Spoken Word and Social Practice: Orality in Europe (1400-1700)

Acknowledgements ix
List of Figures x
List of Contributors xi
Life and Works of Alexander Francis Cowan xii
Bibliography of Alexander Cowan xiV
Introduction / Thomas V. Cohen and Lesley K. Twomey 1
Witches’ Words
1. Oral Transfer of Ideas about Witchcraft in Seventeenth-Century Norway / Liv Helene Willumsen 47
2. St. Helena and Love Magic: From the Spanish Inquisition to the Internet / Susana Gala Pellicer 84
Words on Trial
3. The Power of the Spoken Word
Depositions of the Imperial Chamber Court: Power, Resistance, and 'Orality' / Matthias Bähr 115
4. Tracking Conversation in the Italian Courts / Thomas V. Cohen 139
Preaching the Word
5. Tears for Fears: Mission Preaching in Seventeenth-Century France – a Double Performance / Anne Régent-Susini 185
6. Powerful Words: St. Vincent Ferrer’s Preaching and the Jews in Medieval Castile / Carolina Losada 206
7. 'A Most Notable Spectacle': Early Modern Easter Spital Sermons / Sonia Suman 228
Word on the Street
8. Orality and Mutiny: Authority and Speech amongst the Seafarers of Early Modern London / Richard J. Blakemore 253
9. 'A Blabbermouth Can Barely Control His Tongue': Political Poems,
Songs and Prophecies in the Low Countries (Fifteenth–Sixteenth Centuries) / Jan Dumolyn and Jelle Haemers 280
10. Proverbs and Princes in Post-Reformation England / Marcus Harmes and Gillian Colclough 300
Gossip and Gossipers
11. The Meanings of Gossip in Sixteenth-Century Venice / Elizabeth Horodowich 321
12. Gossip and Social Standing in Celestina: Verbal Venom as Art / Joseph T. Snow 343
Prayer, Teaching, and Religious Talk
13. Oral Rites: Prayer and Talk in Early Modern France / Virginia Reinburg 375
14. The Seducer’s Tongue: Oral and Moral Issues in Medieval Erotodidactic Schooltexts / Rosanna Cantavella 393
15. Preaching God’s Word in a Late-medieval Valencian Convent: Isabel de Villena, Writer and Preacher / Lesley K. Twomey 421
16. Afterword / Michael J. Braddick 446
Bibliography 463
Index 486