As one of the best-developed, longest, and most widely disseminated otherworld visions from medieval Christian Europe, the Vision of Tnugdal1 provides an excellent case study. The Latin work survives in more than 170 manuscripts and was translated into fifteen languages before 1600. It draws on the enormous body of earlier vision literature, and it influenced that genre into at least the fourteenth century and also influenced speculative fiction, in general, into the present. Manuscripts and printed books were specifically designed to illustrate this story,2 although its full impact in the visual arts remains for the most part unexamined.3
According to its prologue, this vision occurred in Ireland in 1149, and was shortly thereafter written down by a monk who, according to the story itself, heard it directly from the visionary. It tells of the Irish knight Tnugdal and his journey through the richly described landscapes of heaven and hell.
Internal evidence identifies the author of the Vision of Tnugdal as Marcus, most likely a Benedictine monk from an abbey at Cashel in Tipperary. He seems to have been with St Malachy, the archbishop of Armagh and primate of Ireland, a great reformer and close friend of St Bernard, when Malachy died at Clairvaux on 2 November 1148. Marcus may have been among the party that had travelled with Malachy from the 1148 Synod of Inishpatrick to the Continent. Malachy was en route to meet Pope Eugenius III in an effort to obtain a pallium for Ireland, thus endowing official status on the Irish Church, while Marcus was en route to Ratisbon (Regensburg), in eastern Bavaria, most likely to the Benedictine abbey of St James, also known as the Scots Monastery (Schottenklöster) or the Jakobskirche, founded by Irish monks in the eleventh century and long supported by Irish kings and nobles.
The author is remarkable for his concern for the truth of his story, his enduring interest in his native land, his skilful composition, and his specific contextualisation not only of his own part in recording the vision but also of the vision itself in relation to the world surrounding it in terms of time, place, and social relations. Marcus notes twice that he learned the story directly from the visionary: first in the prologue, where he tells his patroness, the Abbess G. who commissioned the tale,4 that he wrote it faithfully, exactly as told; and again in the introduction: ‘A certain nobleman, by the name of Tnugdal … gave us the material for this work.’5
Marcus’s syntax and classical references indicate that he received some formal education, yet his Latin has been described as not classic Hiberno-Latin,6 which may mean that he received his original training outside Ireland. Although Marcus diligently attempts to establish the authority of his text, considering the detail of the written narrative, it is difficult to imagine that it follows any precise eyewitness report. The text indicates that the author was probably highly skilled at creating mnemonic devices, because each individual section presents a vivid tableau with all elements precisely arranged. Marcus says that he brought this story into Latin from a foreign, barbarico, language, but the possibility of an earlier written text has never been seriously considered. The translatio that the prologue refers to is most likely the translation of the story from the book that Marcus has written in his mind using visual maps, based perhaps on a visionary’s description, to a written text at the request of his patroness.
Supporting the truthfulness of visions was frequently the responsibility of their authors, and in this they employed different methods. Marcus included one of the most remarkable by fixing the exact year of the vision and tying it to related historical events. He lists four that took place in the year of the vision, 1,149 years after Christ’s incarnation. Yet, with this he generated a dilemma, because three of these events did not occur in 1149.7 Scholars attempted to explain the discrepancy in different ways. Assumptions based on calendar years considered the 1149 date as completely unreliable. Others realised that an alternate dating method was employed, most likely the widespread one that begins the year on the feast of the Annunciation, 25 March, exactly nine months before Christmas. Although there are two varieties of this type of dating, making a difference of one year, the most logical explanation would be that Marcus was using the dating method ab incarnatione that places all these events within 1149. With this problem resolved, scholars generally have accepted that the work was written within a reasonably short time after Tnugdal’s reported experience.
Although Marcus writes this tale while living in Ratisbon, not Ireland, he was most likely surrounded by fellow Irish exiles.8 This could explain not only his enthusiasm for his ancestral home but his sense that his audience might also be interested. He includes a brief description of the island in the introduction, noting it as a place without poisons, full of holy men and women, as well as harsh warriors. It is a fertile land of milk and honey, fruit, fish, game, and wine.9 His description, probably inspired by Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica10 but also based on first-hand experience, contrasts with Bernard of Clairvaux’s contemporary and quite negative description of Ireland throughout his Life of Malachy,11 clearly not based on his actual experience since he apparently never travelled there.
