Rites of Passage

by McDonald, Nicola F.; Ormrod, W. M.

• ISBN13: 9781903153154
• ISBN10: 1903153158
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-11-15
• Publisher: York Medieval Pr

Summary

'Rites of passage' is a term and concept more used than considered. Here, for the first time, its implications are applied and tested in the field of medieval studies: medievalists from a range of disciplines consider the various theoretical models - folklorist, anthropological, psychoanalytical - that can be used to analyse cultures of transition in the history and literature of fourteenth-century Europe. Ranging over a wide variety of texts, from chronicles to romances, from priests' manuals to courtesy books, from state records to the writings of Chaucer, Gower and Froissart, the contributors identify and analyse medieval attitudes to the process of change in lifecycle, status, gender and power. A substantive introduction by Miri Rubin draws together the ideas and materials discussed in the book to illustrate the relevance and importance of anthropology to the study of medieval culture. Contributors: JOEL BURDEN, PATRICIA CULLUM, ISABEL DAVIS, JANE GILBERT, SARAH KAY, MARK ORMROD, HELEN PHILLIPS, MIRI RUBIN, SHARON WELLS. NICOLA F. McDONALD is Lecturer in Medieval Literature, W.M ORMROD Professor of Medieval History, University of York.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors	vi
Preface	vii
Introduction: Rites of Passage	1	(12)
Miri Rubin
Re-writing a Rite of Passage: The Peculiar Funeral of Edward II	13	(18)
Joel Burden
Coming to Kingship: Boy Kings and the Passage to Power in Fourteenth-Century England	31	(20)
W. M. Ormrod
Boy/Man into Clerk/Priest: The Making of the Late Medieval Clergy	51	(16)
P. H. Cullum
Manners Maketh Man: Living, Dining and Becoming a Man in the Later Middle Ages	67	(16)
Sharon Wells
Rites of Passage in French and English Romances	83	(26)
Helen Phillips
Becoming Woman in Chaucer: 'On ne nait pas femme, on le meurt'	109	(22)
Jane Gilbert
John Gower's Fear of Flying: Transitional Masculinities in the Confessio Amantis	131	(22)
Isabel Davis
'Le moment de conclure': Initiation as Retrospection in Froissart's Dits amoureux	153	(20)
Sarah Kay
Index	173