This book gathers new work by scholars who share a common interest not only in the controversial texts of the period between 1378 and 1536, but also in how the use, geographical movement, and manipulation of texts contributed materially to the formation of groups and group identities. The period covered spans the traditional medieval/early modern divide and the concomitant transition from manuscript to print. The years between the eruption of the Great Schism and the outbreak of European reformations witnessed unprecedented rifts in communities, institutions, and alliances. Yet while the crises of this period gave rise to division, they also prompted new groups to coalesce, resulting in realignments of communication networks, readership, and textual circulation in Europe. The Councils of Constance and Basel facilitated the production and dissemination of vast quantities of documents. Movements challenging the Roman Church and efforts to reform the Church from within provoked a torrent of persuasive and polemical writings which gained further momentum with the introduction of printing. These new situations also fostered the development and expression of group identities, defined by doctrine, opposition, vernacularity, and a burgeoning sense of national self-consciousness. Religious Controversy in Europe, 1378-1536 examines the textual and material circumstances of these developments.

This volume presents the first study, critical edition, and translation of one of the earliest works by Richard Rolle (c. 1300-1349), a hermit and mystic whose works were widely read in England and on the European continent into the early modern period. Rolle's explication of the Old Testament Book of Lamentations gives us a glimpse of how the biblical commentary tradition informed what would become his signature mystical, doctrinal, and reformist preoccupations throughout his career. Rolle's English and explicitly mystical writings have been widely accessible for decades. Recent attention has turned again to his Latin commentaries, many of which have never been critically edited or thoroughly studied. This attention promises to give us a fuller sense of Rolle's intellectual, devotional, and reformist development, and of the interplay between his Latin and English writings. Richard Rolle: On Lamentations places Rolle's early commentary within a tradition of explication of the Lamentations of Jeremiah and in the context of his own career. The edition collates all known witnesses to the text, from Dublin, Oxford, Prague, and Cologne. A source apparatus as well as textual and explanatory notes accompany the edition.

This volume presents the first study, critical edition, and translation of one of the earliest works by Richard Rolle (c. 1300-1349), a hermit and mystic whose works were widely read in England and on the European continent into the early modern period. Rolle's explication of the Old Testament Book of Lamentations gives us a glimpse of how the biblical commentary tradition informed what would become his signature mystical, doctrinal, and reformist preoccupations throughout his career. Rolle's English and explicitly mystical writings have been widely accessible for decades. Recent attention has turned again to his Latin commentaries, many of which have never been critically edited or thoroughly studied. This attention promises to give us a fuller sense of Rolle's intellectual, devotional, and reformist development, and of the interplay between his Latin and English writings. Richard Rolle: On Lamentations places Rolle's early commentary within a tradition of explication of the Lamentations of Jeremiah and in the context of his own career. The edition collates all known witnesses to the text, from Dublin, Oxford, Prague, and Cologne. A source apparatus as well as textual and explanatory notes accompany the edition.

Traditional scholarship on manuscripts has tended to focus on issues concerning their production and has shown comparatively little interest in the cultural contexts of the manuscript book. The Medieval Manuscript Book redresses this by focusing on aspects of the medieval book in its cultural situations. Written by experts in the study of the handmade book before print, this volume combines bibliographical expertise with broader insights into the theory and praxis of manuscript study in areas from bibliography to social context, linguistics to location, and archaeology to conservation. The focus of the contributions ranges widely, from authorship to miscellaneity, and from vernacularity to digital facsimiles of manuscripts. Taken as a whole, these essays make the case that to understand the manuscript book it must be analyzed in all its cultural complexity, from production to transmission to its continued adaptation.

Traditional scholarship on manuscripts has tended to focus on issues concerning their production and has shown comparatively little interest in the cultural contexts of the manuscript book. The Medieval Manuscript Book redresses this by focusing on aspects of the medieval book in its cultural situations. Written by experts in the study of the handmade book before print, this volume combines bibliographical expertise with broader insights into the theory and praxis of manuscript study in areas from bibliography to social context, linguistics to location, and archaeology to conservation. The focus of the contributions ranges widely, from authorship to miscellaneity, and from vernacularity to digital facsimiles of manuscripts. Taken as a whole, these essays make the case that to understand the manuscript book it must be analyzed in all its cultural complexity, from production to transmission to its continued adaptation.

This is the first book-length study of the influential cultural and religious exchanges which took place between England and Bohemia following Richard II's marriage to Anne of Bohemia in 1382. The ensuing growth in communication between the two kingdoms initially enabled new ideas of religion to flourish in both countries but eventually led the English authorities to suppress heresy. This exciting project has been made possible by the discovery of new manuscripts after the opening up of Czech archives over the past twenty years. It is the only study to analyze the Lollard-Hussite exchange with an eye to the new opportunities for international travel and correspondence to which the Great Schism gave rise, and examines how the use of propaganda and The Council of Constance brought an end to this communication by securing the condemnation of heretics such as John Wyclif.

This is the first book-length study of the influential cultural and religious exchanges which took place between England and Bohemia following Richard II's marriage to Anne of Bohemia in 1382. The ensuing growth in communication between the two kingdoms initially enabled new ideas of religion to flourish in both countries but eventually led the English authorities to suppress heresy. This exciting project has been made possible by the discovery of new manuscripts after the opening up of Czech archives over the past twenty years. It is the only study to analyze the Lollard-Hussite exchange with an eye to the new opportunities for international travel and correspondence to which the Great Schism gave rise, and examines how the use of propaganda and The Council of Constance brought an end to this communication by securing the condemnation of heretics such as John Wyclif.

This volume brings together scholarship that discusses late-medieval religious controversy on a pan-European scale, with particular attention to developments in England, Bohemia, and at the general councils of the fifteenth century. Controversies such as those that developed in England and Bohemia have received ample attention for decades, and recent scholarship has introduced valuable perspectives and findings to our knowledge of these aspects of European religion, literature, history, and thought. Yet until recently, scholars working on these controversies have tended to work in regional isolation, a practice that has given rise to the impression that the controversies were more or less insular, their significance measured in terms of their local or regional influence. Europe After Wyclif was designed specifically to encourage analysis of cultural cross-currents-the ways in which regional controversies, while still products of their own environments and of local significance, were inseparable from cultural developments that were experienced internationally.