Marcus’s use of Bede is just one example of his reliance on literary sources. Despite his self-deprecating claims for being foolish, ignorant, and uneducated and his protests about the smallness of his feeble intellect,12 his use of topoi, his reliance on Irish, classical, and Christian literature and mythology, and his illustrations drawn from scripture indicate an author sufficiently learned and sophisticated, as well as one clearly influenced by Cistercian reform ideas. He notes the brevity of this text – characterising it as a small present and a little opus – yet writes the longest otherworld vision of the Christian West before Dante,13 not only informed by learned borrowings but enhanced also by his own imaginative skill. As one critic has commented, ‘It seems as if the author has freely borrowed from all visions he knew and, gifted with more imagination than any of his precursors, has succeeded in blending the elements into a perfect unit.’14 In addition to borrowing and blending, however, with his own unique and striking visual images, Marcus richly embellished many elements and elaborated on otherworld features from earlier texts.
While producing a remarkable literary work, Marcus also wrote something that he intended to be useful. He closes his tale thus:
In truth, all that he [Tnugdal] saw he afterward told, and he warned us to lead a good life, and he preached the word of God, which he did not know before, with great devotion and humility and knowledge. But since we cannot imitate his life, at least we tried to write this for the benefit of our readers.15
The visionary Tnugdal is colourfully rendered. He is a handsome, young, and noble youth, happy and well dressed, and well trained in the martial arts. Although described as well mannered, he is apparently also arrogant. The tale artfully introduces him in an engaging mise en scène: Tnugdal has travelled from his home in Cashel – also the home of the author, Marcus – to friends in Cork where he enjoys several days of companionship before inquiring about payment for three horses that was owing to him. His friend, who had bought the horses, is unable to pay, and initially Tnugdal falls into a rage. His friend eventually mollifies him, and both sit down to share a meal together before Tnugdal is to depart for home, but in the middle of dinner, he suffers an attack and collapses, apparently dead, except for a slight warmth on the left side of his body.
While his body lies in a courtyard in Cork, the visionary’s soul16 finds itself in the otherworld. There, because of his arrogance and many other faults that will subsequently be revealed, Tnugdal is shown the punishments of hell and suffers many of them. Although it is unusual for a visionary’s soul to suffer physical punishment, Bede’s Vision of Fursey17 provides a much earlier and considerably less painful example, when a sinner, thrown by a devil, strikes Fursey, burning his shoulder and jaw. Fursey bears the mark for the rest of his life, confirming the truthfulness of his vision.
When Tnugdal proceeds to heaven, beholding its joys, he recognises several prominent Irishmen, both royal and religious, among the saved. Countless otherworld visions, from Plutarch’s Vision of Thespesius18 (after 81 ce) to the Vision of Charles the Fat19 (885) and Dante’s Commedia (1320), make a specific point of the visionary recognising individual souls in the otherworld. Tnugdal specifically sees familiar souls only in or just outside heaven.20
Although Tnugdal’s vision provides him with a second chance to save his own soul, he resists returning to his earthly life, but eventually opens his eyes to find himself surrounded by a group of clerics who stand over him wondering at his condition.
Although an autograph manuscript of the Latin Vision of Tnugdal does not survive, the structure found in the surviving manuscripts, dividing the work into twenty-seven headings, has been accepted as consistent with the author’s intent.21 These sections comprise a prologue; an introduction to Ireland and the visionary, Tnugdal; the departure of his soul; the arrival of his guardian angel; eight sections of otherworldly torments; one section each on the depths of hell, lowest hell, and the Prince of Shadows; two intermediary sections, the first for the wicked who are not so wicked, the second for the good who are not so good; two sections in which Tnugdal meets three famous Irish kings; five sections on heaven; then two sections in which he meets famous Irish religious figures: first, St Ruadanus, then St Patrick and four contemporary bishops; and a final section in which Tnugdal returns to his body.
Approximately one half is devoted to the netherworld, referred to as the infernus. Although purgation is a fundamental element of this otherworld, the word purgatory is unmentioned, even though during this period it was already beginning to acquire a distinct identity and location.22 Instead, the angel explains that the eight regions of torment above the depths of hell are inhabited by sinners who have not yet received a final judgement and may yet attain salvation. He further explains that those who will be saved begin their journey at the bottom of hell, while those who will be damned begin at the top in heaven, each group traversing the entire otherworld before reaching its final destination, thus impressing on both groups their alternate fates. This idea may be unique to the Vision of Tnugdal, but it may also derive from an idea found in Tertullian and Augustine23 that the saints in heaven will see the suffering of souls in hell, although Augustine specifically denies the alternative possibility that the souls in hell will have sight of the souls in heaven.
As Tnugdal hovers between life and death, he is surrounded by demons intent on dragging him into hell. His guardian angel – an unremitting, very bright star – appears just in time, and although the angel addresses Tnugdal like a familiar, calling him by name, Tnugdal does not recognise him. A guide conducts most medieval visionaries through the otherworld. Sometimes a particular saint is designated,24 and although often the guides, who are frequently angels, remain unnamed,25 in the Vision of Barontus, the Archangel Raphael is the guide, and in the Vision of St Paul, the Archangel Michael. An angel, specifically identified as the visionary’s guardian angel, is rare, perhaps unique to the Vision of Tnugdal.26 Significantly this spirit intimately knows Tnugdal’s soul and is charged specifically with its salvation, which is extremely dubious as this vision begins. In general, however, Tnugdal’s guide functions like all others, saving the visionary from the devils’ onslaughts and explaining the places and practices of the otherworld. This guide also explains why Tnugdal will be subjected to punishments, although fewer than he deserves, because he will benefit from God’s mercy and forgiveness.
