ABSTRACT

Visions of the afterworld are an important source for understanding medieval ideas about heaven. Scholars studying the vivid images contained therein have tended to concentrate on the comprehensive medieval “tours” of all three realms of the afterlife—heaven, hell, and purgatory—such as the Vision of Tundale, Thurkill’s Vision, and, of course, Dante’s Divine Comedy—all written by males. 1 Eileen Gardiner has pointed out that many visions of this type concentrate upon the punishment meted out to sinners, the need for penance in this life, or political statements about the (generally negative) fates of powerful individuals. Gardiner also notes that many comprehensive tours of the afterlife are clearly literary productions, “often several times removed from the actual accounts of the returning visionary” (Medieval Visions, xxiv-xxv).