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IMC 2011: Sessions

Session 715: Discovering the Riches of the Word: Religious Reading in the Late Middle Ages in City, Cloister, and Court, IV - Text and Paratext

Tuesday 12 July 2011, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:European Research Council, Research Project 'Holy Writ and Lay Readers'
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
Paper 715-aThe Vernacular Bible and Its Readers in the Interwoven Urban Milieu of the Later Middle Ages: Burghers, Clergy, and Nobility
(Language: English)
Andrew Colin Gow, Medieval & Early Modern Institute, University of Alberta, Edmonton
Paper 715-b'Y Can not Fynde this Gospel in the Stori of Oon of Foure': Scribal Frustration and Liturgical Paratext in BL MS Harley 6333
(Language: English)
Matti Peikola, Department of English, University of Turku
Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Manuscripts and Palaeography
Paper 715-cExegesis for Everyone: Reading Theory and Practice in the Glossed Gospels
(Language: English)
Mary Raschko, School of English, Mercer University, Georgia
Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Lay Piety, Religious Life
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 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 function of paratextual elements in the process of religious reading.