The guide and visionary engage in dialogue throughout the otherworld journey, although at times the guide abandons Tnugdal to his punishments, often reappearing just in time to rescue him before annihilation. While explaining the punishments that Tnugdal sees and sometimes suffers and clarifying why he suffers those that he does, the angel insists that ‘divine mercy is greater than your sin. This One [God] indeed gives back to each one according to his or her own work and merit; nevertheless He will judge each one according to his or her own end.’27 The guilty must convert, but unless divine mercy intervenes, the sinner alone can accomplish nothing. It is a message of mercy and justice, and an urging to repent and do good, but also a warning that unless God extends mercy to the sinner, and the sinner receives the grace of God, there will be no salvation.
This prominence of divine mercy is exceptional in medieval vision literature. The majority of similar works emphasise the importance of prayer, masses, almsgiving, and good works both for the salvation of the visionaries’ own souls and also for the benefit of those already suffering in the otherworld. The notion that the living can benefit the fate of the dead can be traced back to the Orphic mystery religions as characterised by Plato in the Republic and the Phaedo.28 The Vision of St Paul invokes the application of divine mercy in the judgement of the dead, but there divine mercy is yoked firmly to the notion that God will deal mercifully with the merciful.29
There is no definitive evidence, apart from physical proximity, to establish a connection between Marcus and the teachings of Bernard of Clairvaux. Yet it is hard to ignore the similarities between the vision’s instruction on the nature of grace and free choice and Bernard’s De gratia et libero arbitrio of 1128. For Bernard all initiative must be ascribed to grace, but individual free choice – that is, voluntary consent – must receive it. Voluntary consent is a habit of the soul that combines both reason and will. So although the driving force of salvation is from God, the free and reasoning soul must condition itself to receive this grace. Bernard does not always clearly expound his theology of grace, yet it has long been acknowledged as precursor to the thought of Luther and other reformers.30
Hell is segmented into eight particular locations, and in each location a different sin or combination of sins is punished, with the less serious near the top of hell and increasing in gravity as one descends. The first place, for the punishment of murderers, parricides, and fratricides, is ‘a very terrible and shadowy valley covered by the fog of death’.31 Sinners are placed over burning coals until they are liquefied and fall through a grate. They are constantly restored to suffer this punishment repeatedly.
The second punishment for spies and traitors, or for the treacherous and perfidious, lies on a mountain path with a sulphurous fire on one side and icy snow with wind and hail on the other. It recalls the valley in the Vision of Dryhthelm described as ‘on the left … full of dreadful flames, and the other side was no less horrid on account of the violent hail and cold snow flying in all directions’.32 Demons with flaming pitch-forks throw the guilty souls from side to side. The third punishment is a putrid and shadowy valley for the proud. Sinners are made to cross over it on a platform or bridge – a thousand feet long and one foot wide.
For the greedy, the fourth punishment – unique in medieval vision literature – is an enormous, horrible beast, as large as a mountain, named Acheron, whose name derives from the classical river of woe at the border of Hades. Like columns, two Irish mythological giants, Fergus and Conallus, hold open his mouth. Fergus Mac Róich was king of Ulster and paramour of Mebd, queen of Connacht and wife of King Ailill, who in his jealousy instigates Fergus’s slaughter. In revenge Mebd incites the Ulster champion Conallus Cernach to slay Ailill. These giants divide the gateway of Acheron’s mouth into three, and from inside his mouth belch flames and stench. Demons herd the guilty into Acheron’s mouth, which can hold nine thousand men fitted with armour. While Tnugdal listens to the howling from them and from another multitude inside the beast’s stomach, he suddenly finds himself in the belly of this beast. Once he comprehends the punishment he truly deserves, he finds himself released with his angel by his side.
The fifth punishment, for robbers and thieves, is based on a very familiar hell motif – one most prominent in Zoroastrian literature of the afterlife – the long, razor-thin bridge over a boiling lake filled with enormous hungry beasts waiting for food to fall their way. Two miles long and as wide as the palm of a hand, this bridge is perforated all over with sharp nails. Since Tnugdal once stole a neighbour’s wild cow, he is forced to endure this punishment while leading the obstinate beast over the bridge.
