Clerical Discourse And Lay Audience In Late Medieval England

Author : Fiona Somerset
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 0521621542
Total Pages : 255 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England written by Fiona Somerset and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-11-05 with total page 255 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The translation of learned Latin materials into English between around 1370 and 1410 was a highly controversial activity. It was thought likely to make available to lay audiences the authoritative and intellectual information and methods of argument previously only accessible to an educated elite - and with that knowledge the power of information. Fiona Somerset's 1998 study examines what kinds of academic material were imported into English, what sorts of audience were projected for this kind of clerical discourse and how writers positioned themselves with respect to potential audience and opponents. The well-known concerns with clerical corruption and lay education of authors such as Langland, Trevisa, and Wyclif are linked to those of more obscure writers in both Latin and English, some only recently edited, or only extant in manuscript.

Author : Joshua S. Easterling
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0198865414
Total Pages : 243 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Angels and Anchoritic Culture in Late Medieval England written by Joshua S. Easterling and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The monograph series Oxford Studies in Medieval Literature and Culture showcases the plurilingual and multicultural quality of medieval literature and actively seeks to promote research that not only focuses on the array of subjects medievalists now pursue in literature, theology, and philosophy, in social, political, jurisprudential, and intellectual history, the history of art, and the history of science but also that combines these subjects productively. It offers innovative studies on topics that may include, but are not limited to, manuscript and book history; languages and literatures of the global Middle Ages; race and the post-colonial; the digital humanities, media and performance; music; medicine; the history of affect and the emotions; the literature and practices of devotion; the theory and history of gender and sexuality, ecocriticism and the environment; theories of aesthetics; medievalism. This volume examines Latin and vernacular writings that formed part of a flourishing culture of mystical experience in the later Middle Ages (ca. 1150DS1400), including the ways in which visionaries within their literary milieu negotiated the tensions between personal, charismatic inspiration and their allegiance to church authority. It situates texts written in England within their wider geographical and intellectual context through comparative analyses with contemporary European writings. A recurrent theme across all of these works is the challenge that a largely masculine and clerical culture faced in the form of the various, and potentially unruly, spiritualities that emerged powerfully from the twelfth century onward. Representatives of these major spiritual developments, including the communities that fostered them, were often collaborative in their expression. For example, holy women, including nuns, recluses, and others, were recognized by their supporters within the church for their extraordinary spiritual graces, even as these individual expressions of piety were in many cases at variance with securely orthodox religious formations. These writings become eloquent witnesses to a confrontation between inner, revelatory experience and the needs of the church to set limitations upon charismatic spiritualities that, with few exceptions, carried the seeds of religious dissent. Moreover, while some of the most remarkable texts at the centre of this volume were authored (and/or primarily read) by women, the intellectual and religious concerns in play cut across the familiar and all-too-conventional boundaries of gender and social and institutional affiliation.

Author : Sarah Elliott Novacich
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1316828581
Total Pages : 231 pages
Book Rating : 4.88/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Shaping the Archive in Late Medieval England written by Sarah Elliott Novacich and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-10 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sarah Elliott Novacich explores how medieval thinkers pondered the ethics and pleasures of the archive. She traces three episodes of sacred history - the loss of Eden, the loading of Noah's ark, and the Harrowing of Hell - across works of poetry, performance records, and iconography in order to demonstrate how medieval artists turned to sacred history to think through aspects of cultural transmission. Performances of the loss of Eden blur the relationship between original and record; stories of Noah's ark foreground the difficulty of compiling inventories; and engagements with the Harrowing of Hell suggest the impossibility of separating the past from the present. Reading Middle English plays alongside chronicles, poetry, and works of visual art, Shaping the Archive in Late Medieval England considers how poetic form, staging logistics, and the status of performance all contribute to our understanding of the ways in which medieval thinkers imagined the archive.

Author : Nicole R. Rice
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 052189607X
Total Pages : 271 pages
Book Rating : 4.78/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Lay Piety and Religious Discipline in Middle English Literature written by Nicole R. Rice and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Medieval Academy of America's 2013 John Nicholas Brown Prize!

Author : Erin K. Wagner
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN 13 : 1501512099
Total Pages : 282 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Language of Heresy in Late Medieval English Literature written by Erin K. Wagner and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2024-04-22 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vernacular writers of late medieval England were engaged in global conversations about orthodoxy and heresy. Entering these conversations with a developing vernacular required lexical innovation. The Language of Heresy in Late Medieval English Literature examines the way in which these writers complemented seemingly straightforward terms, like heretic, with a range of synonyms that complicated the definitions of both those words and orthodoxy itself. This text proposes four specific terms that become collated with heretic in the parlance of medieval English writers of the 14th and 15th centuries: jangler, Jew, Saracen, and witch. These four labels are especially important insofar as they represent the way in which medieval Christianity appropriated and subverted marginalized or vulnerable identities to promote a false image of unassailable authority.

