IMC 2003: Sessions
Session 801: Texts of Regulation and Instruction from the Medieval Northwest
Tuesday 15 July 2003, 16.30-18.00
Organiser: | Melanie Heyworth, Royal Holloway, University of London |
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Moderator/Chair: | Judy Quinn, Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse & Celtic, University of Cambridge |
Paper 801-b | Governing Morals and Moral Regulation in the Old English Penitentials (Language: English) Index terms: Gender Studies, Language and Literature - Old English, Social History |
Paper 801-c | Grammatical Instruction in Medieval Iceland: Some Observations Based on the Grammatical Treatises (Language: English) Index terms: Language and Literature - Scandinavian, Literacy and Orality |
Abstract | This session will examine forms of regulative and instructive discourse from Anglo-Saxon England and northwest Scandinavia. In the first two papers, homilies, Saint’s Lives and penitentials in Old English are analysed as ‘regulative’, and their function as instruments of social control considered. It will be argued that written documents of this type could be used to mediate normative discourses on gender and agency to particular social groups in the late Anglo-Saxon period. The third paper will examine the manuscript context and language of Old Icelandic grammars, and discuss how they might have been used in ecclesiastical and secular contexts. |