New Legends of England: Forms of Community in Late Medieval Saints' Lives (The Middle Ages Series)

In New Legends of England , Catherine Sanok examines a significant, albeit previously unrecognized, phenomenon of fifteenth-century literary culture in England: the sudden fascination with the Lives of British, Anglo-Saxon, and other native saints. Embodying a variety of literary forms—from elevated Latinate verse, to popular traditions such as the carol, to translations of earlier verse legends into the medium of prose—the Middle English Lives of England's saints are rarely discussed in relation to one another or seen as constituting a distinct literary genre. However, Sanok argues, these legends, when grouped together were an important narrative forum for exploring overlapping forms of secular and religious community at local, national, and supranational scales: the monastery, the city, and local cults; the nation and the realm; European Christendom and, at the end of the fifteenth century, a world that was suddenly expanding across the Atlantic. Reading texts such as the South English Legendary , The Life of St. Etheldrede , the Golden Legend , and poems about Saints Wenefrid and Ursula, Sanok focuses especially on the significance of their varied and often experimental forms. She shows how Middle English Lives of native saints revealed, through their literary forms, modes of affinity and difference that, in turn, reflected a diversity in the extent and structure of medieval communities. Taking up key questions about jurisdiction, temporality, and embodiment, New Legends of England presents some of the ways in which the Lives of England's saints theorized community and explored its constitutive paradox: the irresolvable tension between singular and collective forms of identity.

In New Legends of England, Catherine Sanok examines a significant, albeit previously unrecognized, phenomenon of fifteenth-century literary culture in England: the sudden fascination with the Lives of British, Anglo-Saxon, and other native saints. Embodying a variety of literary forms—from elevated Latinate verse, to popular traditions such as the carol, to translations of earlier verse legends into the medium of prose—the Middle English Lives of England's saints are rarely discussed in relation to one another or seen as constituting a distinct literary genre. However, Sanok argues, these legends, when grouped together were an important narrative forum for exploring overlapping forms of secular and religious community at local, national, and supranational scales: the monastery, the city, and local cults; the nation and the realm; European Christendom and, at the end of the fifteenth century, a world that was suddenly expanding across the Atlantic.

Reading texts such as the South English Legendary, The Life of St. Etheldrede, the Golden Legend, and poems about Saints Wenefrid and Ursula, Sanok focuses especially on the significance of their varied and often experimental forms. She shows how Middle English Lives of native saints revealed, through their literary forms, modes of affinity and difference that, in turn, reflected a diversity in the extent and structure of medieval communities. Taking up key questions about jurisdiction, temporality, and embodiment, New Legends of England presents some of the ways in which the Lives of England's saints theorized community and explored its constitutive paradox: the irresolvable tension between singular and collective forms of identity.

Cover -- Contents -- A Note on Abbreviations and Spelling -- Introduction -- Chapter 1. Conceptualizing Community in the South English Legendary -- Chapter 2. The Phenomenal Bodies of Anglo-Saxon Virgins -- Chapter 3. Local Community and Secular Poetics in Middle English Lives of St. Wenefred -- Chapter 4. Englishing the Golden Legend and the Geography of Religious Community -- Chapter 5. Secular, Religious, and Literary Jurisdictions -- Chapter 6. The City and the Inner Precincts of the Sacred -- Chapter 7. St. Ursula and the Scale of English Community -- Notes -- Works Cited -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- Y -- Acknowledgments New Legends of England examines a previously unrecognized phenomenon of fifteenth-century English literary culture: the proliferation of vernacular Lives of British, Anglo-Saxon, and other native saints. Catherine Sanok argues these texts use literary experimentation to explore overlapping forms of secular and religious community. New Legends of England examines a previously unrecognized phenomenon of fifteenth-century English literary culture: the proliferation of vernacular Lives of British, Anglo-Saxon, and other native saints. Catherine Sanok argues these texts use literary experimentation to explore overlapping forms of secular and religious community. Her Life Historical offers a major reconsideration of one of the most popular narrative forms in late medieval England-the Lives of female saints-and one of the period's primary modes of interpretation-exemplarity. With lucidity and insight, Catherine Sanok shows that saints' legends served as vehicles for complex considerations of historical difference and continuity in an era of political crisis and social change. At the same time, they played a significant role in women's increasing visibility in late medieval literary culture by imagining a specifically feminine audience. Book jacket Contents A Note on Abbreviations and Spelling Introduction Chapter 1. Conceptualizing Community in the South English Legendary Chapter 2. The Phenomenal Bodies of Anglo-S axon Virgins Chapter 3. Local Community and Secular Poetics in Middle English Lives of St. Wenefred Chapter 4. Englishing the Golden Legend and the Geography of Religious Community Chapter 5. Secular, Religious, and Literary Jurisdictions Chapter 6. The City and the Inner Precincts of the Sacred Chapter 7. St. Ursula and the Scale of English Community Notes Works Cited Index Acknowledgments