Cultures of Piety

by Bartlett, Anne Clark; Bestul, Thomas H.

• ISBN13: 9780801484551
• ISBN10: 0801484553
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-11-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

Devotional Texts in late medieval England were notable for their flamboyant piety and their preoccupation with the tortured body of Christ and the grief of the Virgin Mary. Generations of readers seeking the divine internalized and shaped the "cultures of piety" represented by these works. Anne Clark Bartlett and Thomas H. Bestul here gather seven diverse examples of this literature, all written in the period 1350-1450, one in Anglo-Norman, the remainder in Middle English. (The volume also includes an appendix containing the original texts of the latter six pieces.) The resulting collection illustrates the polyglottal, conflicting, and often polemical nature of devotional culture in the Middle Ages. It also provides a valuable context for and interesting counterpoint to the Canterbury Tales and other classic works of late medieval England, which, the editors assert, were far outnumbered by writings of popular piety. Book jacket.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Henry of Lancaster, The Book of Holy Medicines	p. 19
The Middle English Pseudo-Augustinian Soliloquies and Its Anti-Wycliffite Commentary	p. 41
The Gast of Gy	p. 64
The Privity of the Passion	p. 85
The Fifteen Oes	p. 107
Life of Soul	p. 118
Symon Wynter, The Life of St. Jerome	p. 141
Anthology of Middle English Texts	p. 165
The Pseudo-Augustinian Soliloquies	p. 166
The Gast of Gy	p. 181
The Privity of the Passion	p. 194
The Fifteen Oes	p. 212
Life of Soul	p. 217
Symon Wynter, The Life of St. Jerome	p. 232
General Bibliography	p. 251
List of Contributors	p. 255
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