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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
internalized and shaped the "cultures of piety" represented by
these works. Anne Clark Bartlett and Thomas H. Bestul here gather
seven examples of this literature, all written in the period 1350
1450, one in Anglo-Norman, the remainder in Middle English. (The
volume includes an appendix containing the original texts of the
latter six pieces.) The collection illustrates the polyglottal,
conflicting, and often polemical nature of devotional culture in
the Middle Ages. It provides a valuable context for and interesting
counterpoint to the Canterbury Tales and other classic works of
late medieval England. The introduction and the translators'
headnotes discuss crucial aspects of the texts' histories and
thematics, including the importance of the body in spiritual
practices, the development of female patronage and of a wide
audience for this literature, and the indivisibility of the
political and the religious in medieval times."
"Holy men despise women...and view them as foul and sticking dirt
in the road," asserst the male author of the fifteenth-century Book
to a Mother. Middle English devotional writings reflect shades of
mysogony ranging from the blatant to the subtle, yet these texts
were among the most popular literature know to the earliest
generation of English women readers. In the first book to examine
this paradox, Anne Clark Bartlett considers why medieval women
enjoyed such male-authored works as Speculum Devotorum, The Tree,
The Twelve Fruits of the Holy Ghost, and Contemplations on the
Dread and Love of God. Demonstrating that these texts actually
provided alternative-and more appealing-notions of gender than
those authorized by the Church, Bartlett redefines women's
participation in medieval culture in terms of far greater agency
and empowerment than have generally been acknowledged.
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