IMC 2011: Sessions

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 was no more the exclusive right of members of religious communities. Lay readers in late medieval cities and courts engaged, as well as nun and monks, in a process of appropriation of religious knowledge which for long time had nearly exclusively been accessible to a restricted elite of Latinate readers. But how were religious texts approached? Are there specific religious reading techniques? How can the approach to religious texts by different social and cultural groups be described? The sessions will concentrate on the reconstruction of the mediaeval religious reading experience, focussing on readers, reading instructions, and reading techniques. Specific attention in this session will be given to the Middle English texts and to the problematic relation of orthodoxy and heretodoxy in vernacular religious texts.