First published in 1902, this volume contains an extensive, technical scholarly introduction, followed by three Middle-English versions of the Rule of St. Benet along with the Northern Lansdowne Ritual on the reception of novices and the Vespasian Ritual of making a nun. As St Benet is the Medieval English version of St. Benedict, the original version of this text dates back to the 6th century.
First published in 1902, this volume contains an extensive, technical scholarly introduction, followed by three Middle-English versions of the Rule of St. Benet along with the Northern Lansdowne Ritual on the reception of novices and the Vespasian Ritual of making a nun. As St Benet is the Medieval English version of St. Benedict, the original version of this text dates back to the 6th century.
Discusses syntax and word order changes in Middle English dialects, with an emphasis on the shift from sentences where the object precedes the verb to those where the verb comes first, and considers pronouns and literary style.
Addressing questions about the musical life in English nunneries in the later Middle Ages, Yardley pieces together a mosaic of nunnery musical life, where even the smallest convents sang the monastic offices on a daily basis and many of the larger houses celebrated the late medieval liturgy in all of its complexity.
For the most part, the women portrayed have speak to us through intermediaries. Hildegard of Bingen, Christine de Pisan, and Ann Hutchinson's 'recusant nuns' may present themselves in their own words - though even here there are veils of concealment, dissimulation, assumption and presumption to be removed - but Chaucer's women, Chretien's patrons, Milton's Eve, the conflation of saints which comprises Wilgefortis, Ste Foy, and the imperious Theodora are presented in the words, works and social milieux of men. Where they are, ostensibly, given their own voices it is by male authors.
The papers collected in this volume were first presented at the 14th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (Bergamo, 2006). Alongside studies of syntax, morphology, lexis and semantics, published in two sister volumes, many innovative contributions focused on geo-historical variation in English. A carefully peer-reviewed selection, including two plenary lectures, appears here in print for the first time, bearing witness to the increasing scholarly interest in varieties of English other than so-called 'standard' English. In all the contributions, well-established methods of historical dialectology combine with new theoretical approaches, in an attempt to shed more light on phenomena that have hitherto remained unexplored, or have only just begun to be investigated. Perceptual dialectology is also taken into consideration, and state-of-the-art tools, such as electronic corpora and atlases, are employed consistently, ensuring the methodological homogeneity of the contributions.
The papers collected in this volume were first presented at the 14th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (Bergamo, 2006). Alongside studies of syntax, morphology, lexis and semantics, published in two sister volumes, many innovative contributions focused on geo-historical variation in English. A carefully peer-reviewed selection, including two plenary lectures, appears here in print for the first time, bearing witness to the increasing scholarly interest in varieties of English other than so-called ‘standard’ English. In all the contributions, well-established methods of historical dialectology combine with new theoretical approaches, in an attempt to shed more light on phenomena that have hitherto remained unexplored, or have only just begun to be investigated. Perceptual dialectology is also taken into consideration, and state-of-the-art tools, such as electronic corpora and atlases, are employed consistently, ensuring the methodological homogeneity of the contributions.
A detailed discussion of the meaning and significance of the terms used to describe the clothing of Chaucer's religious and academic pilgrims. Religious and academic dress in the middle ages functioned as a metaphorical signifier of spiritual and intellectual standards, implied a given social status, signalled the rejection or possession of garment wealth, and, in the details, suggested the wearer's spiritual state. This book presents the first sustained analysis of the characterizing dress worn by Chaucer's pilgrims who are in holy orders and/or affiliated with universities; the author uses approaches from a variety of disciplines [received criticism of late medieval literature, developments in political, economic and social history, the visual arts, and material culture] in order to present the complex ideas and rhetoric the pilgrims' dress expresses. She also makes the religious, intellectual, and material culture of Chaucer's day accessible to modern audiences through the reconstruction of the significance of fabrics, dyes, accessories, garments, and assembled costumes, and an explanation of technical details and specialist vocabularies for cloth-making, clothing, accessories, and their images in the visual arts.
