IMC 2011: Sessions
Session 404: Religious Reading in the Late Middle Ages in City, Cloister, and Court: A Methodological Round Table Discussion
Monday 11 July 2011, 19.30-20.30
| Sponsor: | European Research Council, Research Project 'Holy Writ and Lay Readers' |
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| Organiser: | Sabrina Corbellini, Oudere Nederlandse Letterkunde Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Oude Kijk in 't Jatstraat 26 9712 EK GRONINGEN |
| Moderator/Chair: | Fiona Somerset, Department of English, Duke University, North Carolina |
| Abstract | The late Middle Ages are characterized by an 'oceanic' textual production, both in Latin and in the vernacular. A particularly high percentage of the circulating texts contained biblical or religious material. The wider dissemination of religious texts is related to a significant cultural transformation: the access to religious manuscripts and early printed books was no more the exclusive right of members of religious communities. Lay readers in late medieval cities and courts engaged, as well as nuns and monks, in a process of appropriation of religious knowledge which for a long time had nearly exclusively been accessible to a restricted elite of Latinate readers. But how were religious texts approached? Were there specific religious reading techniques? How can the approach to religious texts by different social and cultural groups be described? Participants include Sabrina Corbellini (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen), Ian Johnson (University of St Andrews), Matti Peikola (University of Turku), Kathryn Rudy (University of St Andrews), Elisabeth Salter (Aberystwyth University), and Elizabeth Solopova (University of Oxford). |