The Church and Vernacular Literature in Medieval France

The Church and Vernacular Literature in Medieval France PDF Author: Dorothea Kullmann
Publisher: PIMS
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
The rapid rise of vernacular literature in medieval France, within a culture which continued to acknowledge Latin as its vehicular language, is a fact that literary historians tend too easily to take for granted. Within a relatively short period, stretching roughly from the end of the eleventh century to the thirteenth century, French and Occitan literatures acquired an output and a level of sophistication that made them the leading models for other European literatures. New genres and new subject matters appear one after the other; new ideologies (such as the concept of love developed by the troubadours) are first expressed in vernacular creations; and even learned Latin authors soon feel obliged to take notice of these developments. Should we describe this astonishing chapter of cultural history as the development of a 'lay', or 'profane', literature alongside a Church-dominated learned and religious one, or as the emancipation of vernacular literature from the tutorship of the Church? Is the borderline between 'lay' and 'religious' texts and genres really as clear-cut as some literary histories would make us believe? How then did these new genres of written literature come into being in a culture in which the Church held the monopoly on education, including training in writing? Did the Church as an institution play any role in the birth and expansion of vernacular literature? In the present volume, specialists from the disciplines of linguistics, literature, history and musicology address the various aspects of this complex of questions. The examples studied here are witnesses not only to a constant interaction between lay and religious cultures but also to the productive tension that resulted from the particular situation of the Church in medieval France.

The Church and Vernacular Literature in Medieval France

The Church and Vernacular Literature in Medieval France PDF Author: Dorothea Kullmann
Publisher: PIMS
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
The rapid rise of vernacular literature in medieval France, within a culture which continued to acknowledge Latin as its vehicular language, is a fact that literary historians tend too easily to take for granted. Within a relatively short period, stretching roughly from the end of the eleventh century to the thirteenth century, French and Occitan literatures acquired an output and a level of sophistication that made them the leading models for other European literatures. New genres and new subject matters appear one after the other; new ideologies (such as the concept of love developed by the troubadours) are first expressed in vernacular creations; and even learned Latin authors soon feel obliged to take notice of these developments. Should we describe this astonishing chapter of cultural history as the development of a 'lay', or 'profane', literature alongside a Church-dominated learned and religious one, or as the emancipation of vernacular literature from the tutorship of the Church? Is the borderline between 'lay' and 'religious' texts and genres really as clear-cut as some literary histories would make us believe? How then did these new genres of written literature come into being in a culture in which the Church held the monopoly on education, including training in writing? Did the Church as an institution play any role in the birth and expansion of vernacular literature? In the present volume, specialists from the disciplines of linguistics, literature, history and musicology address the various aspects of this complex of questions. The examples studied here are witnesses not only to a constant interaction between lay and religious cultures but also to the productive tension that resulted from the particular situation of the Church in medieval France.

The Refrain and the Rise of the Vernacular in Medieval French Music and Poetry

The Refrain and the Rise of the Vernacular in Medieval French Music and Poetry PDF Author: Jennifer Saltzstein
Publisher: DS Brewer
ISBN: 1843843498
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
A survey of the use of the refrain in thirteenth and fourteenth-century French music and poetry, showing how it was skilfully deployed to assert the validity of the vernacular. The relationship between song quotation and the elevation of French as a literary language that could challenge the cultural authority of Latin is the focus of this book. It approaches this phenomenon through a close examination of the refrain, a short phrase of music and text quoted intertextually across thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century musical and poetic genres. The author draws on a wide range of case studies, from motets, trouvère song, plays, romance, vernacular translations, and proverb collections, to show that medieval composers quoted refrains as vernacular auctoritates; she argues that their appropriation of scholastic, Latinate writing techniques workedto authorize Old French music and poetry as media suitable for the transmission of knowledge. Beginning with an exploration of the quasi-scholastic usage of refrains in anonymous and less familiar clerical contexts, the book goeson to articulate a new framework for understanding the emergence of the first two named authors of vernacular polyphonic music, the cleric-trouvères Adam de la Halle and Guillaume de Machaut. It shows how, by blending their craftwith the writing practices of the universities, composers could use refrain quotation to assert their status as authors with a new self-consciousness, and to position works in the vernacular as worthy of study and interpretation. Jennifer Saltzstein is Assistant Professor of Musicology at the University of Oklahoma.

