The essays in this volume challenge current 'givens' in medieval and early modern research around periodization and editorial practice. They showcase cutting-edge research practices and approaches in textual editing, and in manuscript and performance studies to produce new ways of reading and working for students and scholars.

The essays in this volume challenge current 'givens' in medieval and early modern research around periodization and editorial practice. They showcase cutting-edge research practices and approaches in textual editing, and in manuscript and performance studies to produce new ways of reading and working for students and scholars.

Margery Kempe and her Book studied in both literary and historical context. Margery Kempe's Book provides rare access to the "marginal voice" of a lay medieval woman, and is now the focus of much critical study. This Companion seeks to complement the existing almost exclusively literary scholarship with work that also draws significantly on historical analysis, and is concerned to contextualise Kempe's Book in a number of different ways, using her work as a way in to the culture and society of medieval northern Europe. Topics include images and pilgrimage; women, work and trade in medieval Norfolk; political culture and heresy; the prophetic tradition; female mystics and the body; women's roles and lifecycle; religious drama and reenactment; autobiography and gender. Contributors: JOHN H. ARNOLD, P.H. CULLUM, ISABEL DAVIS, ALLYSON FOSTER, JACQUELINE JENKINS, KATHERINE J. LEWIS, KATE PARKER, KIM M. PHILLIPS, SARAH SALIH, CLAIRE SPONSLER, DIANE WATT,BARRY WINDEATT.

This book is a must read for anyone whose church is struggling with the issue of homosexuality. It is the story of a part-time seminary student and church bulletin stuffer, who successfully challenged the old and refuted science in the Episcopal Church's theological explanation for consecrating a partnered gay bishop. Further, it is only as her own faith grew that she was given a voice to tell the leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion what she has learned. But first she had to learn how to forgive those who had injured her as she lived in an angry, polarized church. And even as she was called forward, she was plagued by eerily timed deaths and a life threatening illness. While that happened, she made shocking discoveries about the politics in our society that masquerades as science, and even more shocking discoveries of underhanded politics in the church.

But this story is not just a documentary of a failing church. It is a warning and ultimately an encouragement regarding the effects of culture wars in the church. A failure to live in community first and to engage in honest, respectful theological discernment is destroying a denomination and threatening a worldwide church. But the story also shows God's amazing ability to offer new life to the faithful in the face of difficult and destructive circumstances.

Julian of Norwich (ca. 1343-ca. 1416), a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer, William Langland, and John Wyclif, is the earliest woman writer of English we know about. Although she described herself as "a simple creature unlettered," Julian is now widely recognized as one of the great speculative theologians of the Middle Ages, whose thinking about God as love has made a permanent contribution to the tradition of Christian belief. Despite her recent popularity, however, Julian is usually read only in translation and often in extracts rather than as a whole.

This book presents a much-needed new edition of Julian's writings in Middle English, one that makes possible the serious reading and study of her thought not just for students and scholars of Middle English but also for those with little or no previous experience with the language.

- Separate texts of both Julian's works, A Vision Showed to a Devout Woman and A Revelation of Love, with modern punctuation and paragraphing and partly regularized spelling.

- A second, analytic edition of A Vision printed underneath the text of A Revelation to show what was left out, changed, or added as Julian expanded the earlier work into the later one.

- Facing-page explanatory notes, with translations of difficult words and phrases, cross-references to other parts of the text, and citations of biblical and other sources.

- A thoroughly accessible introduction to Julian's life and writings.

- An appendix of medieval and early modern records relating to Julian and her writings.

- An analytic bibliography of editions, translations, scholarly studies, and other works.

The most distinctive feature of this volume is the editors' approach to the manuscripts. Middle English editions habitually retain original spellings of their base manuscript intact and only emend that manuscript when its readings make no sense. At once more interventionist and more speculative, this edition synthesizes readings from all the surviving manuscripts, with careful justification of each choice involved in this process. For readers who are not concerned with textual matters, the result will be a more readable and satisfying text. For Middle English scholars, the edition is intended both as a hypothesis and as a challenge to the assumptions the field brings to the business of editing.