How you can Follow Us!
Medieval News
Literature Archive
-
The “Battle with the Monster”: Transformation of a Traditional Pattern in “The Dream of the Rood”
Posted on April 14, 2013 | No CommentsThus, although I would not suggest that “The Dream of the Rood” was composed orally in performance, it is, I would contend, oral-derived, and it is that presumption upon which this analysis is founded. The poem, in other words, straddles both worlds, having ties to both textuality and orality. -
The Greek Renaissance in Italy
Posted on April 14, 2013 | No CommentsFor various reasons north Italy toward the end of the fourteenth century seemed peculiarly adapted to become the seat of another classical renaissance, though of one some what different in character and results from that which had already run its course. -
Julian of Norwich’s “Christ as Mother” and Medieval Constructions of Gender
Posted on April 13, 2013 | No CommentsRecent Christian feminists have revived an interest in women mystics and feminine religious imagery. In light of what most people generalize about medieval misogyny and about the veneration of the Virgin as a surrogate for a female divinity, Julian of Norwich's trope of Christ as Mother seems even more remarkable. -
Wonders and Wisdom: Anglo-Saxons and the East
Posted on April 11, 2013 | No CommentsWhat the Anglo-Saxons ‘‘knew’’ about Moslems and Jews, and about Babylon and Egypt and India, depended upon Biblical exegesis, saints’ lives, and other texts derived from Latin sources. Numerous Old English texts, as well as Latin versions that circulated and were copied in Anglo-Saxon England, concern Asia; these are quite varied in genre and in content. -
The Voices of Counsel: Women and Civic Rhetoric in the Middle Ages
Posted on April 11, 2013 | No CommentsA full discussion of women’s civic rhetoric in the Middle Ages has been somewhat obfuscated for two reasons: persistent generalities about women’s roles, and generalities about the nature of the civic itself in the Middle Ages. -
The Rage of the Wolf: Metamorphosis and Identity in Medieval Werewolf Tales
Posted on April 11, 2013 | No CommentsThe werewolves of medieval literature were forced to conform to the Church's view of metamorphosis and, in so doing, transformed from bestial and savage to benevolent and rational. -
A Feminist Critique of Beowulf: Women as Peace-Weavers and Goaders in Beowulf’s Courts
Posted on April 9, 2013 | No CommentsThis thesis will examine the fundamental roles of women in the societies described in Beowulf, paying specific attention to the function as peace-weavers and goaders. -
Heorot and the Plundered Hoard: A Study of Beowulf
Posted on March 31, 2013 | No CommentsTime and again the Beowulf poet's choice of words and details reveals that he practised his craft within a tradition in which his creativeness was bound and disciplined by the objectiveness of a particular structure of images. We perceive in all the rich variety of his work the unifying effect of the typological imagination. It is in the typological mode of Beowulf that the key to its meaning and artistry is to be found. -
Chaucer, Gower, and What Medieval Women Want
Posted on March 27, 2013 | No CommentsGeoffrey Chaucer and John Gower, friends and colleagues, both chose to retell the same story at roughly the same time in their story collections, The Canterbury Tales and the Confessio Amantis. -
Relics and Reliquaries in the Vita Germani Auctore Constantio : the Capsula
Posted on March 24, 2013 | No CommentsIt is the sporadic presence of the term capsula in the Vita Germani, and in other texts contemporary to it, which indicates its importance in the history of Christian costume as described by Constantius. In what follows, I shall demonstrate through literary comparisons and historical linguistics how such an affirmation is not, in fact, a contradiction at all. -
A Fairy Tale from before Fairy Tales: Egbert of Liège’s “De puella a lupellis seruata” and the Medieval Background of “Little Red Riding Hood”
Posted on March 24, 2013 | No CommentsThe Fecunda ratis has been called 'a treasure trove for students of medieval folklore' for although Egbert drew extensively upon the Bible and patristic writings, he also relied heavily on the rich oral traditions that circulated in his region, -
Tenebrae Refulgeant: Celestial Signa in Gregory of Tours
Posted on March 24, 2013 | No CommentsCelestial portents appear frequently in the Historiae of Bishop Gregory of Tours (ca. 539–94). Gregory carefully distinguished between the interpretation of celestial signs and horoscopic astrology by describing signs as natural, albeit miraculous, elements of God's Creation. -
A tale of Wade: The Anglo-Saxon origin myth in an East Saxon setting
