E.A. Jones (Editor)
Hardcover: 226 pages
Publisher: D.S.Brewer (16 May 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1843843404
ISBN-13: 978-1843843405
Mystical writing flourished between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries across Europe and in England, and had a wide influence on religion and spirituality. This volume examines a range of topics within the field. The five “Middle English Mystics” (Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, the author of The Cloud of Unknowing, Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe) receive renewed attention, with significant new insights generated by fresh theoretical approaches. In addition, there are studies of the relationships between continental and English mystical authors, introductions to some less well-known writers in the tradition (such as the Monk of Farne), and explorations around the fringes of the mystical canon, including Middle English translations of Boethius, Lollard spirituality, and the Syon brother Richard Whytford’s writings for a sixteenth-century “mixed life” audience.
E. A. Jones is Senior Lecturer in English Medieval Literature and Culture at the University of Exeter. Contributors: Christine Cooper-Rompato, Vincent Gillespie, C. Annette Grisé, Ian Johnson, Sarah Macmillan, Liz Herbert McAvoy, Nicole R. Rice, Maggie Ross, Steven Rozenski Jr, David Russell, Michael G. Sargent, Christiana Whitehead.
Contents
1 Introduction
2 The Colours of Contemplation: Less Light on Julian of Norwich
3 Behold Not the Cloud of Experience
4 Walter Hilton on the Gift of Interpretation of Scripture
5 Numeracy and Number in The Book of Margery Kempe
6 Religious Mystical Mothers: Margery Kempe and Caterina Benincasa
7 Authority and Exemplarity in Henry Suso and Richard Rolle
8 Mortifying the Mind: Asceticism, Mysticism and Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Douce 114
9 The Meditaciones of the Monk of Farne
10 Envisioning Reform: A Revelation Of Purgatory and Anchoritic Compassioun in the Later Middle Ages
11 Walton’s Heavenly Boece and the Devout Translation of Transcendence: O Qui Perpetua Pietised
12 Reformist Devotional Reading: The Pore Caitif in British Library, MS Harley 2322
13 Richard Whytford, The Golden Epistle, and the Mixed Life Audience