Sacred Fictions of Medieval France

Sacred Fictions of Medieval France PDF Author: Maureen Barry McCann Boulton
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1843844141
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
A study of the immensely popular "lives" of Christ and the Virgin in medieval France.

Medieval Crossover

Medieval Crossover PDF Author: Barbara Newman
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268161402
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 416

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Book Description
The sacred and the secular in medieval literature have too often been perceived as opposites, or else relegated to separate but unequal spheres. In Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular against the Sacred, Barbara Newman offers a new approach to the many ways that sacred and secular interact in medieval literature, arguing that (in contrast to our own cultural situation) the sacred was the normative, unmarked default category against which the secular always had to define itself and establish its niche. Newman refers to this dialectical relationship as "crossover"—which is not a genre in itself, but a mode of interaction, an openness to the meeting or even merger of sacred and secular in a wide variety of forms. Newman sketches a few of the principles that shape their interaction: the hermeneutics of "both/and," the principle of double judgment, the confluence of pagan material and Christian meaning in Arthurian romance, the rule of convergent idealism in hagiographic romance, and the double-edged sword in parody. Medieval Crossover explores a wealth of case studies in French, English, and Latin texts that concentrate on instances of paradox, collision, and convergence. Newman convincingly and with great clarity demonstrates the widespread applicability of the crossover concept as an analytical tool, examining some very disparate works. These include French and English romances about Lancelot and the Grail; the mystical writing of Marguerite Porete (placed in the context of lay spirituality, lyric traditions, and the Romance of the Rose); multiple examples of parody (sexually obscene, shockingly anti-Semitic, or cleverly litigious); and René of Anjou's two allegorical dream visions. Some of these texts are scarcely known to medievalists; others are rarely studied together. Newman's originality in her choice of these primary works will inspire new questions and set in motion new fields of exploration for medievalists working in a large variety of disciplines, including literature, religious studies, history, and cultural studies.

Cultures of Religious Reading in the Late Middle Ages

Cultures of Religious Reading in the Late Middle Ages PDF Author: Sabrina Corbellini
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Read often, learn all that you can. Let sleep overcome you, the roll still in your hands; when your head falls, let it be on the sacred page. - St Jerome, 384 AD With these words, the Church Father Jerome exhorted the young Eustochium to find on the sacred page the spiritual nourishment that would give her the strength to live a life of chastity and to keep her monastic vows. His call to read does not stand alone. Books and reading have always played a pivotal role in early and medieval Christianity, often defined as 'a religion of the book'. A second important stage in the development of the 'religion of the book' can be attested in the late Middle Ages, when religious reading was no longer the exclusive right of men and women living in solitude and concentrating on prayer and meditation. Changes in the religious landscape and the birth of new religious movements transformed the medieval town into a privileged area of religious activity. Increasing literacy opened the door to a new and wider public of lay readers. This seminal transformation in the late medieval cultural horizon saw the growing importance of the vernacular, the cultural and religious emancipation of the laity, and the increasing participation of lay people in religious life and activities. This volume presents a new, interdisciplinary approach to religious reading and reading techniques in a lay environment within late medieval textual, social, and cultural transformations.

Medieval French Interlocutions

Medieval French Interlocutions PDF Author: Jane Gilbert
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
ISBN: 1914049144
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Specialists in other languages offer perspectives on the widespread use of French in a range of contexts, from German courtly narratives to biblical exegesis in Hebrew. French came into contact with many other languages in the Middle Ages: not just English, Italian and Latin, but also Arabic, Dutch, German, Greek, Hebrew, Irish, Occitan, Sicilian, Spanish and Welsh. Its movement was impelled by trade, pilgrimage, crusade, migration, colonisation and conquest, and its contact zones included Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities, among others. Writers in these contact zones often expressed themselves and their worlds in French; but other languages and cultural settings could also challenge, reframe or even ignore French-users' prestige and self-understanding. The essays collected here offer cross-disciplinary perspectives on the use of French in the medieval world, moving away from canonical texts, well-known controversies and conventional framings. Whether considering theories of the vernacular in Outremer, Marco Polo and the global Middle Ages, or the literary patronage of aristocrats and urban patricians, their interlocutions throw new light on connected and contested literary cultures in Europe and beyond.