Posted on March 23, 2013 | No CommentsIn the past Walter Map's tale of Gado, included in his De Nugis Curialium, written towards the end of the twelfth century, has been merely regarded as a Medieval Latin version of a pre-conquest lay concerning the exploits of the Germanic hero Wade. However, if we look past the fantastic elements which surround him we are left with what appears to be an East Saxon version of the English settlement myth most familiar in the Kentish form involving Hengist and Vortigern, which itself seems to have been adopted from a common Germanic theme. -
Viking poetry of love and war – new book by Judith Jesch
Posted on March 18, 2013 | No CommentsThey are most famous for being violent invaders of foreign shores but a new book by a University of Nottingham Viking expert shows they were also poetry lovers with a wicked sense of humour! -
Chaucer’s Arthuriana
Posted on March 18, 2013 | No CommentsThe majority of medieval scholars, including Roger Sherman Loomis, argue that the popularity of the Arthurian legend in England was therefore on the wane in the latter half of the fourteenth century; as a result, the major writers of the period, such as John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer, refrained from penning anything beyond the occasional reference to King Arthur and his court. -
The Persuasive Power of a Mother’s Breast: The Most Desperate Act of the Virgin Mary’s Advocacy
Posted on March 17, 2013 | No CommentsThe image of the Virgo Lactans orMaria Lactans (the image of the Virgin Mary suckling the Child Jesus), which occurs as early as the third century in the catacomb of Priscilla inRome, later spread ing across Europe, is found in a number of Irish sources. -
Saga Motifs on Gotland Picture Stones: The Case of Hildr Högnadóttir
Posted on March 17, 2013 | No CommentsThis article will only examine one of these legends, namely the ‘Hildr legend’ in the context of two of these stones, lärbro stora hammars and stenkyrka smiss . An attempt will be made to place the images in a larger context than has been done before, and by doing so to strenghten the probability that they were indeed intended to refer to the original Hildr legend. -
Abelard’s Legacy: Why Theology is not Faith Seeking Understanding
Posted on March 17, 2013 | No CommentsIn this paper I will challenge the common definition of the theological task as faith seeking understanding, where the faith of a tradition commandeers the critical enquiry of the theologian. -
The Legend of the Purgatory of Saint Patrick: From Ireland to Dante and Beyond
Posted on March 17, 2013 | No Comments“Yes by Saint Patrick .... Touching this vision here It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you” (Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5) -
Contemplating the Evolution of Medieval Double-Entendre Literature
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsThe linguistic composition of the Exeter Book Riddles supports this, and in fact, the genre became a refuge for contemporary colloquial speech which was seen as coarse and lower class within the ideologies of Christianity and Germanic heroism. -
Interpreting Warfare and Knighthood in Late Medieval France: Writers and Their Sources in the Reign of King Charles VI (1380-1422)
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsRomances provided the basis of a particular kind of view of knighthood and warfare that was very influential on other literature concerning knights and warfare, as much as it was on real life practices and attitudes. -
Narratives of the saintly body in Anglo-Saxon England
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsThis dissertation investigates narratives of the saintly body in Anglo-Saxon England. Specifically, it examines the ways in which the bodies of holy men and women were constructed through such narratives and read in local appropriations of emblematic vitae and passiones. -
Reality and Truth in Thomas of York: Study and Text
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsThe investigation is conducted through a study of opposites into which being is divided. These opposites are principally the one and the many, potency and act, truth and falsity. -
Bernard of Morlaix: the literature of complaint, the Latin tradition and the twelfth-century “Renaissance”
Posted on March 9, 2013 | No CommentsBernard of Morlaix was a monk of the order of Cluny who flourished around 1140. Excerpts from one of his poems appear in some anthologies of medieval Latin verse1 and he is briefly noticed in some works on the twelfth-century renaissance, but he has received little critical attention and only one of his poems has been translated from the Latin. -
Celtic Search Talk III: Irish Classical Studies and the Irish History of Troy
Posted on March 8, 2013 | No CommentsThis was part of a series of papers given at the University of Toronto in competition for a position in the Celtic Studies department. This paper focused on the reception of literature and the reception of the classics in medieval Ireland.