Cart
Free Shipping in the UK
Proud to be B-Corp

Ethics and Power in Medieval English Reformist Writing Edwin D. Craun (Washington and Lee University, Virginia)

Ethics and Power in Medieval English Reformist Writing By Edwin D. Craun (Washington and Lee University, Virginia)

Ethics and Power in Medieval English Reformist Writing by Edwin D. Craun (Washington and Lee University, Virginia)


£21.99
Condition - New
Only 2 left

Summary

Explains how the late medieval Church encouraged the practice of fraternal correction, which involved the injured party confronting the wrong-doer directly and privately; and explores how John Wyclif and others expanded this established practice to authorize their own polemics against clerical authority and wealth.

Ethics and Power in Medieval English Reformist Writing Summary

Ethics and Power in Medieval English Reformist Writing by Edwin D. Craun (Washington and Lee University, Virginia)

The late medieval Church obliged all Christians to rebuke the sins of others, especially those who had power to discipline in Church and State: priests, confessors, bishops, judges, the Pope. This practice, in which the injured party had to confront the wrong-doer directly and privately, was known as fraternal correction. Edwin Craun examines how pastoral writing instructed Christians to make this corrective process effective by avoiding slander, insult, and hypocrisy. He explores how John Wyclif and his followers expanded this established practice to authorize their own polemics against mendicants and clerical wealth. Finally, he traces how major English reformist writing - Piers Plowman, Mum and the Sothsegger, and The Book of Margery Kempe - expanded the practice to justify their protests, to protect themselves from repressive elements in the late Ricardian and Lancastrian Church and State, and to urge their readers to mount effective protests against religious, social, and political abuses.

Ethics and Power in Medieval English Reformist Writing Reviews

'... the book's thematic focus is on the duty that lies upon the Christian, whether cleric or lay, to correct an erring brother, and its chronological and local coverage is the writings of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries in England ... Any reader is likely to find much to intrigue and sometimes to provoke here.' Anne Hudson, Medium Aevum

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Universalizing the practice of correction; 2. Negotiating contrary things; 3. Managing the rhetoric of reproof: the B-version of Piers Plowman; 4. John Wyclif: disciplining the English clergy and the Pope; 5. Wycliffites under oppression: fraternal correction as polemical weapon; 6. Lancastrian reformist lives: toeing the line while stepping over it.

Additional information

NLS9781107412538
9781107412538
1107412536
Ethics and Power in Medieval English Reformist Writing by Edwin D. Craun (Washington and Lee University, Virginia)
New
Paperback
Cambridge University Press
2013-01-03
234
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a new book - be the first to read this copy. With untouched pages and a perfect binding, your brand new copy is ready to be opened for the first time

Customer Reviews - Ethics and Power in Medieval English Reformist Writing