Books under Suspicion

Kathryn Kerby-Fulton

Description

Books under Suspicion: Censorship and Tolerance of Revelatory Writing in Late Medieval England examines the censorship issues that propelled the major writers of the period toward their massive use of visionary genres. Kathryn Kerby-Fulton suggests that writers and translators as different as Chaucer, Langland, Julian of Norwich, “M.N.,” and Margery Kempe positioned their work to take advantage of the tacit toleration that both religious and secular authorities extended to revelatory theology. The book examines controversial ideas as diverse as the early experimental humanism of Chaucer, censured beatific vision theology and the breakdown of Langland's A Text, the English reception of M.N.'s translation of Marguerite Porete's condemned book, Julian's authorial suppression of her gender, and the impact of suspect Continental women's activism on Kempe.

Kerby-Fulton also narrates success stories of intellectual freedom, tracing evidence of ecclesiastical tolerance of revelation, the impossibility of official censorship in a manuscript culture, and the powerful, protected reading circles for radical apocalypticism and mysticism, such as those of the Austins and the Carthusians. Until now, Wycliffism has been seen as the only significant unorthodox or radical body of writings in late medieval England. Books under Suspicion is the first comprehensive study of banned non-Wycliffite materials in Insular writing during the period of the Avignon and Great Schism papacies.

This weighty, complex, and rewarding book makes use of neglected material in manuscripts and archives to reconstruct new aspects of the history of religious thought and vernacular writing in Ricardian and early Lancastrian England. As such it will interest scholars of late medieval religious history and Middle English literary history.

Sujets

• mysticism
• Literary Criticism
• Medieval
• HISTORY
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Idioma inglés
• Idioma galés
• Edad Media
• Literature
• Censorship
• Langland
• Julian of Norwich
• Middle Ages
• Irish
• English
• European
• Margery Kempe
• Welsh
• Scottish
• Geoffrey Chaucer
• Musique irlandaise
• Anglais
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 15 novembre 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268084592
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 7 Mo

Extrait

Books under Suspicion

B O O K S u n d e r S u s p i c i o n

Censorship and Tolerance of Revelatory Writing in Late Medieval England

K A T H R Y N K E R B Y - F U L T O N

University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana

Copyright ©by University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana www.undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved

Publishedin the United States of America All royalties from the sale of this book will be donated to Amnesty International.

Paperback edition published in

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn. Books under suspicion : censorship and tolerance of revelatory writing in late medieval England / Kathryn Kerby-Fulton. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. -: ----(cloth : alk. paper)-: ---(cloth : alk. paper) -: ----(pbk : alk. paper)-: ---(pbk : alk. paper) . Private revelations.. Visions in literature.. Censorship.. Christian literature, English (Middle). Christian literature —History and criticism.—. England ‒.Middle Ages,. Church history— ‒Title.. I. .  .'— dc 

∞The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

For John

Sanctorum siquidem revelationes autenticas novimus, apocriphas non curamus. — John Pecham

Perhaps we might say that only when intelligent and educated men ceased to take prophecy seriously were the Middle Ages truly at an end. The contention here is that this change hinges on a change in our whole attitude to history and to our participation in it. — Marjorie Reeves

What π is metels bymene π , ye men π at ben murye, Deuyne ye, for I ne dar, by deere god in heuene. —Piers PlowmanB. Prol. ‒ 

We must recreate that modicum of

justice left to us.