Form and Function in the Late Medieval Bible

Form and Function in the Late Medieval Bible PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004248897
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
Thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Latin Bibles survive in hundreds of manuscripts, one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages. Their innovative layout and organization established the norm for Bibles for centuries to come. This volume is the first study of these Bibles as a cohesive group. Multi- and inter-disciplinary analyses in art history, liturgy, exegesis, preaching and manuscript studies, reveal the nature and evolution of layout and addenda. They follow these Bibles as they were used by monks and friars, preachers and merchants. By addressing Latin Bibles alongside their French, Italian and English counterparts, this book challenges the Latin-vernacular dichotomy to show links, as well as discrepancies, between lay and clerical audiences and their books. Contributors include Peter Stallybrass, Diane Reilly, Paul Saenger, Richard Gameson, Chiara Ruzzier, Giovanna Murano, Cornelia Linde, Lucie Doležalová, Laura Light, Eyal Poleg, Sabina Magrini, Sabrina Corbellini, Margriet Hoogvliet, Guy Lobrichon, Elizabeth Solopova, and Matti Peikola.

A Bibliographical Guide to the Study of Troubadours and Old Occitan Literature

A Bibliographical Guide to the Study of Troubadours and Old Occitan Literature PDF Author: Robert A Taylor
Publisher: Medieval Institute Publications
ISBN: 1580442080
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 594

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Book Description
Although it seemed in the mid-1970s that the study of the troubadours and of Occitan literature had reached a sort of zenith, it has since become apparent that this moment was merely a plateau from which an intensive renewal was being launched. In this new bibliographic guide to Occitan and troubadour literature, Robert Taylor provides a definitive survey of the field of Occitan literary studies - from the earliest enigmatic texts to the fifteenth-century works of Occitano-Catalan poet Jordi de Sant Jordi - and treats over two thousand recent books and articles with full annotations. Taylor includes articles on related topics such as practical approaches to the language of the troubadours and the musicology of select troubadour songs, as well as articles situated within sociology, religious history, critical methodology, and psychoanalytical analysis. Each listing offers descriptive comments on the scholarly contribution of each source to Occitan literature, with remarks on striking or controversial content, and numerous cross-references that identify complementary studies and differing opinions. Taylor's painstaking attention to detail and broad knowledge of the field ensure that this guide will become the essential source for Occitan literary studies worldwide.

Medieval Francophone Literary Culture Outside France

Medieval Francophone Literary Culture Outside France PDF Author: Nicola Morato
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
ISBN: 9782503554440
Category : Criticism, interpretation, etc
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In medieval Europe, cultural, political, and linguistic identities rarely coincided with modern national borders. As early as the end of the twelfth century, French rose to prominence as a lingua franca that could facilitate communication between people, regardless of their origin, background, or community. Between the twelfth and fifteenth centuries, literary works were written or translated into French not only in France but also across Europe, from England and the Low Countries to as far afield as Italy, Cyprus, and the Holy Land. Many of these texts had a broad European circulation and for well over three hundred years they were transmitted, read, studied, imitated, and translated.00Drawing on the results of the AHRC-funded research project Medieval Francophone Literary Culture Outside France, this volume aims to reassess medieval literary culture and explore it in a European and Mediterranean setting. The book, incorporating nineteen papers by international scholars, explores the circulation and production of francophone texts outside of France along two major axes of transmission: one stretching from England and Normandy across to Flanders and Burgundy, and the other running across the Pyrenees and Alps from the Iberian Peninsula to the Levant. In doing so, it offers new insights into how francophone literature forged a place for itself, both in medieval textual culture and, more generally, in Western cultural spheres.

Translating "Clergie"

Translating Author: Claire M. Waters
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812247728
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
In Translating "Clergie," Claire M. Waters explores medieval texts in French verse and prose from England and the Continent that perform and represent the process of teaching as a shared lay and clerical endeavor.