Alexandra Barratt

Middle English Religious Writing in Practice: Texts, Readers, and Transformations ed. by Nicole R. Rice (review)

Thank you very much for reading middle english religious writing in practice texts readers and transformations. As you may know, people have look hundreds times for their favorite readings like this middle english religious writing in practice texts readers and transformations, but end up in malicious downloads. Rather than reading a good book with a cup of tea in the afternoon, instead they are facing with some malicious bugs inside their laptop.

The Secular Liturgical Office in Late Medieval England by Matthew Cheung Salisbury (review)

A stagnant economy and a changing religious environment, the focus of Chapter 3, helps explain why the potenze had begun to decline by the late sixteenth century and no longer existed by the 1650s. The late sixteenthand early seventeenth-century collapse of the wool industry and the resulting unemployment for its largely male workforce, alongside the rise of a femaledominated silk industry led to profound economic and social change. The Medici rulers, in 1610, fearful of a mobilised, disenchanted, and unemployed working class, stripped the potenze of their banners, which could not be returned for festive occasions without first petitioning the duke. The Catholic reform movement’s emphasis on piety, pilgrimage, and an understanding of Christian doctrine rather than public feasting, jousting, and stone fights also helps to explain how these potenze transformed into charitable organisations and associations for recreation whose members made frequent pilgrimages to the countryside. At least one potenza from the late 1620s, made up of silk weavers who made pilgrimages to shrines outside Florence, was uncharacteristically female. As Rosenthal notes, this potenza and its development deserves more investigation. Could this female potenza’s practice, for example, have been influenced by the grand-duchesses’ pilgrimages to the Loreto shrine from the 1570s onwards? By 1619, Rosenthal asserts in Chapter 4, the potenza had become merely a theatrical instrument of state, a vehicle which enabled the dukes to arrange performances by unemployed (male) wool workers solely for the enjoyment of the ducal court, as part of a state-sanctioned public works programme. A brief Epilogue documents the revival of the potenze by antiquarians in 1902, and the subsequent appropriation of them by Fascist Italy in the 1920s and 30s as part of its agenda for the glorification of Italy’s Renaissance past. This is a superbly well-written book, which brings to light an often forgotten aspect of Florentine history and contributes to the ongoing interest in state-building, gender, and religious change in early modern Europe. It also reminds us that ‘history from below’ can and should be written, and this book is an excellent example of how it is done.

Carmelite liturgy and spiritual identity: The choir books of krakow [Book Review]

Review(s) of: Carmelite liturgy and spiritual identity: The choir books of krakow, by Boyce, James J., Medieval Church Studies 16, Turnhout, Brepols, 2008, hardback; pp. xv, 524; 18 b/w illustrations, 30 tables, R.R.P. 90.00, ISBN 9782503517148.

Reading Early Modern Women's Writing (review)

Parergon 27.1 (2010) broader, multidisciplinary context or by being more integrated with the introductory questions, and thus made more relevant and meaningful to a wider audience. For instance, after reading the analysis of Monomakh’s Instruction I was left wondering to what extent the idealized vitae of rulers can be used as a measure of didactic effectiveness. Another unanswered question, quite compatible with the thesis of the book, had to do with the extent to which the confused and confusing topography of Codex Rustici could be read as an intersection of personal mnemonic places and morally relevant knowledge. The limitations, however, are minor in comparison to the contribution of this strong volume. What Nature Does not Teach complements gaps left in works of intellectual history and history of education. Apart from being a valuable addition to a medievalist’s reading list it will be of interest to students of general history, education and gender studies. Tomas Zahora Monash UniversityReview(s) of: Affections of the mind: The politics of sacramental marriage in late medieval English literature, by Lipton, Emma, Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 2007; paperback; pp. x, 246; R.R.P. US

Singing the New Song: Literacy and Liturgy in Late Medieval England (review)

32.00; ISBN 9780268034054.

What shall we pack? New Zealand Immigrants and their Manuscripts

Few thrones go unusurped for long, and the cultural processes of readjustment must occur each time. So why not give Lancastrian language not exhaustive proximate analysis (though Nuttall’s book is short and far from exhaustive) but what we may call the David Wallace treatment? It seems to me that if we are all to continue to assume that Lancastrian language is distinctive—though I am no longer fully persuaded that this assumption is correct and this book does not revive my flagging commitment to it—then what is called for at this juncture is a monumental tome that does for Lancastrian language what Wallace did for Chaucerian language in Chaucerian Polity: Absolutist Lineages and Associational Forms in England and Italy (1997), namely, situate it in the broader context of European culture and rule. Sarah Tolmie University of Waterloo