— Simon Wiesenthal

List of Illustrations Acknowledgements

Co n t e n t s

Chronology of Non-Wycliffite Cases of Heresy and Related Events in Post-Conquest England and Ireland, with Other Relevant Dates

A Word about Intellectual Freedom and Intolerable Tolerances in Schism England

xiii xv

xix



Introduction The Dead under Inquisition The Failure of Censorship in a Manuscript Culture and Questions of Constraint on Authorship in Ricardian Literature A Word about Visionary Genres: Writing under Constraint and Recipes for Tolerance Non-Wycliffite Heresy in Late Medieval England

C H A P T E R O N E

Silencing Optimism: The Criminalizing of Alternative Salvation Histories Revelatory Theology and the Persecution of the Dead: Four Confiscated Non-Lollard Authors in Late Medieval England Two Twelfth-Century Visionaries under Papal Protection The Early History of Alternative Eschatology and Salvation Theologies: Pre-existing Rivals to Wycliffite Thought Joachim and Wyclif (or: Workman’s Shot in the Dark)



viii — C o n t e n t s

C H A P T E R T W O

“Through the Hiding of Books”: The Codicological Evidence for Joachite Franciscanism and Censorship in England before and after Wyclif “Abbatis Joachim dampnamus scripta”: England and the Suppression of Joachimism A Brief History of English Condemnations of Franciscan and Related Doctrines from Pope John XXII to Netter’sDoctrinale Marked by Suspicion: A Sampler of Mutilated Books, Hidden Authors, and Tolerant Patrons from the Edwardian to the Lancastrian Periods Benedictines and Universities: Early Lancastrian Clerical Attitudes from Alan of Lynn to Thomas Netter “Prophecie et Supersticiosa”: Franciscan and Austin Owners of Joachite Books and the Period of Avant-garde Disendowment Activism, ‒ 

C A S E S T U DY 1 of Dangerous Reading among EarlyPiersAudiences: The York Austins and “The Kingdom of the Holy Spirit” in Cambridge University Library Dd.i. A Suspect Joachite Schism Prophecy and Its Inquisitional History

C H A P T E R T H R E E



Two Thirteenth-Century Condemned Books and Their Revival: Amourian Eschatology, Antimendicant Polemic, and Ricardian Literature, ‒   Studying Revelatory Theology from Hostile Sources Gerard’s Condemned Book and Kilvington’s Copy of the Protocol of Anagni William of St. Amour’s Condemned Book and Tactical Eschatology: A Brief Background to theCondemnation In the Footsteps of William: FitzRalph, Kilvington, and the Condemnation of Friar John Two Condemned Books Revived: The Legacy of Gerard’sEvangelium eternum and William’sDe periculisin Jean de Meun, Chaucer, and Langland In the Footsteps of William Yet Again: Knighton’s Scandal of theEvangelium eternumand the Wycliffites as the NewJoachitae

C o n t e n t s — ix

C A S E S T U DY 2 of Dangerous Reading among EarlyPiersAudiences: Anglo-Irish Anti-Joachimism in the Cotton Cleopatra B.II Manuscript and a NewPiersTradition Poem(?) Suspect “Antimendicant Anti-Joachimism” and Cancelled Hiberno- English Poetry An Unnoticed Work of thePiersTradition? Cotton Cleopatra B.II’s Early Wycliffite Broadside “Heu quanta desolacio” and Apostasy Broadsides in Two Censured Manuscripts

C H A P T E R F O U R



“Extra Fidem Scripture”: Attitudes toward Non-Biblical Vision in Great Schism England and the Vogue for Hildegardiana The Background: Hildegard and the Laundering of Suspect Amourian Eschatology in University Polemics Hildegard and the Doctors: Academic Distrust of Revelatory Writing in Pecham, Wyclif, and Pecock Attitudes toward Vision in Medieval England and the Health of Intellectual Freedom, ‒

C H A P T E R F I V E

Visions from Prison: Intellectual Freedom and the Gift of “Intellectus Spiritualis” Spiritual Intellection, Rupescissa as a Prison Writer, and Two Orphans of Early Wycliffism The Road Not Taken: Early Wycliffism, Franciscan Joachimism, and the Limits of Tolerance An Early “Dialect” of Wycliffism: Representing Voices from Prison The Mystery of theOpusAuthor’s Identity Spiritual Intellection, the Imagination, and Langland’s Imaginatif

C A S E S T U DY 3 of Dangerous Reading among EarlyPiersAudiences: Arundel’s Other Constitutions and Religious Revelation as Refuge for Political Protest inPiersManuscript Bodley

