Cultures of Piety

Cultures of Piety
Author: Anne Clark Bartlett
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2018-09-05
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1501726765

Devotional texts in late medieval England were notable for their flamboyant piety and their preoccupation with the tortured body of Christ and the grief of the Virgin Mary. Generations of readers internalized and shaped the "cultures of piety" represented by these works. Anne Clark Bartlett and Thomas H. Bestul here gather seven examples of this literature, all written in the period 1350–1450, one in Anglo-Norman, the remainder in Middle English. (The volume includes an appendix containing the original texts of the latter six pieces.) The collection illustrates the polyglottal, conflicting, and often polemical nature of devotional culture in the Middle Ages. It provides a valuable context for and interesting counterpoint to the Canterbury Tales and other classic works of late medieval England. The introduction and the translators' headnotes discuss crucial aspects of the texts' histories and thematics, including the importance of the body in spiritual practices, the development of female patronage and of a wide audience for this literature, and the indivisibility of the political and the religious in medieval times.

Chaucer and Middle English Studies

Chaucer and Middle English Studies
Author: Beryl Rowland
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 425
Release: 2019-09-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1000680843

Originally published in 1974. The thirty-six essays of this book were written and assembled in hour of an internationally recognised scholar of medieval literature. Written by a diverse range of contributors, the chapters cover not only various studies of aspects of Chaucer’s poetry, but also some other medieval authors and investigations about the period, particularly referencing carols and hymns.

Smaller Bodleian Collections

Smaller Bodleian Collections
Author: Ralph Hanna
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Total Pages: 92
Release: 1997
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 9780859915212

This is a survey of the prose to be found in six smaller collections of the Bodleian Library: English Miscellaneous, English Poetry, English Theology, Latin Theology, Lyell, and the Radcliffe Trust. The manuscripts covered include the largest in Middle English, the Vernon manuscript.

Middle English Devotional Compilations

Middle English Devotional Compilations
Author: Diana Denissen
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2019-10-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1786834782

The book offers a new perspective on late medieval compiling activity. Additionally, it offers a more nuanced perspective on late medieval religious culture in England. Lastly, it examines three major, but understudied Middle English texts in depth: the Pore Caitif, The Tretyse of Love and A Talkyng of the Love of God.

Catholic England

Catholic England
Author:
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 2013-01-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1526112884

Aims to assess the spiritual state of England under Catholicism, before the onslaught of the Reformation. It covers the Latin and the Wycliffite bibles, the way Catholicism was disseminated, the mass, parish celebrations, pilgrimage, indulgences, security for the dead and more.

Male Authors, Female Readers

Male Authors, Female Readers
Author: Anne Clark Bartlett
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2018-10-18
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1501722085

"Holy men despise women...and view them as foul and sticking dirt in the road," asserst the male author of the fifteenth-century Book to a Mother. Middle English devotional writings reflect shades of mysogony ranging from the blatant to the subtle, yet these texts were among the most popular literature know to the earliest generation of English women readers. In the first book to examine this paradox, Anne Clark Bartlett considers why medieval women enjoyed such male-authored works as Speculum Devotorum, The Tree, The Twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost, and Contemplations on the Dread and Love of God. Demonstrating that these texts actually provided alternative—and more appealing—notions of gender than those authorized by the Church, Bartlett redefines women's participation in medieval culture in terms of far greater agency and empowerment than have generally been acknowledged.

The Middle English Weye of Paradys and the Middle French Voie de Paradis

The Middle English Weye of Paradys and the Middle French Voie de Paradis
Author: Diekstra
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 564
Release: 1991-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004626832

The late Middle English Weye of Paradys and its French source La Voie de Paradis use the theme of the allegorical journey to Paradise. Essentially they are popular guides to confession, adaptations for the layman of more specialized works in Latin such as Raymond of Pennaforte's Summa de Poenitentia. This edition presents critical texts of both The Weye of Paradys and La Voie de Paradis and analyzes the relations of the English text with its immediate (French) and distant (Latin) sources. This work makes the English and French texts available in print for the first time and places them in the wider field of popular penitential literature.

English Psalms in the Middle Ages, 1300-1450

English Psalms in the Middle Ages, 1300-1450
Author: Annie Sutherland
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2015-02-19
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 0191039772

English Psalms in the Middle Ages, 1300-1450 explores vernacular translation, adaptation, and paraphrase of the biblical psalms. Focussing on a wide and varied body of texts, it examines translations of the complete psalter as well as renditions of individual psalms and groups of psalms. Exploring who translated the psalms, and how and why they were translated, it also considers who read these texts and how and why they were read. Annie Sutherland foregrounds the centrality of the voice of David in the devotional landscape of the period, suggesting that the psalmist offered the prayerful, penitent Christian a uniquely articulate and emotive model of utterance before God. Examining the evidence of contemporary wills and testaments as well as manuscripts containing the translations, she highlights the popularity of the psalms among lay and religious readers, considering how, when, and by whom the translated psalms were used as well as thinking about who translated them and how and why they were translated. In investigating these and other areas, English Psalms in the Middle Ages, 1300-1450 raises questions about interactions between Latinity and vernacularity in the late Middle Ages and situates the translated psalms in a literary and theoretical context.