Author : Krista A. Murchison
Publisher : Boydell & Brewer
ISBN 13 : 184384608X
Total Pages : 190 pages
Book Rating : 4.86/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Manuals for Penitents in Medieval England written by Krista A. Murchison and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2021 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First comprehensive survey of a major genre of medieval English texts: its purpose, characteristics, and reception.The "bestseller list" of medieval England would have included many manuals for penitents: works that could teach the public about the process of confession, and explain the abstract concept of sin through familiar situations. Among these 'bestselling' works were the Manuel des péchés (commonly known through its English translation Handlyng Synne), The Speculum Vitae, and Chaucer's Parson's Tale. This book is the first full-length overview of this body of writing and its material and social contexts. It shows that while manuals for penitents developed under the Church's control, they also became a site of the Church's concern. Manuals such as the Compileison (which was addressed to a much broader audience than its English analogue, Ancrene Wisse) brought learning that had been controlled by the Church into the hands of layfolk and, in so doing, raised significant concerns over who should have access to knowledge. Clerics worried that these manuals might accidentally teach people new sins, remind them of old ones, or become sites of prurient interest. This finding, and others explored in this book, call for a new awareness of the complications and contradictions inherent in late medieval orthodoxy and reveal plainly that even writing that happened firmly within the Church's control could promote new and complex ways of thinking about religion and the self.cess to knowledge. Clerics worried that these manuals might accidentally teach people new sins, remind them of old ones, or become sites of prurient interest. This finding, and others explored in this book, call for a new awareness of the complications and contradictions inherent in late medieval orthodoxy and reveal plainly that even writing that happened firmly within the Church's control could promote new and complex ways of thinking about religion and the self.cess to knowledge. Clerics worried that these manuals might accidentally teach people new sins, remind them of old ones, or become sites of prurient interest. This finding, and others explored in this book, call for a new awareness of the complications and contradictions inherent in late medieval orthodoxy and reveal plainly that even writing that happened firmly within the Church's control could promote new and complex ways of thinking about religion and the self.cess to knowledge. Clerics worried that these manuals might accidentally teach people new sins, remind them of old ones, or become sites of prurient interest. This finding, and others explored in this book, call for a new awareness of the complications and contradictions inherent in late medieval orthodoxy and reveal plainly that even writing that happened firmly within the Church's control could promote new and complex ways of thinking about religion and the self.

Author : Helen Barr
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191540862
Total Pages : 241 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Socioliterary Practice in Late Medieval England written by Helen Barr and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2001-12-06 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Socioliterary Practice in Late Medieval England bridges the disciplines of literature and history by examining various kinds of literary language as examples of social practice. Readings of both English and Latin texts from the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries are grounded in close textual study which reveals the social positioning of these works and the kinds of ideological work they can be seen to perform. Distinctive new readings of texts emerge which challenge received interpretations of literary history and late medieval culture. Canonical authors and texts such as Chaucer, Gower, and Pearl are discussed alongside the less familiar: Clanvowe, anonymous alliterative verse, and Wycliffite prose tracts.

Author : Robyn Malo
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
ISBN 13 : 144266326X
Total Pages : 401 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England written by Robyn Malo and published by University of Toronto Press. This book was released on 2013-12-06 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relics and Writing in Late Medieval England uncovers a wide-ranging medieval discourse that had an expansive influence on English literary traditions. Drawing from Latin and vernacular hagiography, miracle stories, relic lists, and architectural history, this study demonstrates that, as the shrines of England’s major saints underwent dramatic changes from c. 1100 to c. 1538, relic discourse became important not only in constructing the meaning of objects that were often hidden, but also for canonical authors like Chaucer and Malory in exploring the function of metaphor and of dissembling language. Robyn Malo argues that relic discourse was employed in order to critique mainstream religious practice, explore the consequences of rhetorical dissimulation, and consider the effect on the socially disadvantaged of lavish expenditure on shrines. The work thus uses the literary study of relics to address issues of clerical and lay cultures, orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and writing and reform.

Author : Jeremy Dimmick
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191541966
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.64/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Images, Idolatry, and Iconoclasm in Late Medieval England written by Jeremy Dimmick and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2002-02-14 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book capitalizes on brilliant recent work on sixteenth-century iconoclasm to extend the study of images, both their making and their breaking, into an earlier period and wider discursive territories. Pressures towards iconoclasm are powerfully registered in fourteenth and fifteenth-century writings, both heterodox and orthodox, just as the use of images is central to the practice of both politics and religion. The governance of images turns out, indeed, to be central to governance itself. It is also of critical concern in any moment of historical change, when new cultural forms must incorporate or destroy the images of the old order. The iconoclast redescribes images as pure matter, objects of idolatry worthy only of the hammer. Issues of historical memory, no less than of social ethics, are, then, inherent to the making, love, and destruction of images. These issues are the consistent concern of the essays of this volume, essays commissioned from a range of outstanding late medievalists in a variety of disciplines: literature, art history, Biblical studies, and intellectual history.

Author : Peter Brown
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1405195525
Total Pages : 692 pages
Book Rating : 4.22/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Companion to Medieval English Literature and Culture, c.1350 - c.1500 written by Peter Brown and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2009-10-26 with total page 692 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Companion to Medieval English Literature and Culture, c.1350-c.1500 challenges readers to think beyond a narrowly defined canon and conventional disciplinary boundaries. A ground-breaking collection of newly-commissioned essays on medieval literature and culture. Encourages students to think beyond a narrowly defined canon and conventional disciplinary boundaries. Reflects the erosion of the traditional, rigid boundary between medieval and early modern literature. Stresses the importance of constructing contexts for reading literature. Explores the extent to which medieval literature is in dialogue with other cultural products, including the literature of other countries, manuscripts and religion. Includes close readings of frequently-studied texts, including texts by Chaucer, Langland, the Gawain poet, and Hoccleve. Confronts some of the controversies that exercise students of medieval literature, such as those connected with literary theory, love, and chivalry and war.