In punishment six, demons use sharp implements – knives, sticks, needles, bores, sickles, spades, hooks, and axes – to cleave, decapitate, and mutilate guilty souls before casting them into an enormous oven, which is the house of Phristinus, a being of unknown origin33 and insatiable hunger. This punishment is appropriate for gluttons, although fornicators are also punished here, particularly men and women in monastic garb.
The final punishments, seven and eight, are both aimed at sins of sexual passion, the first slated especially for fornicating monks and the second for those susceptible to the charms of the flesh. The centrepiece of the first is perhaps one of the most frightful descriptions of punishment in the entire body of otherworld vision literature and one that resonates in modern science fiction cinema. Here a large winged beast with iron beak and iron claws sits in a swamp of frozen ice devouring all souls that come its way, reducing them to nothing in his stomach, then vomiting them into the icy waters. The souls, both male and female, regurgitated from the beast are impregnated with vipers, who torment their entrails. These vipers are then birthed through the arms and breasts of their hosts just like those in the film Alien and its franchise:
burning iron heads and the sharpest beaks, with which they tore the body to pieces wherever they came out. The same beasts had many points in their tails which, like twisted back-hooks, punished those souls from which they emerged. Although the beasts were willing to leave, when they were not able to draw their tails away with them when they exited, they did not stop bending back their burning iron beaks into the body until they consumed it to the dry bone and nerves.34
The guide explains that those who are considered holier, that is those in religious life, experience greater glory if they are good but also harsher pain for their sins. The angel then delivers Tnugdal into the hands of devils who take him into this torment, because he ‘did not fear to have sexual relations without moderation’.35
When this vision was composed, the reform of Irish marriage and issues of wantonness and licentiousness were grave concerns, and they resurface at several points in this work. Under the scrutiny of Continental contemporaries, the twelfth-century reformers of the Irish Church led by Malachy and inspired at least in part by Bernard of Clairvaux, focused on the perceived sexual and marital customs of the island,36 where polygamy was the norm and concubinage was expected.37 In his Life of St Malachy, Bernard refers to the Irish as ‘beasts … steeped in barbarism … wanton in their way of life … heedless of faith, lawless, dead-set against discipline … foul in their lifestyle … they did not contract legitimate marriage’.38 In this Bernard was repeating charges laid out against the Irish in the late eleventh and earlier twelfth century by popes like Gregory VII and archbishops such as Lanfranc and Anselm of Canterbury.39
These same sins are taken up again in the eighth torment for those who add sin upon sin. Here the guide asks Tnugdal, ‘Were not the charms of the flesh so sweet to you that for them you would endure this torment?’40 The punishment is the forge of Vulcan where devils grab the souls with burning forceps and throw them into a fiery oven. Some souls are tossed back and forth until their skin and flesh, their nerves and bones are reduced to ash. Others are liquefied, then seized by iron pitchforks and on the forging stone hammered into a great mass, suggesting the fiercely overheated process of glass manufacturing.
Numerous sins are punished in this vision’s hell, including murder, treachery, pride, greed, theft, gluttony, and fornication, mirroring, with minor exceptions, the traditional seven (sometimes eight) deadly sins: gluttony, fornication, greed, pride, despair, wrath, vainglory, and sloth. These sins were part of western tradition from the Book of Proverbs to St Paul and from John Cassian to Gregory the Great and Thomas Aquinas. They remained fundamental to almost all medieval descriptions of hell, although an exact ranking according to deadliness is elusive. Sloth might be the least offensive, and pride is often designated as worst of all, but the Vision of Tnugdal puts sexual sins in the deepest part of hell, in fact in three of the deepest parts of hell, reflecting the work’s continuing concern for marriage practices, as well as a concern for sexual purity among religious men and women.
