“Revering religion, you would not approve of relentless running”

Abstract

The subject of this research is determination of the peculiarities of competitive running in the medieval sociocultural situation. The relevance of this article is substantiated by the importance of cognizing the socio-historical context of desacralization of athleticism (and running as its component), as well as the grounds and manifestations of its transition into the sphere of secular, humanistically oriented bodily practices. The author sets the following tasks: compare the sacred and profane components of running athleticism in the Antiquity and the Middle Ages; identify of the reasons for desacralization of running in this period, as well as new manifestations and trends of transformation of its profane component. The methodological framework is comprised of the laws and principles of dialectics, analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, and analogy. The author reviews competitive running from the perspective of binary opposition sacred/profane. The acquired results can be applied in social philosophy, philosophical anthropology, and philosophy of sports. The novelty of this research lies in identification of causes and consequences of the medieval desacralization of running and absence of institutionalization of running competitions; consideration of the peculiarities of running practices in the elite circles and commoners; examination of specificity of running competitions in the carnival culture; outlining the reasons of the applied use of endurance running in economic activity; as well as indication of the unique for theocentric Middle Ages humanistic orientation of running as a separate type of competition and the basis of athletic activity overall.