Although the Middle English texts broadly categorized as 'devotional literature' have received considerable scholarly attention in recent years, much work remains to be done on the cultural meanings and textual transformations of vernacular religious writing during the later medieval period and into the sixteenth century. During these years, popular (but still little-studied) late medieval works such as the 'Pore Caitif' circulated in varied forms amid changing circumstances: the expansion of audiences for Middle English texts, the emergence and persecution of Lollardy, attempts at ecclesiastical censorship, the advent of printing, and the Henrician Reformation. How did Middle English religious texts answer changing cultural and practical needs and the requirements of orthodoxy? How did older texts find new readers; how did these readers alter and deploy them? This collection capitalizes on widespread current interest in these questions, gathering original essays that analyze the many forms, meanings, and legacies of Middle English religious writing.
Author(s): Nicole R. Rice (ed.)
Series: Late Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 21
Publisher: Brepols
Year: 2013
Language: English
Pages: 292
Illustrations vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction / Nicole R. Rice 1
Part I. Continental Religious Women in English Practice
From the Charterhouse to the Printing House: Catherine of Siena in Medieval England / Jennifer N. Brown 17
Medieval and Modern Readership of Marguerite Porete's 'Mirouer des simples âmes anienties': The French and English Traditions / Michael G. Sargent 47
Poetry as Prayer: John Audelay's 'Salutation to St. Bridget' / Martha W. Driver 91
Part II. Manuscript Compilation and the Adaptation of Religious Practice
From 'Companion to the Novitiate' to 'Companion to the Devout Life': San Marino, Huntington Library, MS HM 744 and Monastic Anthologies of the Twelfth-Century Reform / Mary Agnes Edsall 115
Lay Spiritual Texts and Pastoral Care in Two Fifteenth-Century Priests' Collections / Nicole R. Rice 149
Part III. Negotiating Orthodoxy: Revision, Circulation, Annotation
Women, Tales, and 'Talking Back' in 'Pore Caitif' and 'Dives and Pauper' / Moira Fitzgibbons 181
'Citizens of Saints': Creating Christian Community in Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 23 / Stephen Kelly and Ryan Perry 215
Sixteenth-Century Readers Reading Fifteenth-Century Religious Books: The Roberts Family of Middlesex / Margaret Connolly 239
Index of Manuscripts 263
General Index 267