At this point the visionary’s punishments end, and the angel reveals that all the souls already seen still await their final judgement. Essentially they occupy a place of purgation found in western descriptions of the Underworld since the time of Plato.41 Then Tnugdal and his angel descend still further into the depths where those already judged face eternal torment. It is a place of dread, filled with horrible thunder and the extraordinary cries and howls of multitudes. At this point Marcus provides an unexpected reversal, a peripeteia, as the devils tell Tnugdal that his guide has deceived him, and he is entering the depth of hell from which he will not be released:
You will not be able to see or discover light, consolation or refuge. You will no longer be able to hope for mercy or help. You have approached the gates of death and without delay you will be in the deepest of the deep.42
After Tnugdal is dragged away, however, his angel does indeed rescue him and leads him off to the gates of hell and to Lucifer, the Prince of Shadows, the centrepiece and turning point of the narration. Lucifer is described as ‘very black like a raven’.43 He has a human body except for his many and enormous hands – no fewer than a thousand – with enormous fingers and iron claws, clawed feet, and a long and sharp tail and great beak. He sits chained to an enormous iron wicker-work over burning coals, and in his fiery breath he inhales and exhales all the damned souls. The extensive description of Lucifer evokes in part the description of the devil in Valerius of Bierzo’s late seventh-century Vision of Bonellus: ‘On his head sat a bird of iron in the likeness of a raven, to which the end of his chains were attached.’44
The evident intensity of violence in the Vision of Tnugdal distinguishes it from perhaps all previous and contemporaneous visions of the otherworld. This violence may stem from the author’s or the visionary’s agitated imagination, or even, from their experiences. Tnugdal, whether real or fictional, was – unlike most other medieval visionaries – a soldier, and his mind would logically reflect his participation in a great deal of violence. Although Marcus was a monk, circumstances of his time and place may well have influenced him. At Ratisbon he probably would have encountered pilgrims, perhaps even participating soldiers, already filtering back with tales of the disastrous Second Crusade as the expedition to retake Edessa was already failing on all counts. He also could not have been ignorant of incidents closer to home that would disturb any healthy imagination, like the mass suicides of Jews when confronted with the prospect of forced conversion at places like Speyer, Worms, Mainz, and Cologne.45 The deferment or frustration of any apocalyptic expectations that followed the success of the First Crusade may also have spurred a more violent mentality, but ultimately Marcus does not reveal his or Tnugdal’s demons, except for those encountered in the otherworld.
Tnugdal is finally led out of the depths to witness the two intermediate places between hell and heaven. Clearly this is not the traditional threefold division of the otherworld – heaven, hell, and purgatory – that came to be considered standard.46 Even the Middle English translation, which claims in its prologue that Tnugdal saw these marvels ‘in purgatory and in helle’ (l. 45), follows the Latin original’s fivefold structure: hell, the pit of hell, the place for the not-very-bad, the place for the not-very-good, and heaven. In this scheme, those in hell, but not the unredeemable in the pit of hell, still await God’s final judgement. Those in the two intermediate places – for the not-very-bad and the not-very-good – have apparently already been judged.
In the first place of moderate punishment for those who are ‘not-very-bad’ (mali non valde), the ungenerous are left out in the rain and wind, suffering hunger and thirst. They eventually will be led to ‘a good place’. The second place for the ‘not-very-good’ (boni non valde) is a field of joy full of fragrant flowers where the Fountain of Life promises an eternity without thirst. While these did not yet merit the fellowship of the saints, presumably they will advance to true heaven.
This differs from Augustine’s fourfold division with hell and heaven, where those already-judged would remain eternally, and a two-part middle section divided between the relatively good, who would be released to heaven, and the relatively bad, who, free of the most severe torment, would nevertheless descend to hell.47
In these regions Tnugdal begins to encounter historical figures from Irish history. First is a pair of kings, Conchober Ua Briain and Donachus Mac Carthaigh, who were enemies while alive but reconciled in the afterlife. Next is King Cormac Mac Carthaigh. Marcus had a particular fondness for the Mac Carthaigh, who had their seat at Cashel, where Marcus himself had lived. Cormac was a warrior king, but his generosity to the poor and to the Church, and particularly to the Scots Monastery at Ratisbon, led Marcus to present him as a much loved and admired ruler. He appears regally dressed and sitting on a throne, but still endures three hours of punishment each day. This temporary punishment for the saved recalls the temporary relief for sinners found in other medieval visions. In the Voyage of St Brendan, the mercy of the Redeemer grants Judas weekly cooling respite from being burned like molten lead. In the Vision of St Paul all who are tormented in hell are granted relief on the Lord’s Day through the mercy of Christ in commemoration of Paul’s visit, while the same is accomplished in the Apocalypse of Mary through her intercession.48
Once he arrives in heaven, Tnugdal encounters a very splendid silver wall, on the other side of which he discovers married men and women dwelling in glory. Reinforcing once again the work’s advocacy for marriage reform, Marcus describes them as those who ‘did not befoul their marriage with the stain of illicit adultery and who served the faith of legitimate union’.49 This particular interest in the fate of the faithfully married occurs apparently only once previously in vision literature, in the Vision of St Paul,50 and although Marcus may have known of this occurrence, the concerns of his times and his colleagues on the matter of marriage may have led him to introduce it completely without reference to precedent.
Inside another wall of the purest and clearest gold, Tnugdal finds thrones of gold and gems decked with precious silks where virgins and martyrs reside. In another field, covered in pavilions of purple and grey, gold and silk, where music fills the air, he finds the place of monks who have lived the life of obedience, willing to follow rather than to lead. Here he sees six monks who had joined the angels, and it is easy to think that Marcus may have had some of his own companions in mind. At this point Tnugdal also sees a great tree full of singing birds spread out above men and women. These are renowned builders and defenders of churches, and they are sheltered in small habitations of ivory and gold.
