Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations and Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- General Introduction: What's in a Name: the ‘French’ of ‘England’
- Section I Language and Socio-Linguistics
- Section II Crossing the Conquest: New Linguistic and Literary Histories
- Section III After Lateran IV: Francophone Devotions and Histories
- Introduction
- ‘Cest livre liseez … chescun jour’: Women and Reading c.1230–c.1430
- 19 French Devotional Texts in Thirteenth-Century Preachers' Anthologies
- 20 Augustinian Canons and their Insular French Books in Medieval England: Towards An Assessment
- 21 Eschuer peché, embracer bountee: Social Thought and Pastoral Instruction in Nicole Bozon
- 22 The Cultural Context of the French Prose remaniement of the Life of Edward the Confessor by a Nun of Barking Abbey
- 23 The Vitality of Anglo-Norman in Late Medieval England: The Case of the Prose Brut Chronicle
- 24 France in England: Anglo-French Culture in the Reign of Edward III
- 25 Lollardy: The Anglo-Norman Heresy?
- 26 The Languages of Memory: The Crabhouse Nunnery Manuscript
- Section IV England and French in the late Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
- Bibliography
- Index of Primary Texts and Manuscripts
- Index of Primary Authors
- General Index: Persons and Places, Subjects
- YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS: PUBLICATIONS
19 - French Devotional Texts in Thirteenth-Century Preachers' Anthologies
from Section III - After Lateran IV: Francophone Devotions and Histories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations and Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- General Introduction: What's in a Name: the ‘French’ of ‘England’
- Section I Language and Socio-Linguistics
- Section II Crossing the Conquest: New Linguistic and Literary Histories
- Section III After Lateran IV: Francophone Devotions and Histories
- Introduction
- ‘Cest livre liseez … chescun jour’: Women and Reading c.1230–c.1430
- 19 French Devotional Texts in Thirteenth-Century Preachers' Anthologies
- 20 Augustinian Canons and their Insular French Books in Medieval England: Towards An Assessment
- 21 Eschuer peché, embracer bountee: Social Thought and Pastoral Instruction in Nicole Bozon
- 22 The Cultural Context of the French Prose remaniement of the Life of Edward the Confessor by a Nun of Barking Abbey
- 23 The Vitality of Anglo-Norman in Late Medieval England: The Case of the Prose Brut Chronicle
- 24 France in England: Anglo-French Culture in the Reign of Edward III
- 25 Lollardy: The Anglo-Norman Heresy?
- 26 The Languages of Memory: The Crabhouse Nunnery Manuscript
- Section IV England and French in the late Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
- Bibliography
- Index of Primary Texts and Manuscripts
- Index of Primary Authors
- General Index: Persons and Places, Subjects
- YORK MEDIEVAL PRESS: PUBLICATIONS
Summary
Informally produced miscellanies originating in late twelfth- and thirteenth-century Britain constitute an under-exploited resource for the study of medieval literate society. Often written by a number of scribes over a period of time, these books can be particularly difficult to date or localize, although it seems that – in the main – they were produced within religious communities and most often small houses or dependent cells. Their script, layout and production are all of fairly modest standards, and they seem to have been practical books, for those whose access to more extensive textual resources may have been limited. What the manuscripts lack in elegance of presentation, though, they more than make up for in their rich variety of devotional and doctrinal contents, which point to a wide range of practical uses including, but not limited to, preaching. Within this group, the two manuscripts to be considered here, London, British Library, MS Harley 524 and Maidstone Museum, MS A.13, are relatively unusual in including material in French among their primarily Latin contents. This essay endeavours to show that the multilingual contents of these anthologies shed new light on the transmission of pastoral literature in the vibrant devotional culture of the thirteenth century.
British Library, MS Harley 524 is a collection of hundreds of short texts on devotional, moral and liturgical topics. It was written in England by a number of mid-thirteenth century scribes, whose textura hands are – while not poor – at least informal in execution.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Language and Culture in Medieval BritainThe French of England, c.1100–c.1500, pp. 254 - 265Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2009