The Materiality of Middle English Anchoritic Devotion

Michelle M. Sauer, Jenny C. Bledsoe

• Publisher: Arc Humanities Press
• Year: 2021
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9781641894883
• Subtopic: European Medieval History
• Index: Literature

Anchorites and their texts, such as Ancrene Wisse, have recently undergone a reevaluation based on material circumstances, not just theological import. The articles here address a variety of anchoritic or anchoritic-adjacent texts, encompassing guidance literature, hagiographies, miracle narratives, medical discourse, and mystic prose, and spanning in date from the eighth through the fourteenth centuries. Exploring reclusion and materiality, the collection addresses a series of overlapping themes, including the importance of touch, the limits of religious authority, and the role of the senses. Objects, metaphorical and real, embodied and spiritual, populate the pages. These categories are permeable, with flexible and porous boundaries, demonstrating the conflation of ideas, concepts, and manifestations in medieval materiality. In fact, the permeability of these categories demonstrates how materiality can reshape our approach to medieval texts. It leaves room for directions for future study, including the application of material analysis to previously unstudied objects, spaces, and literary artifacts.

Table of contents

• COVER
• CONTENTS
• ILLUSTRATIONS
• BODIES, OBJECTS, AND THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THINGS IN EARLY MIDDLE ENGLISH RECLUSION: AN INTRODUCTION
• CLOTHING AND FEMALE RECLUSION IN THE LIFE OF MARY OF EGYPT AND THE LIFE OF CHRISTINA OF MARKYATE
• MATERIALITY, DOCUMENTARY AUTHORITY, AND THE CIRCULATION OF THE KATHERINE GROUP
• FRAMING MATERIALITY: RELIC DISCOURSE AND MEDIEVAL ENGLISH ANCHORITISM
• RELICS AND THE RECLUSE’S TOUCH INGOSCELIN’S MIRACLES OF ST. EDMUND
• MARY, SILENCE, AND THE FICTIONS OF POWER IN ANCRENE WISSE 2.269–481
• THE ANCHORITIC BODY AT PRAYER IN GOSCELIN OF SAINT-BERTIN’S LIBER CONFORTATORIUS
• STUPOR IN JOHN OF GADDESDEN’S ROSA MEDICINAE
• THE MATERIAL OF VERNACULAR ENGLISH DEVOTION: TEMPTATION AND SWEETNESS IN ANCRENE WISSE AND RICHARD ROLLE’S FORM OF LIVING
• THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT OF AN ANCHORITE CELL AT RUYTON, SHROPSHIRE
• INDEX