Finally Tnugdal reaches a high wall made of precious stones bonded with gold. Inside this wall he finds the nine orders of angels and also the apostles, confessors, and virgins. He is greeted by St Ruadanus, a confessor, who was patron saint of the monastery of Lorrha in northern Tipperary, the same county where Cashel is located. This saint was also venerated at the Schottenklöster at Ratisbon. He claims to be Tnugdal’s patron, but one suspects that he is actually Marcus’s patron. Tnugdal also sees there St Patrick and four Irish bishops, all of them leaders in the effort at reforming the Irish Church. Two are from Armagh: Celestine (Cellach) and his successor, Malachy, the same Malachy whom Marcus had travelled with as far as Clairvaux. Curiously, of course, Malachy had died in the arms of Bernard at Clairvaux only in November 1148, presumably some time after Tnugdal’s vision, which must have taken place before Marcus left Ireland. Malachy’s vita, written by St Bernard to support Malachy’s papal rather than local canonisation,51 may be heavily indebted to Marcus for details that he provided. Also there was Malachy’s brother Christian, bishop of Louth, and Nemias (Nehemiah), bishop of Cloyne, who may have once been a monk at the Schottenklöster in Würzburg, a daughter house of St James at Ratisbon.52 A fifth, empty chair has led to long speculation about who was to occupy it, but no decisive candidate has ever emerged.
In heaven the blessed particularly enjoy the companionship of divine majesty as well as the community of the angels and saints. It is a world of harmony, both musical and spiritual. As with many medieval descriptions of heaven, the blessed are arranged not according to their virtues – parallel to their arrangement in hell according to their sins – but according to their status, which might or might not reflect a particular virtue. A just otherworld in which everyone would be treated equally, based on the virtues cultivated in this life, apparently did not translate into a non-hierarchical heaven. All may have been treated equally, on the face of it, but ultimately some deserved greater reward, or even punishment, than others based on the individual’s merit, holiness, or even intellect, not actions. The greater the intellect or status, the greater the degree of beatitude.53 Thus those in heaven are ranged according to their positions: martyrs and virgins, monks, defenders of the Church and builders of churches, nine orders of angels and bishops. Only in the first, in the silver-walled paradise, are the denizens characterised by a single, particular virtue – chastity – one of the seven cardinal virtues.
Despite his reluctance to leave the otherworld, Tnugdal’s soul finally returns to his body. This has remained uninterred, because the warm spot detected on his left side induced his friends to believe he might somehow recover. When he does recover, sensing his body weighing him down, he is, however, no longer the man they remember. After he bears witness to his experience in the otherworld, warning his audience to lead a good life, he receives the Eucharist, relinquishes to the poor everything he owns, and sets out on a life of prayer and preaching, having a cross sewn on to the very clothes he was already wearing. This cross probably signals his intention to become a pilgrim, and perhaps he even enters the monastic profession. Tnugdal’s post-vision conversion bolsters the tale’s truth claims, because only a true experience could effect such a remarkable alteration in such a flawed man.
Marcus produced a very lengthy work of considerable learning and creative distinction. His detailed descriptions of the segmented otherworld are unique in Christian literature up to this point and eventually surpassed only by Dante’s Commedia. Marcus’s hell descriptions of excruciating punishments and evil demons are varied and vivid and recounted with dramatic force. His descriptions of heaven present a spatial, intellectual, and spiritual cosmic vision reminiscent of St Benedict’s. Marcus transmits a theology of fear derived from foundational theologians like Augustine, Gregory the Great, Anselm, and Bernard,54 yet he extols the redemptive power of pilgrimage, both in the otherworld and in this world, both internal and external.
Tnugdal’s own pilgrimage in the otherworld, an internal one undertaken in a fictional or at least spiritual space, mirrors both his own pilgrimage, possibly to Jerusalem, after he revives, as well as Marcus’s pilgrimage from Cashel to Ratisbon. They were among the legions of Irish monks and nuns who voluntarily travelled across Europe to Compostela, Rome, and Jerusalem as well as among those Irish penitents who embraced exile to avoid the infernal punishments for their sins and crimes and to enjoy the heavenly rewards so vividly described. This tradition of pilgrimage connects both to the desire to be close to the relics of Christ and the Apostles, to walk where Jesus walked, as well as to the tradition of penitential pilgrimage found in Irish penitential literature dating from as early as the sixth century and subsequently spreading across Europe into the late twelfth and early thirteenth century.55 These books clearly laid out the terms of exile, i.e., pilgrimage, to expunge the guilt of specific sins.
