(Reformation in Faith and [Feeling) Like Saints]
Sponsoring Organization(s)
Lollard Society
Organizer Name
Michael Van Dussen
Organizer Affiliation
McGill Univ.
Presider Name
Michael Van Dussen
Paper Title 1
The Wordes of Poule
Presenter 1 Name
Michael Sargent
Presenter 1 Affiliation
Queens College, CUNY
Paper Title 2
Hilton on Paul
Presenter 2 Name
Fiona Somerset
Presenter 2 Affiliation
Univ. of Connecticut
Paper Title 3
"[H]o so haþ clene affectioun in his soule": Conservative Affectivity and the Middle English Meditiationes de passione Christi
Presenter 3 Name
Ryan Perry
Presenter 3 Affiliation
Univ. of Kent
Paper Title 4
Love: Is It More than a Feeling?
Presenter 4 Name
Robyn Malo
Presenter 4 Affiliation
Purdue Univ.
Start Date
14-5-2017 10:30 AM
Session Location
Bernhard 205
Description
The opposition between the interests and church allegiances of some of the most prominent of the twentieth-century scholars writing on late medieval English mystical and devotional literature on the one hand and lollard literature on the other would lead one to think that there is a fundamental opposition in the material itself. To an extent, this is true: Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, for example, opposes itself at several points to lollard doctrine that it condemns as heretical. Other works and writers participate in a much more complex religiosity, and a desire for the reform of the Christian life on both the individual and social level, that was developing among religious and secular clergy and the laity between the Great Plague and the Reformation. Further, the narrowing of the consideration of affect in recent critical writing on late medieval contemplative and devotional literature to focus almost entirely on compassion has created an environment in which lollard literature can be thought of as without affect –– with the notable exception of righteous anger: “feminine” devotion ranged against “masculine” lollardy. This session invites panelists to explore the complexity of late medieval religious literature that belies these oppositions through a conversation on specific mystical and lollard texts.
Michael Van Dussen
(Reformation in Faith and [Feeling) Like Saints]
Bernhard 205
The opposition between the interests and church allegiances of some of the most prominent of the twentieth-century scholars writing on late medieval English mystical and devotional literature on the one hand and lollard literature on the other would lead one to think that there is a fundamental opposition in the material itself. To an extent, this is true: Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, for example, opposes itself at several points to lollard doctrine that it condemns as heretical. Other works and writers participate in a much more complex religiosity, and a desire for the reform of the Christian life on both the individual and social level, that was developing among religious and secular clergy and the laity between the Great Plague and the Reformation. Further, the narrowing of the consideration of affect in recent critical writing on late medieval contemplative and devotional literature to focus almost entirely on compassion has created an environment in which lollard literature can be thought of as without affect –– with the notable exception of righteous anger: “feminine” devotion ranged against “masculine” lollardy. This session invites panelists to explore the complexity of late medieval religious literature that belies these oppositions through a conversation on specific mystical and lollard texts.
Michael Van Dussen