Short description
Presents interdisciplinary studies on medieval mystics and their cultural background.
Long description
Contemplative life in the middle ages has been the focus of much recent critical attention. The Symposium papers collected in this volume illuminate the mystical tradition through examination of written texts and material culture in the medieval period. A particular focus is on Celtic modes of witnessing to comtemplative vision from Ireland and Wales: an eighth-century account of voyages to wonders beyond the known world of Irish monasticism, and the work of Christian bards in medieval Wales. Distinctions within the mystical tradition in England are also explored both within differing Religious Orders and bewtween individuals engaged with the contemplative life. Dr MARION GLASSCOE teaches in the School of English and American Studies at the University of Exeter. Contributors: THOMAS O'LOUGHLIN, OLIVER DAVIES, R. IESTYN DANIEL, RUTH SMITH, VALERIE EDDEN, DENISE N. BAKER, DENIS RENEVEY, E.A. JONES, RICHARD LAWES, NAOE KUKITA YOSHIKAWA, C. ANNETTE GRISE, JAMES HOGG
Review
Summaries can only suggest the riches for the student of medieval mysticism and spirituality to be found... a collection which delights and instructs. JOURNAL OF ENGLISH & GERMANIC PHILOLOGYThe strength of this volume lies not only in the expansion of its geographical remit, but also in its embracing of some of the more neglected spiritual traditions and texts. NOTES & QUERIES
Table of contents
- Distant islands - the topography of holiness in the Nanigatio Sancti Brendani , Thomas O'Loughlin
- rhetoric of the gift - inspiration, pneumatology and poetic craft in medieval Wales, Oliver Davies
- medieval mysticism - an example from Wales, Iestyn Daniels
- Cistercian and Victorine approaches to contemplation - understandings of self in A Rule of Life for a Recluse and The Twelve Patriarchs , Ruth Smith
- the mantle of Elijah - Carmelite spirituality in England in the 14th century, Valerie Edden
- the active and contemplative lives in Rolle, the Cloud -author and Hilton, Denise M. Baker
- name above names -the devotion to the name of Jesu from Richard Rolle to Walter Hilton's Scale of Perfection I , Denis Renevey
- a new look into the Speculum Inclusorum , E.A. Jones
- the madness of Margery Kempe, Richard Lawes
- the role of the Virgin Mary and the structure of meditation in the Book of Margery Kempe , Naoe Kukita Yoshikawa
- In the Blessed Vyneyerd of Oure Holy Saueour - female religious readers and textual reception in the Myroure of Our Ladye and The Orcherd of Syon , C. Annette Grise
- Adam Easton's Defensorium Sanctae Birgittae , James Hogg.