The Vision of Tnugdal’s impact on later vision literature is well documented, and its spiritual legacy can only be imagined. Adaptations of the work were included in Hélinand of Froidmont’s Chronicon of 1211–23 and in Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum Historiale (27.8–104) of the mid-thirteenth century. Although no in-depth study has ever been undertaken, scholars generally agree that Dante probably knew and worked under the influence of the Vision of Tnugdal.56 It appears throughout the Middle Ages in religious manuscripts, but also in manuscripts containing romances and other literary works, indicating a broad audience and widespread appreciation for such otherworld visions as literary fictions and adventures. The Middle English translation (c. 1400), in octosyllabic couplets, survives in five manuscripts, where it appears alongside metrical romances such as Sir Isumbras, Sir Amadas, Launfel Miles, and Guy of Warwick, as well as with the Canterbury Tales and the Book of John Mandeville, confirming that it shared an appeal to the same popular taste for romance and adventure. Tnugdal is, after all, a romantic hero. Like numerous other medieval romantic heroes, from Elye of St Gilles to Percival, he enters as a neophyte full of immature ego and bravura and then through trial and tribulation achieves knowledge and understanding, a classic and gratifying plot line. Indeed, it is still possible for the modern reader to share in Tnugdal’s emotional world, like his desolation when his guide abandons him, a device that dates back to Plutarch’s Vision of Thespesius. In a literary milieu of mostly monkish visionaries, the character of Tnugdal also was conspicuous as a layman, a status certainly shared by a broad textual community in the twelfth and subsequent centuries.
At the turning of the sixteenth century, continuing interest in this work can be traced through book production. The iconic manuscript illuminations of Margaret of York’s Visions of Tondal (Getty MS 30) from the 1470s are by Simon Marmion of Valenciennes, who also produced lavish volumes for the dukes of Burgundy. Between 1472 and 1521 – at the same time as the production of Margaret’s richly decorated manuscript – five Latin, twenty German, and five Dutch illustrated editions were printed in Germany alone. One version, generously illustrated with narrative woodcuts, was published by Johann and Konrad Hist, who themselves produced no fewer than six editions of this book between 1483 and 1495.57 This represents only a very small sampling of illustrated printed books from a very narrow timeframe in a very specific geographical area.
Clearly there was a longstanding and intense interest in the tale of Tnugdal across a broad social spectrum and geographical range. The taste for such literature, which often mirrors modern taste in speculative genres such as fantasy and science fiction, seems unending. It probably should not surprise us that the Vision of Tnugdal resonates so strongly in the images from the Alien films nor that it formed the basis for a 1996 TV movie called Heroine of Hell starring Catherine Keener and Dermot Mulroney, with advertising copy that reads, ‘On a lonely road … the journey to hell begins.’
1 Marcus, VT, ed. Wagner; trans. Gardiner, Visions, 149–95; trans. Picard and de Pontfarcy, Vision.
2 Most notably Simon Marmion’s fifteenth-century illuminations for Margaret of York’s manuscript of The Visions of Tondal. See Kren (ed.), Margaret.
3 Several questionable paintings found online and attributed to Hieronymous Bosch and others have been associated with this text, some apparently even labelled ‘Visio Todaly’. There are, however, apparently at least two curated pieces, one in the Denver Museum (1948.37) and the other in the Museo Lazaro Galdiano, Madrid.
4 On the Abbess G., see Picard and de Pontfarcy, Vision, 12–13.
5 Marcus, VT, trans. Gardiner, 149.
6 Picard and de Pontfarcy, Vision, 82.
7 The events are the second year of Conrad’s expedition to Jerusalem (May 1148–May 1149) as part of the Second Crusade, the fourth year of the pontificate of Eugenius III (15 February 1147–14 February 1148), the death of St Malachy (2 November 1148), and the death of Nemias, archbishop of Cloyne (1149). The amount of scholarship devoted to unravelling this conundrum is noteworthy. For example, Gardiner, ‘Solution’; Palmer, Visio, 11 n. 5.
8 This would certainly include the monks at St James. If the Abbess G. presided over an establishment for women, the inclusion of Irish materials might also reflect a preference among the nuns and perhaps an Irish connection.
9 The text states that the land is ‘lacking in vines but rich in wine’, which may mean that some type of wine is produced from another base, such as honey, or it may refer to the trade that brought wine to Ireland possibly as early as the sixth century. In chapter 5 of his Topography of Ireland, Gerald of Wales (1146–1223) also notes the abundance of wine without vineyards and asserts that wine was imported from Poitou: Historical, trans. Wright, 20–2.
10 Bede, HE, 1.1, ed. Plummer, vol. i, 9–13.
11 Bernard of Claivaux, Life, trans. Lawlor; Bernard of Clairvaux, Life and Death, trans. Meyer.
12 Just some of his self-deprecating references in the prologue. See Picard and de Pontfarcy, Vision, 109–10.
13 In Latin, the Vision of Tnugdal is approximately 10,500 words, totalling almost 1,307 lines in the Latin edition, whereas the Vision of Wetti is approximately 3,500 words in Heito’s prose version and about 7,000 in Walafrid of Strabo’s verse version. The longer versions of the Visio Sancti Pauli are approximately 25 per cent shorter than the Tnugdal, whereas the Commedia is at least ten times its length in its less inflected Italian.
