The focus of this volume may be summed up as "The Word". Its essays examine the contents and provenance of manuscripts which were written for polemical purposes, treasured by the duchess of York, and through the new medium of print introduced to a wider public topics of historical interest and illustrations of the geography of the known world. The essays here also consider official records of forest administration, expressed in arcane language; documents preserved in the papal curia which reveal significant facts about the lives of Scottish bishops; archives produced by the English chancery noting the movements of a royal councillor; and letters, poems and songs exposing the political strategy of a German prince. Nor is the 'spoken' word neglected, whether employed in speeches delivered at the start of parliaments, using as their themes scriptures and classical texts to set a political agenda; or as sermons to open-air congregations gathered at St. Paul's Cross, where the oratory of Bishop Alcock stirred his listeners in different ways.
Author(s): Linda Clark (ed.)
Publisher: The Boydell Press
Year: 2017
Language: English
Pages: 224
City: Woodbridge
List of Illustrations vi
Contributors vii
Preface ix
Abbreviations xiii
'The Libelle of English Policy': The Matter of Ireland / MICHAEL BENNETT 1
'Stories of Divers Regions and Provinces': Some Digests of History and Geography for Late-Medieval English Readers / JULIA BOFFEY 23
'To please... Dame Cecely that in latyn hath litell intellect': Books and the Duchess of York / J. L. LAYNESMITH 37
A Case Study in Lancastrian Service and Personal Survival: The Career of William, Lord Roos of Helmsley (c.1370–1414) / JOHN MILNER 57
Identity, Discourse and Political Strategy: Margrave Albrecht Achilles
(1414–86) and the Rhetoric of Antagonism between Town and Nobility in Upper Germany / BEN POPE 73
The Redistribution of Forest Law and Administration in Fifteenth-Century England / TOM JOHNSON 93
Well-Connected and Qualified Clerics? The Bishops of Dunkeld and Sodor in the Fifteenth Century / SARAH THOMAS 109
Preaching Politics: Lancastrian Chancellors in Parliament / J. M. GRUSSENMEYER 125
Bishop John Alcock and the Roman Invasion of Parliament: Introducing Renaissance Civic Humanism to Tudor Parliamentary Proceedings / DAN E. SEWARD 145
Preaching on Magna Carta at the End of the Fifteenth Century: John Alcock’s Sermon at Paul’s Cross / PAUL CAVILL 169
Index 191
