This study outlines the history and anatomy of the European apology tradition from the sixth century BCE to 1500 for the first time. The study examines the vernacular and Latin tales, lyrics, epics, and prose compositions of Arabic, English, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Italian, Spanish, and Welsh authors. Three different strands of the apology tradition can be proposed. The first and most pervasive strand features apologies to pagan deities and-later-to God. The second most important strand contains literary apologies made to an earthly audience, usually of women. A third strand occurs more rarely and contains apologies for varying literary offenses that are directed to a more general audience. The medieval theory of language privileges an imitation of the Christian master narrative and a hierarchical medieval view of authorship. These notions express a medieval philosophical concern about language and its role, and therefore the role of the author, in cosmic history. Despite the fact that women apologize for different purposes and reasons, their examples illustrate, on yet another level, the antifeminist subtext inherent in the entire apology tradition. Overall, the apology tradition characterized by interauctoriality, intertextuality, and intratextuality, enables self-critical authors to refer not only backward but also-primarily-forward, making the medieval apology a progressive strategy that engenders new literature. This study would be relevant to all medievalists, especially those interested in literature and the history of ideas.

This study outlines the history and anatomy of the European apology tradition from the sixth century BCE to 1500 for the first time. The study examines the vernacular and Latin tales, lyrics, epics, and prose compositions of Arabic, English, French, German, Greek, Icelandic, Italian, Spanish, and Welsh authors. Three different strands of the apology tradition can be proposed. The first and most pervasive strand features apologies to pagan deities and-later-to God. The second most important strand contains literary apologies made to an earthly audience, usually of women. A third strand occurs more rarely and contains apologies for varying literary offenses that are directed to a more general audience. The medieval theory of language privileges an imitation of the Christian master narrative and a hierarchical medieval view of authorship. These notions express a medieval philosophical concern about language and its role, and therefore the role of the author, in cosmic history. Despite the fact that women apologize for different purposes and reasons, their examples illustrate, on yet another level, the antifeminist subtext inherent in the entire apology tradition. Overall, the apology tradition characterized by interauctoriality, intertextuality, and intratextuality, enables self-critical authors to refer not only backward but also-primarily-forward, making the medieval apology a progressive strategy that engenders new literature. This study would be relevant to all medievalists, especially those interested in literature and the history of ideas.

Die neue englischsprachige Reihe zur Mediävistik strebt eine methodisch reflektierte, anspruchsvolle Verbindung von Text- und Kulturwissenschaft an. Sie widmet sich den kulturellen Grundthemen der mittelalterlichen Welt aus der Perspektive der Literatur- und Geschichtswissenschaft. ‚Grundthemen' sind die kulturprägenden Denkbilder, Weltanschauungen, Sozialstrukturen und Alltagsbedingungen des mittelalterlichen Lebens, also z. B. Kindheit und Alter, Sexualität, Religion, Medizin, Rituale, Arbeit, Armut und Reichtum, Aberglauben, Erde und Kosmos, Stadt und Land, Krieg, Emotionen, Kommunikation, Reisen usw. Die Reihe greift wichtige aktuelle Fachdiskussionen auf und stellt ein Forum der interdisziplinären Mittelalter-Forschung dar. Fundamentals of Medieval and Early Modern Culture steht Sammelbänden ebenso offen wie Monographien. Intention ist immer, kompendienhafte Werke zu zentralen Fragen der mittelalterlichen Kulturgeschichte vorzulegen, die einen soliden Überblick über einen geschlossenen Themenkreis aus der Perspektive verschiedener Fachdisziplinen vermitteln. Im Ganzen bietet die Reihe so eine Enzyklopädie der mittelalterlichen Literatur- und Kulturgeschichte und ihrer Hauptthemen. Es werden ca. zwei Bände pro Jahr erscheinen.

Essays re-examining the Legend of Good Women, placing it in its cultural and historical context.

Each chapter focuses on a particular epistolary exchange in its intellectual and cultural context, from Baudri of Bourgueil and Constance of Angers, through Heloise and Abelard, Christine de Pizan's participation in the querelle du Roman de la rose, Marguerite de Navarre and Guillaume Briconnet, to Michel de Montaigne and Etienne de la Boetie, emphasizing the importance of letter writing in pre-modern French culture and tracing a selective yet significant history of the letter, contributing to our understanding of the development of the epistolary genre, and the pre-modern self --Book Jacket.

The current focus on the theme of authorship in Medieval and Early Modern studies reopens questions of poetic agency and intent. Bringing into conversation several kinds of scholarship on medieval authorship, the essays in Author, Reader, Book examine interrelated questions raised by the relationship between an author and a reader, the relationships between authors and their antecedents, and the ways in which authorship interacts with the physical presentation of texts in books. The broad chronological range within this volume reveals the persistence of literary concerns that remain consistent through different periods, languages, and cultural contexts. Theoretical reflections, case studies from a wide variety of languages, examinations of devotional literature from figures such as Bishop Reginald Pecock, and analyses of works that are more secular in focus, including some by Chaucer and Christine de Pizan, come together in this volume to transcend linguistic and disciplinary boundaries.

This book explores womena (TM)s experiences of pilgrimage in Latin Christendom between 1300 and 1500 C.E. Later medieval authors harbored grave doubts about womena (TM)s mobility; literary images of mobile women commonly accused them of lust, pride, greed, and deceit. Yet real women commonly engaged in pilgrimage in a variety of forms, both physical and spiritual, voluntary and compulsory, and to locations nearby and distant. Acting within both practical and social constraints, such women helped to construct more positive interpretations of their desire to travel and of their experiences as pilgrims. Regardless of how their travel was interpreted, those women who succeeded in becoming pilgrims offer us a rare glimpse of ordinary women taking on extraordinary religious and social authority.

Reassess medieval literature and the relationship between writers and power in England by arguing that major works commissioned by or written for a succession of Lancastrians--Henry IV, Henry V, Henry VI, and Prince Edward--reveal that John Gower, Thomas Hoccleve, John Lydgate, and John Fortescue were not propagandists.

An in-depth study of early modern women's modesty rhetoric from the English Reformation to the Restoration. This book provides new readings of modesty's gendered deployment in the works of Anne Askew, Katharine Parr, Mary Sidney, Aemilia Lanyer and Anne Bradstreet.

This book examines the scholarly construction of Geoffrey Chaucer in different historical eras, and challenges long-standing assumptions to enhance the theoretical dialogue on Chaucer's historical reception.