Feeling Like Saints

Fiona Somerset

Description

"Lollard" is the name given to followers of John Wyclif, the English dissident theologian who was dismissed from Oxford University in 1381 for his arguments regarding the eucharist. A forceful and influential critic of the ecclesiastical status quo in the late fourteenth century, Wyclif's thought was condemned at the Council of Constance in 1415. While lollardy has attracted much attention in recent years, much of what we think we know about this English religious movement is based on records of heresy trials and anti-lollard chroniclers. In Feeling Like Saints, Fiona Somerset demonstrates that this approach has limitations. A better basis is the five hundred or so manuscript books from the period (1375-1530) containing materials translated, composed, or adapted by lollard writers themselves.These writings provide rich evidence for how lollard writers collaborated with one another and with their readers to produce a distinctive religious identity based around structures of feeling. Lollards wanted to feel like saints. From Wyclif they drew an extraordinarily rigorous ethic of mutual responsibility that disregarded both social status and personal risk. They recalled their commitment to this ethic by reading narratives of physical suffering and vindication, metaphorically martyring themselves by inviting scorn for their zeal, and enclosing themselves in the virtues rather than the religious cloister. Yet in many ways they were not that different from their contemporaries, especially those with similar impulses to exceptional holiness.

Sujets

• History of religions
• Christianity

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 08 mai 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801470998
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

 FEELING LIKE SAINTS

FEELINGLIKESAINTS n LOL L ARD WRI T I NGS AFT E R WYCL I F

 F i on a S om e r se t

CORNELLUNIVERSITYPRESS Ithaca and London

Copyright©2014byCornellUniversity

Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsinareview, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

Firstpublished2014byCornellUniversityPress

PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data Somerset,Fiona,author.  Feeling like saints : lollard writings after Wyclif / Fiona Somerset.  pages cm  Includes bibliographical references and index.  ISBN 9780801452819 (cloth : alk. paper)  1. Lollards—Sources. 2. England—Church history—1066–1485. 3. Wycliffe, John, –1384. I.Title.  BX4901.3.S66 2014  284'.3—dc23 2013043186

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  Co nt e nt s

Acknowledgmentsvii ListofAbbreviationsxi

Introduction

Pa rt O n e 1. The Lollard Pastoral Program: Reform from Below 2. God’s Law: Loving, Learning, and Teaching 3. Lollard Prayer: Religious Practice and Everyday Life Pa rt Tw o 4. Lollard Tales 5. Lollard Parabiblia Pa r t Th r e e 6. Moral Fantasie: Normative Allegory in Lollard Writings 7. Lollard Forms of Living Conclusion

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25

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137 166

205 239 273

Bibliography285 Index307 Appendix A: Brief Descriptions of Frequently Cited Manuscripts http: //digitalcommons.uconn.edu/eng_suppub/1

AppendixB:ThePastoralSyllabusofSS74 andaDetailedSummaryoftheSermons http: //digitalcommons.uconn.edu/eng_suppub/2

  A c k n o w l e d g m e nt s

Formymanyinterlocutorsandreadersoverthe course of the time I have been writing this book: I know how much I have learned from you, and from your published work. There is little room left over in a long book for footnotes. My first draft was replete with descrip tions of your work, praise for your contributions to the field, and thanks for your generosity in conversation. Much of that is now gone, but I know my debts, and so do you. I can at least acknowledge some of them here. First, to institutions. I am grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for the generous threeyear research grant that allowed me to lay the ground work for this book. Duke University supported me generously with research leaves and grants: I am especially grateful to Maureen Quilligan, Karla Hollo way, Houston Baker, Priscilla Wald, Gregson Davis, and Srinivas Aravamudan for their support. A Faculty Book Manuscript Workshop grant from the Franklin Humanities Institute at Duke allowed me to present a full draft of the book to a range of colleagues outside my field: I thank Ian Baucom for administering this grant and chairing the session. The National Humanities Center provided me with a research leave in 2005–6 during which I was able to draft large parts of this book and finish two other books. I thank the mar vellous staff and especially the librarians of the center, who brokered many extended interlibrary loans for me. I am grateful to my new colleagues at the University of Connecticut for welcoming me and helping me to negotiate my move without losing research momentum, and to Wayne Franklin for finding me summer research support in 2012. We may all be grateful for a subvention from UCONN’s CLAS Book Support Award fund, which as sisted with production costs and has reduced the price of the resulting book. It is a pleasure to thank friends and colleagues, each named only once al though some have worn many hats. Those who taught me: Jay Schleusener, Christina von Nolcken, Andy Galloway, Pete Wetherbee, Tom Hill, Anne Hudson, Norman Kretzmann. Collaborators: Nicholas Watson, Jill Havens, Derrick Pitard,Patrick Hornbeck,Steve Lahey. Editors of my work:Margaret

