ABSTRACT
This chapter complicates the common account of medieval happiness as a type of otherworldly eudaimonism. Medieval philosophical and theological writing often advanced eudaimonic ideals of happiness, which maintained that ultimate, or perfect, happiness only existed after this life. Nonetheless, medieval authors explained the idea that true happiness exists only in heaven through neglected contexts. These contexts often assumed that people found, or thought they found, happiness in this world, accepting that lesser, or imperfect, happiness was a frequent experience during life. Such happiness is like the “desirable mental experience” frequently analysed within modern happiness studies. Viewed this way, modern authors cover much of the same ground as their medieval forebears in their disagreements regarding what happiness is.
