Devotional Culture in Late Medieval England and Europe: Diverse Imaginations of Christ’s Life

684 Pages·2014·150.65 MB·English

by  Stephen Kelly

D evotional Culture
in Late Medieval England
and Europe
MEDIEVAL CHURCH STUDIES
Previously published volumes in this series are listed at the back of the book.
Volume 31
D evotional Culture
in Late Medieval England
and Europe
Diverse Imaginations of Christ’s Life
Edited by
Stephen Kelly and Ryan Perry
BREPOLS
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Devotional culture in late medieval England and Europe :
diverse imaginations of Christ's life. -- (Medieval church studies ; 31)
1. Jesus Christ--Biography--Early works to 1800.
2. Jesus Christ--Biography--Devotional literature.
3. Christian literature, English (Middle)--History and criticism.
4. Christian literature, Latin (Medieval and modern)--History and criticism.
5. Devotional literature, English (Middle)--History and criticism.
6. Devotional literature, Latin (Medieval and modern)--History and criticism.
7. Christian life--History--Middle Ages, 600-1500.
8. Religion and culture--England--History--To 1500.
9. Religion and culture--Europe--History--To 1500.
I. Series
II. Kelly, Stephen, 1972- editor.
III. Perry, Ryan, editor.
809.9'338232-dc23
ISBN-13: 9782503549354
© 2014, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.
D/2014/0095/189
ISBN: 978-2-503-54935-4
e-ISBN: 978-2-503-55002-2
Printed in the EU on acid-free paper
This is the thrilling romance of Orthodoxy. People have fallen into a fool­
ish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and
safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It
was sanity: and to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. It was the equilib­
rium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop this way and to
sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of
arithmetic. The Church in its early days went fierce and fast with any warhorse;
yet it is utterly unhistoric to say that she merely went mad along one idea, like a
vulgar fanaticism.
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Contents
List of Illustrations xi
Acknowledgements xv
Abbreviations xvii
Introduction
STEPHEN KELLY and RYAN PERRY 1
New Light on the Date and Authorship of the Meditationes vitae Christi
PETER TÔTH and DAVID FALVAY 17
Adolescence and Interiority in Aelred’s Lives of Christ
DENISE L. DESPRES 107
The Life of Christ in Meditative Texts in Late Medieval France
MAUREEN BOULTON 127
Out of Egypt, Into England: Tales of the Good Thief
for Medieval English Audiences
MARY DZON 147
The Disappearing Book in The Revelation of the Hundred Pater Nosters
MARLENE VILLALOBOS HENNESSY 243
The Passion Cycle in English Wall Paintings and Manuscript Art:
Readers and Spectators in Midlands Communities in the
Later Medieval Period
RACHEL CANTY and DAVID GRIFFITH 267
viii CONTENTS
‘To Move the Mind’: Scenes from Christ’s Life
on Faversham’s Painted Pillar
SHEILA SWEETINBURGH 291
‘Lynke ai of criste’: Compassionate Thought
in The Prickynge of Love
SARAH MACMILLAN 315
Heaven and Health: Middle English Devotion to Christ
in its Therapeutic Contexts
DANIEL McCANN 335
Living in the Time of Christ: Margery Kempe’s ‘Devoute Ymaginacion’
ELIZABETH SCARBOROUGH 363
‘Lenke we sadli on his dee^’: The Hours of the Cross
as a Short Passion Meditation
eleanor McCullough 385
Patroness of Orthodoxy: Elizabeth Berkeley, John Walton, and the
Middle English Storie of Asneth, a West Midlands Devotional Text
HEATHER A. REID 405
Translating Access and Authority at Syon Abbey
PAUL J. PATTERSON 443
Through the Looking Glass: Reflections of Christ’s ‘trewe louers’
in Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ
KATIE ANN-MARIE BUGYIS 461
The Pepysian ‘Meditation on Christ’s Passion’
MAYUMI TAGUCHI 487
Exemplary Speech in the Life of the Virgin Mary and the Christ:
Dublin, Trinity College, MS 423
BARBARA ZIMBALIST 511
Medieval English Religious Plays as Early Fifteenth-Century
Vernacular Theology: the Case Against
PAMELA M. KING 533
CONTENTS ix
Belief and Knowledge in Love’s Mirror
VALERIE ALLEN 553
The Fifteenth Century as the Golden Age of Women’s Theology
in English: Reflections on the Earliest Reception
ofJulian of Norwich
KATHRYN KERBY-FULTON 573
‘Hospitable Reading’ in a Fifteenth-Century Passion
and Eucharistic Meditation
SARAH JAMES 593
A Geographical Postscript
MICHAEL G. SARGENT 607
Index of Manuscripts 635
Index of Names 643