Medieval Studies at York
The blog of the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of York
York Medieval Lecture: Literary Networks of the Vicars Choral and the Clerical Proletariat in Late Medieval York, Professor Kathryn Kerby-Fulton (7 March 2017)
York Medieval Lecture, Tuesday 7 March 2017
Professor Kathryn Kerby-Fulton (Notre Dame): 'Literary Networks of the Vicars Choral and the Clerical Proletariat in Late Medieval York'
When Margery Kempe visited York Minster in 1417 she was befriended by two choral vicarii, John Kendale "and another preste whech song be the bischopys grave." The grave was Richard Scrope's, executed under Henry IV, and his semi-suppressed cult still no doubt a matter of some delicacy. Kendale and his unnamed fellow here were likely not only counseling Kempe, but telling her about the Minster's history and saint's cults – part of the job of cathedral vicarii. Kendale was also an owner of Piers Plowman, and if we link such information about the literary interests of the vicarii with some of the contemporary Latin writings produced at York Minster, we get a rare view of literary circles of the clerks lower down the ladder in the Minster's local pride in its history (both legendary and more recent), its saints, and its zeal to protect its power and privileges. Other survivals relate directly to the Scrope execution, such as poems of traumatic mourning in heavily liturgical Latin (his death was personally witnessed by many of his cathedral familia in 1405, as its chronicles show), and fragmentary in-house chronicles – some of it even versified, as if for memorization. Despite the censorship efforts of Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Arundel, a range of literature sprang up from within the the Minster, giving us a rare chance to look at the multilingual literary production within a normally invisible group. Comparisons will be made to surviving poetry from manuscripts connected to Norwich Cathedral Priory or London's St. Paul's, containing poems about the woes of chorister life or clerical isolation.
Professor Kerby-Fulton is the Notre Dame Professor of English. She works in Middle English literature and medieval Latin intellectual history, including religious and political censorship, apocalypticism, visionary writing and women's mysticism. She has also worked on medieval manuscript studies in England and Anglo-Ireland, history of the book and medieval literary theory, especially in relation to marginalia, text-image relations, and reading practices before print.
To book tickets for this event, please use the University of York Eventbite website
Posted By: Dr Harriet Evans Tang, CMS Media Officer
« Older Post York Medieval Lecture: 'Medieval Psalters as Witnesses to Liturgical Song: the Iberian Case' – Dr Emma Hornby (25 April 2017)	» Newer Post Researchers bring Old Norse language back to JORVIK Viking Centre
Library Committee February 5, 2020 at 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm LFA 204/205, 2nd Floor, Harry Fairhurst
Library Committee May 13, 2020 at 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm LFA 204/205, 2nd Floor, Harry Fairhurst
CMS Christmas Party & Medieval Bake-Off
CMS staff in The New York Times
Lecture by Richard McClary available online
New book from Dr Lydia Zeldenrust
Hrotsvit of Gandersheim's 'Callimachus'
Medieval Nun Faked D… on The Northern Way: Archivists t…
A tale of two confer… on Researching and Publishing the…