Satan's lawsuits and dialogues on salvation in the Late Middle Ages

This paper introduces the reader to a group of Latin works, the dialogues on salvation, in which biblical figures discuss human redemption. A peculiarity of these dialogues is that they usually have a narrative setting, situating them in place and time, and some dramatic action, although they were not written to be performed. One of them, the Processus Sathanae, presents the devil filing a lawsuit at the heavenly court to regain possession of humankind. This work is conserved in several versions, including some in vernacular languages, and presents central theological problems in an entertaining, often humorous manner, paying also attention to judicial procedure. Whereas there are no dialogues on salvation from the Early and High Middle Ages, the genre was widespread in the late medieval period, before their popularity faded during Reformation and Counter-Reformation. The Latin texts seem to have circulated above all in the environment of universities. This paper argues that their success resides in their combining discussion of doctrinal problems with an appeal to emotion and imagination that is characteristic of late medieval piety. This to the background that such appeal had disappeared from scholastic theology, which was highly technical and purely rational. - The text comprises the content of a lecture delivered at a conference held at King's College London in 2014. The lecture has been revised for publication and augmented with footnotes. Following a protracted publication phase, the editors elected not to proceed with the publication of the volume resulting from the conference in print.