Barking Abbey and Medieval Literary Culture

by Brown, Jennifer N.; Bussell, Donna Alfano

• ISBN13: 9781903153437
• ISBN10: 1903153433
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-11-15
• Publisher: York Medieval Pr

Summary

Barking Abbey (founded c. 666) is hugely significant for those studying the literary production by and patronage of medieval women. It had one of the largest libraries of any English nunnery, and a history of women's education from the Anglo-Saxon period to the Dissolution; it was also the home of women writers of Latin and Anglo-Norman works, as well as of many Middle English manuscript books.BR>The essays in this volume map its literary history, offering a wide-ranging exanination of its liturgical, historio-hagiographical, devotional, doctrinal, and administrative texts, with a particular focus on the important hagiographies produced there during the twelfth century. It thus makes a major contribution to the literary and cultural history of medieval England and a rich resource for the teaching of women's texts. Contributors: Diane Auslander, Alexandra Barratt, Emma Berat, Jennifer N. Brown, Donna A. Bussell, Thelma Fenster, Stephanie Hollis, Thomas O'Donnell, Delbert Russell, Jill Stevenson, Kay Slocum, Lisa Weston, Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, Anne B. Yardley Professor Jennifer N. Brown teaches at Marymount Manhattan College; Professor Donna Alfano Bussell teaches at University of Illinois-Springfield.

Author Biography

Jennifer N. Brown is an Associate Professor of English and World Literature at Marymount Manhattan College. Donna Alfano Bussell is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Illinois Springfield.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors	p. vii
Acknowledgements	p. x
List of Abbreviations	p. xi
Introduction: Barking's Lives, the Abbey and its Abbesses	p. 1
Barking Abbey and its Anglo-Saxon Context
Barking's Monastic School, Late Seventh to Twelfth Century: History, Saint-Making and Literary Culture	p. 33
The Saint-Maker and the Saint: Hildelith Creates Ethelburg	p. 56
Goscelin of Saint-Bertin and the Translation Ceremony for Saints Ethelburg, Hildelith and Wulfhild	p. 73
"The ladies have made me quite fat': Authors and Patrons at Barking Abbey	p. 94
Barking Abbey and its Anglo-Norman Context
'Sun num n'i vult dire a ore': Identity Matters at Barking Abbey	p. 117
'Ce qu'ens li trovat, eut en sei': On the Equal Chastity of Queen Edith and King Edward in the Nun of Barking's La Vie d'Edouard le confesseur	p. 135
Body, Gender and Nation in the Lives of Edward the Confessor	p. 145
Clemence and Catherine: The Life of St Catherine in its Norman and Anglo-Norman Context	p. 164
Cicero, Aelred and Guernes: The Politics of Love in Clemence of Barking's Catherine	p. 183
The Authority of Diversity: Communal Patronage in Le Gracial	p. 210
BARKING ABBEY AND THE LATER MIDDLE AGES
Keeping Body and Soul Together: The Charge to the Barking Cellaress	p. 235
Rhythmic Liturgy, Embodiment and Female Authority in Barking's Easter Plays	p. 245
Liturgy as the Site of Creative Engagement Contributions of the Nuns of Barking	p. 267
Afterword. Barking and the Historiography of Female Community	p. 283
Bibliography	p. 297
Index	p. 325
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