were also very much involved in the piety of the laity, especially the sense of sight. The mass was celebrated as a spectacle, and, in England, visions of all kinds played an extensive role in piety and served in diverse ways to reinforce belief in Christian teaching and to connect people to the eternal world they hoped to reach.1 In early Christian literature, however, the first occurrence of spiritualitas would not have restricted its meaning to contemplation or to visions. When it appears in a