Secretaries of Gods

by Watt, Diane

• ISBN13: 9780859916141
• ISBN10: 0859916146
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-05-01
• Publisher: Ds Brewer

Summary

Diane Watt sets aside the conventional hiatus between the medieval and early modern periods in her study of women's prophecy, following the female experience from medieval sainthood to radical Protestantism. The English women prophets and visionaries whose voices are recovered here all lived between the twelfth and the seventeenth centuries and claimed, through the medium of trances and eucharistic piety, to speak for God. They include Margery Kempe and the medieval visionaries, Elizabeth Barton (the Holy Maid of Kent), the Reformation martyr Anne Askew and other godly women described in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, and Lady Eleanor Davies as an example of a woman prophet of the Civil War. The strategies women devised to be heard and read are exposed, showing that through prophecy they were often able to intervene in the religious and political discourse of the their times: the role of God's secretary gave them the opportunity to act and speak autonomously and publicly. Winner of Foster Watson Memorial Gift for 1998.DIANE WATT is Professor of English at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	vi
Abbreviations	vii
Acknowledgments	ix
Crossing the Great Divide: Continuity and Change in Women's Prophetic Experience	1	(154)
A Prophet in her Own Country: Margery Kempe and the Medieval Tradition
The authority of prophetic experience	15	(4)
Prophecy in the Middle Ages	19	(8)
Kempe and the medieval women prophets	27	(10)
Conflict, controversy and prophetic identity	37	(14)
Of the Seed of Abraham: Elizabeth Barton, the `Holy Maid of Kent'
Reassessing Barton's infamy	51	(6)
Illness and inspiration	57	(8)
Prophecy and politics	65	(9)
Silencing the lamb	74	(7)
Serpents and Doves: Anne Askew and Foxe's Godly Women
The prophet and her publisher	81	(7)
John Bale as editor	88	(7)
Askew's imitation of Christ	95	(6)
The prophet as martyr	101	(8)
The legacy of the Acts and Monuments	109	(9)
Alpha and Omega: Eleanor Davies, Civil War Prophet
Turning the world upside down	118	(11)
Prophesying and publishing	129	(8)
The prophetic mission-restitution and salvation	137	(11)
Feminine authority	148	(7)
Epilogue	155	(9)
Bibliography	164	(25)
Index	189