Dykema 2000, p. 144.
2. Goering 2010, p. 7.
3. Goering 2010, p. 17–18.
4. Louth 2022 defines it as "the branch of theology concerned with the principles regulating the life and conduct of the parish priest."
5. Swinton 2022 glosses it as "those skills and practices that ministers require to be trained in in order to be effective in their pastoral practices."
6. Swinton 2022.
7. Louth 2022.
8. Dykema 2000, p. 145.

Sources

• Boyle, Leonard E. (1985). "The Fourth Lateran Council and Manuals of Popular Theology". In Thomas J. Heffernan (ed.). The Popular Literature of Medieval England. University of Tennessee Press. pp. 30–43.
• Dykema, Peter A. (2000). "Handbooks for Pastors: Late Medieval Manuals for Parish Priests and Conrad Porta's Pastorale Lutheri (1582)". In Robert Bast; Andrew Colin Gow (eds.). Continuity and Change: The Harvest of Late-Medieval and Reformation History. Brill. pp. 143–162.
• Goering, Joseph (2010). "Leonard E. Boyle and the Invention of Pastoralia". In Ronald Stansbury (ed.). A Companion to Pastoral Care in the Late Middle Ages (1200–1500). Brill. pp. 7–20. doi:10.1163/ej.9789004183537.i-430.5.
• Louth, Andrew, ed. (2022). "Pastoralia". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.
• Swinton, John (2022). "Practical and pastoral theology". In Andrew Louth (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (4th ed.). Oxford University Press.