Clerical Discourse And Lay Audience in Late Medieval England

by Fiona Somerset

• ISBN13: 9780521023276
• ISBN10: 0521023270
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-11-24
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The translation of learned Latin materials into English between around 1370 and 1410 was a highly controversial activity. It was thought likely to make available to lay audiences the authoritative and intellectual information and methods of argument previously only accessible to an educated elite - and with that knowledge the power of information. Fiona Somerset's study examines what kinds of academic material were imported into English, what sorts of audience were projected for this kind of clerical discourse and how writers positioned themselves with respect to potential audience and opponents. The well-known concerns with clerical corruption and lay education of authors such as Langland, Trevisa, and Wyclif are linked to those of more obscure writers in both Latin and English, some only recently edited, or only extant in manuscript.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	viii
PART I THE VERNACULAR OEUVRE
Introduction	3	(19)
`Lewed clergie': vernacular authorization in Piers Plowman	22	(40)
The `publyschyng' of `informacion': John Trevisa, Sir Thomas Berkeley, and their project of `Englysch translacion'	62	(41)
PART II CONTESTING VERNACULAR PUBLICATION
Answering the Twelve Conclusions: Dymmok's halfhearted gestures toward publication	103	(32)
The Upland Series and the invention of invective, 1350-1410	135	(44)
Vernacular argumentation in The Testimony of William Thorpe	179	(37)
Appendix	216	(5)
Works cited	221	(14)
Index	235