Führer durch das mittelalterliche Jenseits - eine Übersicht.

A guide of an underworld tour is one of the significant features in medieval visionary literature as well as in ancient catabases and Jewish-Christian apocalyptic. It represents an archetype and universal motif of many otherworld journeys through the centuries and cultures. This paper based on a huge collection of sources investigates this topos in medieval visionary accounts composed between the 6th and 13th century. Here the most frequent appearing guide figure is an angel, especially an archangel or a guardian angel. In many other visions a saint holds the role of an instructor and protector. It is almost always possible to find a closer relation between the saint and the visionary - a kind of patronage (personal or local patron). The third usual guide type represents a human connected to the visionary with a spiritual bond (confrère, superior) or a blood relationship (family member). This paper introduces a short characteristic of these three basic otherworld guides and offers a list of all visionary records from the mentioned period including this figure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]