Late Medieval Devotion to Saints from the North of England: New Directions (Medieval Church Studies, 48)

Description

This volume fills an important gap in the study of medieval English sanctity. Focused on the period 1150-1550, it examines later manifestations of pre-conquest northern English cults (John of Beverley, Oswald, Hilda, Aetheldreda etc.), and the establishment and development of many more during the twelfth to fifteenth centuries (Godric of Finchale, Robert of Knaresborough, Oswine of Tynemouth, Aebbe of Coldingham, Bega of Copeland, William of York, etc.). It showcases the diversity of new northern cults that emerged after 1150, and pays particular attention to cultures of episcopal and eremitic devotion and hagiographic production in Yorkshire, Cumbria and Lincolnshire. Divided into five subsections, the volume opens by exploring the relation of sanctity to constructions of northern identity through targeted examinations of northern textual and material cultures. It then turns to a series of case studies of northern saints' cults, grouped with reference to the eremitic life, female networks and locations, and the contextualisation of northern sanctity within national, transnational and post-medieval currents of veneration. Underlying all these essays is a concern with the conflicted idea of 'northernness'. This collection argues for a northern sanctity that is imagined in varying ways by different communities (monastic, diocesan, national etc.), allied to a series of conceptual 'norths' that differ significantly in accordance with the bodies of evidence under survey. Front Matter Christiania Whitehead. Introduction Denis Renevey. Aelred of Rievaulx and the Saints of Durham, Galloway, and Hexham Christiania Whitehead. The Production of Northern Saints’ Livesat Holm Cultram Abbey in Cumbria Hazel J. Hunter Blair. Flower of York: Region, Nation,and St Robert of Knaresboroughin Late Medieval England Cynthia Turner Camp. Praying to Northern Saintsin English Books of Hours Euan McCartney Robson. Space, It’s About Time Too: Architecture and Identity in Medieval Durham John Jenkins. Holy Geysers? Oily Saints and Ecclesiastical Politics in Late Medieval Yorkshire and Lincolnshire Julian Luxford. Art and Northern Sanctity in Late Medieval England Margaret Coombe. The Context for and Later Reception ofReginald of Durham’s Vita sancti Godrici Joshua S. Easterling. Robert of Knaresborough, Religious Novelty, and the Twelfth-CenturyPoverty Movement Catherine Sanok. Hermit Saints and Human Temporalities Ruth J. Salter. Beyond the Miracula: Practices andExperiences of Lay Devotion at theCult of St Æbbe, Coldingham Jane Sinnett-Smith. Ætheldreda in the North: Tracing Northern Networks in the
Liber Eliensis and the Vie de seinte Audree Daniel Talbot: Conflicting Memories, Confused Identities, and Constructed Pasts: St Hilda and the Refoundationof Whitby Abbey Christiane Kroebel: Remembering St Hildain the Later Middle Ages Anne Mouron. The French Life of St Godric of Finchale,or Adventures for Thirteenth-Century Nuns James G. Clark. The Reception of St Oswinein Later Medieval England David E. Thornton. Northern Saints’ Names as Monastic Bynames in Late Medieval and Early Tudor England Claudia Di Sciacc a. Northern Lights on Southern Shores: Rewriting St Oswald’s Lifein Eighteenth-Century Friuli Back Matter