Books under suspicion : censorship and tolerance of revelatory writing in late medieval England / Kathryn Kerby-Fulton.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn, author.

Language:

English

Latin

Subjects (All):

Church history--Middle Ages, 600-1500.

Church history.

Christian literature--History and criticism.

Christian literature.

Visions in literature.

Censorship.

Christian literature, English (Middle).

Private revelations.

England--Intellectual life--1066-1485.

England.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (616 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Notre Dame, Indiana : University of Notre Press, [2006]

Summary:

Books under Suspicion: Censorship and Tolerance of Revelatory Writing in Late Medieval England examines the censorship issues that propelled the major writers of the period toward their massive use of visionary genres. Kathryn Kerby-Fulton suggests that writers and translators as different as Chaucer, Langland, Julian of Norwich, "M.N., " and Margery Kempe positioned their work to take advantage of the tacit toleration that both religious and secular authorities extended to revelatory theology. The book examines controversial ideas as diverse as the early experimental humanism of Chaucer, censured beatific vision theology and the breakdown of Langland's A Text, the English reception of M.N.'s translation of Marguerite Porete's condemned book, Julian's authorial suppression of her gender, and the impact of suspect Continental women's activism on Kempe. Kerby-Fulton also narrates success stories of intellectual freedom, tracing evidence of ecclesiastical tolerance of revelation, the impossibility of official censorship in a manuscript culture, and the powerful, protected reading circles for radical apocalypticism and mysticism, such as those of the Austins and the Carthusians. Until now, Wycliffism has been seen as the only significant unorthodox or radical body of writings in late medieval England. Books under Suspicion is the first comprehensive study of banned non-Wycliffite materials in Insular writing during the period of the Avignon and Great Schism papacies. This weighty, complex, and rewarding book makes use of neglected material in manuscripts and archives to reconstruct new aspects of the history of religious thought and vernacular writing in Ricardian and early Lancastrian England. As such it will interest scholars of late medieval religious history and Middle English literary history.

Contents:

A Word about Intellectual Freedom and Intolerable Tolerances in Schism England

Introduction

Silencing Optimism: The Criminalizing of Alternative Salvation Histories

“Through the Hiding of Books”: The Codicological Evidence for Joachite Franciscanism and Censorship in England before and after Wyclif

Two Thirteenth-Century Condemned Books and Their Revival: Amourian Eschatology, Antimendicant Polemic, and Ricardian Literature, 1358-89

“Extra Fidem Scripture”: Attitudes toward Non-Biblical Vision in Great Schism England and the Vogue for Hildegardiana

Visions from Prison: Intellectual Freedom and the Gift of “Intellectus Spiritualis”

Urban Devotion and Female Preaching: Constraint and Encouragement in England and Abroad

The M.N. Glosses to Porete 's Mirror and the Question of Insular Suspicion

Forensic Vision and Intellectual Vision: Julian's Self-Censorship and Books of Carthusian Transmission

Two Oxford Professors under Inquisition I: Ockham, Radical Salvation Theology, and the “Creation of Doubt” in Langland and Chaucer

Two Oxford Professors under Inquisition II: Uthred de Boldon's Visio Clara, Langland, and Liberal Salvation Theology

Concluding Thoughts.

Notes:

Copyright © 2006 by University of Notre Dame.

Published in the United States of America.

All royalties from the sale of this book will be donated to Amnesty International.

Paperback edition published in 2011.

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Includes bibliographical references (pages [502]-532) and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780268084592

0268084599

Publisher Number:

2027/heb08962 hdl