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IMC 2021: Sessions

Session 721: Middle English Texts and Their Post-Medieval Reception

Tuesday 6 July 2021, 14.15-15.45

Moderator/Chair:Danièle Cybulskie, Medievalists.net
Paper 721-aOxford, Bodleian, MS Bodley 175: Bedford's 1604 Copy of the Whitsun Plays and the Antiquarian Movement in Chester
(Language: English)
Ted Lerud, Department of English, Elmhurst College, Illinois
Index terms: Language and Literature - Middle English, Performance Arts - Drama
Paper 721-bCultural Climate Change: Dispelling the Authorship Myth of the Canutus Plague Tract
(Language: English)
Mary Alcaro, Department of English, Rutgers University, New Jersey
Index terms: Historiography - Modern Scholarship, Language and Literature - Middle English, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Science
Paper 721-cEarly Reception of the Book of Margery Kempe and the Changing Discourse
(Language: English)
Alicja Kowalczewska, Faculty of Philosophy, Jagiellonian University, Kraków
Index terms: Historiography - Modern Scholarship, Religious Life, Women's Studies
Abstract

Paper -a:
8 manuscripts of the Chester Whitsun plays are extant, with 5 being relatively complete. Unlike our surviving versions of other mystery plays, our complete versions of Chester were copied substantially after the final production of 1575. One lone version was copied, rather hastily, with errors and cross-outs, in 1604 by William Bedford, a clerk of St Peter's who also took on other work. Why the interest in plays which had long ceased to be performed? It will not do to describe Bedford's manuscript, as some have done, as simply a 'personal copy'. The paper will show that Bedford had no special interest in drama, nor was he copying a production text; instead he, like David Rogers and his collection known as the Breviary, was part of the antiquarian movement in Chester and beyond. The paper will further suggest that, given the contemporary climate in Chester, Bedford was most likely trying to preserve a text which might prove a lucrative addition to the emerging libraries and collections of prominent Chester families, such as the Stanleys or the Masseys.

Paper -b:
What do we (think we) know about Middle English plague tracts? This paper traces changing intellectual climates of plague studies from the late Middle Ages to today, following the history of one particular tract: the 14th century litil boke for the Pestilence, or Canutus treatise. Continual misattribution of this tract reveals two erroneous assumptions: that medieval people would have been more likely to attribute plague to divine judgement than causes rooted in the natural world; and they would have found a religious authority more credible than a medical one. By re-examining the cultural climate in which this plague tract was produced, as well as scholarly assumptions from the 19th century on, we can dispel myths and misattributions; increase accessibility and circulation of knowledge; and better understand the people and time we study.

Paper -c:
Early 16th-century printed excerpts from the Book of Margery Kempe present her as a devout anchoress. When the full medieval manuscript was discovered in 1934, it was often treated dismissively, with Kempe dubbed 'hysterical'. Current scholarship on the Book perceives it as a relevant and complex text, often to be analysed with regard to feminist studies. The proposed paper aims to trace how certain intellectual and social 'climates', or contexts, influenced the perception of the text throughout the ages, focusing on examining the early 20th-century reception of the Book, both scholarly (Allen, Inge), and popular (reviews, play by Wulp).