14 Van Os, Religious, 55, cited in Picard and de Pontfarcy, Vision, 79, where de Pontfarcy’s introductory section on ‘Marcus’, 67–81, explores the full range of the author’s reliance on and deviation from his sources.
15 Marcus, VT, trans. Gardiner, Visions, 195.
16 Throughout, the Latin text refers to Tnugdal’s manifestation in the otherworld as his anima.
17 Bede, HE, ed. Plummer, vol. i, 163–8. Dated to 663 in Bede’s work, which was written in 731. See Chapter 5 by Wieland, this volume, for more on this vision.
18 Plutarch, Vision, ed. Goold, trans. De Lacy and Einarson.
19 Vision of Charles, trans. Sharpe, in Gardiner (ed.), Visions.
20 Augustine initially denied in his CD any interaction between souls in the otherworld, claiming that human relations would play no role. Later, however, in his letters and his Retractationes, he aligned himself with St Ambrose of Milan, the Franciscan theologian St Bonaventure, and the Augustinian philosopher Giles of Rome in acknowledging a social aspect to existence in heaven where souls would enjoy the company of family and friends, a view that Thomas Aquinas would only partially embrace.
21 Picard and de Pontfarcy, Vision, 48–67.
23 Respectively Tertullian, Spectaculis 30, ed. and trans. Glover, 296–301, and Augustine, CD 20.22, ed. Dombart and Kalb, 740–1.
24 For instance, St Lawrence in the Vision of John, Monk of St Lawrence of Liege, St Nicholas in the VME, and St Julian in the Vision of Thurkill.
25 For instance, in the Vision of Godeschalc and Gregory of Tours’ Vision of Salvius.
27 Marcus, VT, trans. Gardiner, 161.
28 Bernstein, Formation, 50–61.
29 AP, trans. James in Gardiner (ed.), Visions, 24.
30 McGuire, ‘Bernard’, 36; see also Lohse, ‘Luther’; McGinn, ‘Introduction’, in Treatises III, 14–18.
31 Marcus, VT, trans. Gardiner, 155.
32 Bede, HE, ed. Plummer, vol. i, 304–5; trans. Stevens in Gardiner (ed.), Visions, 58.
33 Picard and de Pontfarcy, Vision, 73–4.
34 Marcus, VT, trans. Gardiner, 169–70.
36 Flanagan, Transformation, 184–95.
37 For an examination of actual practice, see Candon, ‘Power’.
38 At 8.16: Bernard of Claivaux, Life, trans. Lawlor, 37; Bernard of Clairvaux, Life and Death, trans. Meyer, 33–4.
39 Scully, ‘Portrayal’, 247–8.
40 Marcus, VT, trans. Gardiner, 173.
41 Bernstein, Formation, 50–61.
42 Marcus, VT, trans. Gardiner, 176.
44 Translated from Valerius of Bierzo, Vision, ed. and trans. Ciccarese, 290–1.
45 Abulafia, Christians, 71.
47 Augustine, CD, 21.24–7, ed. Dombart and Kalb, 789–805. See Chapter 3 by Pollard, this volume, for a nuancing of this summary.
48 AP, trans. James in Gardiner (ed.), Visions, 46 and Navigatio, trans. O’Donoghue in Gardiner (ed.), Visions, 118; AHMG, trans. Rutherford, 174. Buddhist texts such as Avalokiteswara’s Descent into the Hell Avîchi also describe either temporary or permanent relief in hell through the intercession of a visiting holy person.
49 Marcus, VT, trans. Gardiner, 185.
50 AP, trans. James in Gardiner (ed.), Visions, 29.
51 On the transformation of canonisation during this period, see Prudlo, Certain, 29–41.
52 Picard and de Pontfarcy, Vision, 14–15.
53 Thomas Aquinas (1225–74) later expounds on this arrangement in ST 1a, q. 12, a. 6, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican province, vol. i, 131–3.
54 Palmer, Visio, 14; Picard and de Pontfarcy, Vision, 83–4.
55 McNeill, Medieval. On the parallels between pilgrimage and otherworldly journeys, see also Chapter 7 by Adam, this volume.
56 D’Ancona, Precursori; Foster (ed.), Three, 179–89, esp. 182.
57 Palmer, ‘Illustrated’, 167. While we are without a complete publication history of the Latin versions and numerous translations of the Vision of Tnugdal, just its incorporation into the Speculum historiale would attest to the widespread circulation of this tale.