In tenth- and eleventh-century England, Anglo-Saxon Christians retained an old folk belief in elves as extremely dangerous creatures capable of harming unwary humans. To ward off the afflictions caused by these invisible beings, Christian priests modified traditional elf charms by adding liturgical chants to herbal remedies. In Popular Religion in Late Saxon England, Karen Jolly traces this cultural intermingling of Christian liturgy and indigenous Germanic customs and argues that elf charms and similar practices represent the successful Christianization of native folklore. Jolly describes a dual process of conversion in which Anglo-Saxon culture became Christianized but at the same time left its own distinct imprint on Christianity. Illuminating the creative aspects of this dynamic relationship, she identifies liturgical folk medicine as a middle ground between popular and elite, pagan and Christian, magic and miracle. Her analysis, drawing on the model of popular religion to redefine folklore and magic, reveals the richness and diversity of late Saxon Christianity.
"The Blickling Homilies, which date from the end of the tenth century, are one of the earliest extant collections of English vernacular homiletic writings. The homiletic texts survive in a composite codex consisting of Municipal Entries for the Council of Lincoln (fourteenth to seventeenth century), a Calendar (mid-fifteenth century), Gospel Oaths (early fourteenth century) and the eighteen homiletic texts that are based on the annual liturgical cycle. The Blickling Homilies are an important literary milestone in the early evolution of English prose." "The manuscript, in the William H. Scheide collection which is housed in Princeton University Library (MS. 71, s.x/xi), was edited in facsimile by Rudolph Willard and published as Volume 10 of Early English Manuscripts in Facsimile (Copenhagen, 1960). The previous edition of The Blickling Homilies is by Richard Morris, published as three volumes in 1874, 1876 and 1880 (reprinted as one volume in 1967) by the Early English Texts Society (London), though individual items from the collection have also been published in readers and anthologies." "This new edition makes certain corrections to Morris's editing of the manuscript and the translations are modernized and made more exact. It also formats both the original text and facing-page translation into paragraphs based on the considered opinion of the editor, which makes it easier to comprehend the flow of the prose. Finally, the text and translation are accompanied with a general introduction, textual notes, tables and charts, select bibliography and index."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Anglo-Saxon authorities often punished lawbreakers with harsh corporal penalties, such as execution, mutilation and imprisonment. Despite their severity, however, these penalties were not arbitrary exercises of power. Rather, they were informed by nuanced philosophies of punishment which sought to resolve conflict, keep the peace and enforce Christian morality. The ten essays in this volume engage legal, literary, historical, and archaeological evidence to investigate the role of punishment in Anglo-Saxon society. Three dominant themes emerge in the collection. First is the shift from a culture of retributive feud to a system of top-down punishment, in which penalties were imposed by an authority figure responsible for keeping the peace. Second is the use of spectacular punishment to enhance royal standing, as Anglo-Saxon kings sought to centralize and legitimize their power. Third is the intersection of secular punishment and penitential practice, as Christian authorities tempered penalties for material crime with concern for the souls of the condemned. Together, these studies demonstrate that in Anglo-Saxon England, capital and corporal punishments were considered necessary, legitimate, and righteous methods of social control. Jay Paul Gates is Assistant Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in The City University of New York; Nicole Marafioti is Assistant Professor of History and co-director of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Contributors: Valerie Allen, Jo Buckberry, Daniela Fruscione, Jay Paul Gates, Stefan Jurasinski, Nicole Marafioti, Daniel O'Gorman, Lisi Oliver, Andrew Rabin, Daniel Thomas.
Pastoral Care, or The Book of the Pastoral Rule, is a treatise on the responsibilities of the clergy written by Pope Gregory I in which he contrasted the role of bishops as pastors of their flock with their position as nobles of the church: the definitive statement of the nature of the episcopal office. Gregory enjoined parish priests to possess strict personal, intellectual and moral standards which were considered, in certain quarters, to be unrealistic and beyond ordinary capacities. The influence of the book, however, was vast and became one of the most influential works on the topic ever written. It was translated and distributed to every bishop within the Byzantine Empire.
It is the 830s; a time of warring Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, declining monastic standards and outbursts of fear of divine retribution. Elmstow Minster – a community of nuns in the Kingdom of the East Angles – has been recently established to atone for the execution of a young prince. The minster is torn between two camps – pious nuns and those who have no intention of giving up their worldly ways. These ungodly women are supported by powerful, degenerate donors, who treat Elmstow as an aristocratic whoring nest. The abbess of Elmstow has been humiliated by the influence wielded over her minster by these rich patrons and plots revenge. Two naked bodies are discovered, hanged together. A young, introspective priest, Father Eadred, is sent to Elmstow to spy on the declining standards and against his wishes becomes entangled in the task of uncovering the guilty. He challenges the traditional approach of using an ordeal of hot iron to identify the culprits. Instead, he has the novel idea of exploring the evidence. He faces significant opposition, including an attempt on his life. Eadred is befriended by a hermit monk who becomes the only person with whom he can talk about his detection. Further murders will take place. As Eadred moves closer to the truth the situation is thrown into further disarray when the minster is attacked by the neighbouring kingdom. Can they be saved and the final culprit revealed?
"This volume, containing the revised and expanded versions of eight papers originally presented at a workshop held at the Warburg Institute in June 2012, addresses the question of uncertainty in early modern scholarship and thought. This and other related concepts conventionally assigned to the sceptical tradition are identified and explored in the activity of scholars and editors, whose varying degree of philosophical awareness does not detract from the significance of their ways of conceiving, or coping with, textual uncertainty. The methods of the history of ideas and of classical scholarship are combined in an effort to bring out the methodological assumptions of specific philological projects, editorial strategies and technical devices, as well as to track their possible overlap and interplay with patterns of thought revolving around notions such as uncertainty and conjectural knowledge. The eight papers confront an array of problems, texts, scholars and intellectual contexts, from introductory assessments of the nature of Greek scepticism, particularly in its relation to ancient grammar and medieval thought, to in-depth analyses of the semantic family of uncertainty, as well as of the notion of divination; from case studies of the textual transmission, and relevant editorial problems, of Seneca and Lucretius, to explorations of larger debates in the area of biblical philology, with special attention paid to key figures such as Patrick Young, Richard Bentley and Anthony Collins."--P. [4] of cover.