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Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England

Fiona Somerset author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:5th Nov '98

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Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England cover

This 1998 book investigates the politics of vernacular translation in late medieval England, with particular attention to Langland, Trevisa and Wyclif.

This 1998 book investigates the politics of vernacular translation in late medieval England the contemporary concerns of clerical corruption of authoritative texts, and the education of vernacular writers such as Langland, Trevisa and Wyclif.The translation of learned Latin materials into English between around 1370 and 1410 was a highly controversial activity. It was thought likely to make available to lay audiences the authoritative and intellectual information and methods of argument previously only accessible to an educated elite - and with that knowledge the power of information. Fiona Somerset's 1998 study examines what kinds of academic material were imported into English, what sorts of audience were projected for this kind of clerical discourse and how writers positioned themselves with respect to potential audience and opponents. The well-known concerns with clerical corruption and lay education of authors such as Langland, Trevisa, and Wyclif are linked to those of more obscure writers in both Latin and English, some only recently edited, or only extant in manuscript.

"Somerset's book provides the tools to push vernacularity studies...to a higher level, to the kind of serious scholarship the topic still needs." Speculum
"Somerset's conclusion [comes] after thoroughly sifting [many] documents" Lawrence V Ryan, Albion

ISBN: 9780521621540

Dimensions: 229mm x 152mm x 19mm

Weight: 550g

256 pages