Skip to main content

IMC 2020: Sessions

Session 1701: 'Weaving Stories': The Mythographic Writings of Thomas Walsingham

Thursday 9 July 2020, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:German Historical Institute London (GHIL)
Organiser:Bernhard Hollick, Institut für Altertumskunde, Universität zu Köln / College of Humanities, University of Exeter
Moderator/Chair:Stephan Bruhn, Historisches Seminar/Mittelalterliche Geschichte, Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel
Paper 1701-a'Tam rationabiles causae quam utiles': Walsingham on Pagan Myth
(Language: English)
Bernhard Hollick, Institut für Altertumskunde, Universität zu Köln / College of Humanities, University of Exeter
Index terms: Language and Literature - Latin, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Pagan Religions, Philosophy
Paper 1701-bNaturalised Citizens: Thomas Walsingham's Genealogies of the Pagan Earth
(Language: English)
Amanda Gerber, Department of English, University of California, Los Angeles
Index terms: Genealogy and Prosopography, Language and Literature - Latin, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Pagan Religions
Paper 1701-cWhat Did It Mean to Paraphrase Dictys of Crete in Late Medieval England?: The Case of Thomas Walsingham’s Ditis ditatus
(Language: English)
Artem Maslov, Institute of International Relations & World History Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Latin, Learning (The Classical Inheritance), Rhetoric
Abstract

Thomas Walsingham (c.1422), precentor of St Albans, was by no means the first medieval writer to engage with Greco-Roman mythology. However, he did so in a time, when the occupation with pagan narrative came increasingly under pressure - not only by Wyclif, but also from within the Benedictine order. Walsingham's mythographic writings are a response to that challenge: they reinforce the relevance of the 'poetic fables' by introducing a new, historicizing approach, which reaches beyond the medieval allegorical tradition, but is still untouched by humanism. The session will present new insights into his rewriting of ancient mythology.