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IMC 2016: Sessions

Session 832: Expositions on Bible Use from Bonaventure to Caxton

Tuesday 5 July 2016, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:Society for the Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages
Organiser:Gail Lesley Blick, Independent Scholar, Monmouth
Moderator/Chair:Mary Raschko, Department of English, Whitman College, Washington
Paper 832-aBonaventure on the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Luke 2:22-39)
(Language: English)
William P. Hyland, School of Divinity, University of St Andrews
Index terms: Biblical Studies, Ecclesiastical History, Theology
Paper 832-bCatherine of Siena and St Paul's Epistles
(Language: English)
Karen Scott, Departments of History & Catholic Studies, DePaul University, Chicago
Index terms: Biblical Studies, Language and Literature - Italian, Literacy and Orality, Theology
Paper 832-cFemale Learning and Biblical Allusion
(Language: English)
Gail Lesley Blick, Independent Scholar, Monmouth
Index terms: Biblical Studies, Language and Literature - Middle English, Lay Piety, Literacy and Orality
Paper 832-dBible Use in the Vernacular in the 15th Century
(Language: English)
Mayumi Taguchi, Faculty of Human Environment, Department of Culture & Communication, Osaka Sangyo University
Index terms: Biblical Studies, Language and Literature - Middle English, Lay Piety
Abstract

This Society for the Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages panel illustrates ways medieval spiritual writers used the Bible. The first two papers offer biblical feast: Bonaventure, the eminent thirteenth-century theologian, includes Bible Latin extensively; the uneducated lay Catherine of Siena, although her biblical knowledge was primarily oral, records significant portions of Paul’s Epistles in her writings.

Arundel’s Constitutions should have led to a dearth in Bible use. The last papers demonstrate a defiance of the injunctions: ‘illiterate’ Julian and Margery Kempe subtly employ Bible knowledge; Caxton exhibits substantial Bible translation. Medieval writers continued to offer spiritual nourishment to their audience through the provision of Bible wisdom.