Late Medieval Popular Preaching In Britain And Ireland

"Sermons and preaching played a key role in forming the religious mentality of many late medieval men and women. Yet the practice of preaching depended on many variables: the nature and disposition of the audience, the competence of the preacher, and even the stylistic variations that different Orders developed to distinguish their preachers from others. This study and anthology of late medieval popular preaching intended for the laity explores this diversity by presenting examples of sermons from each of the major wings of the late medieval orthodox Church: the friars, the regulars, the canons regular, the secular canons, and the seculars. It also reveals the ways in which this diversity in forms of preaching finds it correlate in the codicological diversity that existed between sermon manuscripts themselves. Late Medieval Popular Preaching in Britain and Ireland demonstrates how formidable and culturally constitutive a force preaching was, and also examines some of the ways in which it impinged on the production of vernacular literature, ultimately revealing the powerful and wide-spread influence of sermon discourse on cultural production in greater British society." --Book Jacket.

This full-length study investigates how sermons and vernacular religious drama worked as media for public learning, how they combined this didactic aim with literary exigencies, and how plays acquired and reflected authority. The interrelation between sermons and vernacular drama, formerly assumed to be a close one, is addressed from historical connections, performative aspects, and the portrayal of penance. The work demonstrates the subtly different purposes and contents and outlines the unique ways in which they operate within late medieval England.

How did people learn their Bibles in the Middle Ages? Did church murals, biblical manuscripts, sermons or liturgical processions transmit the Bible in the same way? This book unveils the dynamics of biblical knowledge and dissemination in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century England. An extensive and interdisciplinary survey of biblical manuscripts and visual images, sermons and chants, reveals how the unique qualities of each medium became part of the way the Bible was known and recalled; how oral, textual, performative and visual means of transmission joined to present a surprisingly complex biblical worldview. This study of liturgy and preaching, manuscript culture and talismanic use introduces the concept of biblical mediation, a new way to explore Scriptures and society. It challenges the lay-clerical divide by demonstrating that biblical exegesis was presented to the laity in non-textual means, while the ‘naked text’ of the Bible remained elusive even for the educated clergy.

The Routledge History of Medieval Magic brings together the work of scholars from across Europe and North America to provide extensive insights into recent developments in the study of medieval magic between c.1100 and c.1500. This book covers a wide range of topics, including the magical texts which circulated in medieval Europe, the attitudes of intellectuals and churchmen to magic, the ways in which magic intersected with other aspects of medieval culture, and the early witch trials of the fifteenth century. In doing so, it offers the reader a detailed look at the impact that magic had within medieval society, such as its relationship to gender roles, natural philosophy, and courtly culture. This is furthered by the book’s interdisciplinary approach, containing chapters dedicated to archaeology, literature, music, and visual culture, as well as texts and manuscripts. The Routledge History of Medieval Magic also outlines how research on this subject could develop in the future, highlighting under-explored subjects, unpublished sources, and new approaches to the topic. It is the ideal book for both established scholars and students of medieval magic.

Gerald of Wales (c.1146–c.1223), widely recognized for his innovative ethnographic studies of Ireland and Wales, was in fact the author of some twenty-three works which touch upon many aspects of twelfth-century life. Despite their valuable insights, these works have been vastly understudied. This collection of essays reassesses Gerald’s importance as a medieval Latin writer and rhetorician by focusing on his lesser-known works and providing a fuller context for his more popular writings. This broader view of his corpus brings to light new evidence for his rhetorical strategies, political positioning and usage of source material, and attests to the breadth and depth of his collected works.

This book offers an introduction to the thought of Robert Holcot, a great and influential but often underappreciated medieval thinker. Holcot was a Dominican friar who flourished in the 1330's and produced a diverse body of work including scholastic treatises, biblical commentaries, and sermons. By viewing the whole of Holcot's corpus, John T. Slotemaker and Jeffrey C. Witt provide a comprehensive account of his thought. Challenging established characterizations of him as a skeptic or radical, they show Holcot to be primarily concerned with affirming and supporting the faith of the pious believer. At times, this manifests itself as a cautious attitude toward absolutist claims about the power of natural reason. At other times Holcot reaffirms, in Anselmian fashion, the importance of rational effort in the attempt to understand and live out one's faith. Over the course of this introduction the authors unpack Holcot's views on faith and heresy, the divine nature and divine foreknowledge, the sacraments, Christ, and political philosophy. They also examine Holcot's approach to several important medieval literary genres, including the development of his unique "picture method," biblical commentaries, and sermons. In so doing, Slotemaker and Witt restore Holcot to his rightful place as one of the most important thinkers of his time.

William Langland's Piers Plowman was written and read during a “golden age” of English preaching. The poem describes a world where sermons took many different forms and were delivered in many different contexts, from public events in the life of the realm to pastoral instruction in the parish. It dramatises preaching as part of its allegorical action, showing how sermons shaped their listeners' understanding of the world; it also includes polemical critique of corrupt, self-interested preaching, and offers radical prescriptions for its reform. This book argues that Langland's central insight into the way that sermons moved and engaged their audiences had to do with their characteristic use of narrative. Preachers in the poem address listeners who are absorbed in the concerns of their present moment, and encourage them to new forms of social and spiritual endeavour by locating that moment in a larger, interpreted plot: the story of an individual life, or an emergent community, or of salvation history as a whole. The book employs a critical vocabulary derived from Paul Ricoeur to describe the process by which these narratives are composed, and to show how they mediate and reconfigure their listeners' experiences.

In the eighth century, preaching was instrumental in evangelizing Ireland; later it helped consolidate the confessional and social identity of individuals and groups. This survey of Irish preaching covers a time period that has previously been largely ignored. It spans linguistic divisions and discu

The Oxford Handbook to Tudor Drama is the authoritative secondary text on Tudor drama. It both integrates recent important research across different disciplines and periods and sets a new agenda for the future study of Tudor drama, questioning a number of the central assumptions of previous studies. Balancing the interests and concerns of scholars in theatre history, drama, and literary studies, its scope reflects the broad reach of Tudor drama as a subject, inviting readers to see the Tudor century as a whole, rather than made up of artificial and misleading divisions between 'medieval' and 'renaissance', religious and secular, pre- and post-Shakespeare. The contributors, both the established leaders in their fields and the brightest young scholars, attend to the contexts, intellectual, theatrical and historical within which drama was written, produced and staged in this period, and ask us to consider afresh this most vital and complex of periods in theatre history. The book is divided into four sections: Religious Drama; Interludes and Comedies, Entertainments, Masques, and Royal Entries; and Histories and political dramas.

The politics of Middle English parables examines the dynamic intersection of fiction, theology and social practice in late-medieval England. Parables occupy a prominent place in Middle English literature, appearing in dream visions and story collections as well as in lives of Christ and devotional treatises. While most scholarship approaches the translated stories as stable vehicles of Christian teaching, this book highlights the many variations and points of conflict across Middle English renditions of the same story. In parables related to labour, social inequality, charity and penance, the book locates a creative theological discourse through which writers attempted to re-construct Christian belief and practice. Analysis of these diverse retellings reveals not what a given parable meant in a definitive sense but rather how Middle English parables inscribe the ideologies, power structures and cultural debates of late-medieval Christianity.