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viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Aston, Colin Richmond,Renate BlumenfeldKosinski, Nancy Warren,Larry Scanlon, James Simpson, Helen Barr, Ann Hutchison, Mishtooni Bose, Amy Hollywood, Patricia Beckman, Alexandra Gillespie, Daniel Wakelin, Michael Van Dussen, Pavel Soukup, Caroline Palmer, Helen Spencer. Readers of drafts of this book, in whole or in part: Shannon McSheffrey, John Arnold, John Martin, Robert Swanson, Sarah McNamer, Rob Lutton, Dan Hobbins, Andrew Cole, Sarah Beckwith, Fred Biggs, Barbara Rosenwein. Fellows and helpers: Ralph Hanna, Margaret Connolly, Susan Einbinder, Liz Schirmer, Michael Kuczynski, Michael G. Sargent, Alastair Minnis, Louisa Burnham, Richard Firth Green, Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Wendy Scase, John Thomp son, Ruth Nisse, Mary Dove, Henry Ansgar Kelly, Sabrina Corbellini, Mau reen Jurkowski, Elisabeth Salter, Andrew Kraebel, Kathleen Kennedy, Matti Peikola, Kate Rudy, Nicole Rice, Amy Appleford, Robyn Malo, Simon Hunt, Vincent Gillespie, Kathryn KerbyFulton, Ryan Perry, Stephen Kelly, Mar griet Hoogvliet, Ethan Knapp, Mike Johnston, Caroline Bruzelius, Mark Pegg, Lucie Doležalová, Rachel Koopmans, Clare CostleyKing’oo, Ian Levy, Zach Stone, Fred Moten, Jehangir Malegam, William Reddy. Students, who are often readers and colleagues as well: Mary Raschko, Matt Irvin, Cord Whitaker, Jack Harding Bell, William Revere, Jim Knowles, David Watt, Heather Mitchell, Sarah McLaughlin, Leah Schwebel. Copyeditor extraor dinaire: Michael Cornett. At Cornell University Press, I thank Peter Potter for his editorial acumen and good advice, as well as Kitty Liu, Karen Hwa, Susan Barnett, and other production staff. ForpermissiontopublishexcerptsfrommanuscriptsintheircareIgladly acknowledge the Cambridge University Library and the Master and Fellows of Sidney Sussex College and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; Lambeth Palace Library; and in Oxford, the Bodleian Library as well as the Master and Fellows of Trinity College. My warm gratitude to the librar ies and librarians who have facilitated my research on this book would take pages to detail. Nopartofthisbookhasbeenpublishedbeforeinsimilarform.How ever, some claims and some turns of phrase may repeat those made in in troducing lollard writings to new audiences inWycliffite Spirituality(WS), in a forthcoming article on textual transmission first presented at a compara tive conference on religious controversy in Prague, and in a forthcoming contribution to conference proceedings from a comparative conference on fifteenthcentury religion in Bochum: “Textual Transmission, Variance, and Religious Identity among Lollard Pastoralia,” inReligious Controversy in Eu- rope, 1378–1536: Textual Transmission and Networks of ReadershipMichael, ed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS  ix

Van Dussen and Pavel Soukup (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 71–104; “Lol lards, Devotion, and Knowledge from an English Perspective,” inDieDevotio ModernaIris Kwiatkowski and , ed. Jörg Engelbrecht (Münster: Aschendorff, 2013), 141–55. I thank my collaborators, editors, and the audiences for this related work for helping me to hone the final form of the arguments pre sented here.