TY - BOOK ID - 100032829 TI - The materiality of Middle English anchoritic devotion AU - Sauer, Michelle M. AU - Bledsoe, Jenny C. PY - 2021 SN - 1641894873 1641894881 PB - Leeds : Arc Humanities Press, DB - UniCat KW - Material culture in literature. KW - Christian literature, English (Middle) KW - History and criticism. KW - Christian literature, English KW - Christian literature, Middle English KW - English Christian literature, Middle KW - Middle English Christian literature KW - English literature KW - Middle English literature. KW - anchorites. KW - ancrenne wisse. KW - embodiment. KW - medieval materiality. KW - medieval relics. KW - reclusion. UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:100032829 AB - Anchorites and their texts, such as
Ancrene Wisse
, have recently undergone a reevaluation based on material circumstances, not just theological import. The articles here address a variety of anchoritic or anchoritic-adjacent texts, encompassing guidance literature, hagiographies, miracle narratives, medical discourse, and mystic prose, and spanning in date from the eighth through the fourteenth centuries. Exploring reclusion and materiality, the collection addresses a series of overlapping themes, including the importance of touch, the limits of religious authority, and the role of the senses. Objects, metaphorical and real, embodied and spiritual, populate the pages. These categories are permeable, with flexible and porous boundaries, demonstrating the conflation of ideas, concepts, and manifestations in medieval materiality. In fact, the permeability of these categories demonstrates how materiality can reshape our approach to medieval texts. It leaves room for directions for future study, including the application of material analysis to previously unstudied objects, spaces, and literary artifacts. ER -