Distributed for University of Wales Press
The Milieu and Context of the Wooing Group
The Wooing Group is a collection of texts in English written by an unknown author in the late twelfth to early thirteenth centuries, almost certainly aimed at a group of women living as anchoresses and recluses who were literate in English and interested in guidance on both spiritual and worldly issues. This volume brings together our most current interpretations of these texts from scholars currently working in the fields of medieval spirituality, gender, and the anchorite tradition, providing new literary, theological, linguistic, and cultural context for the works and situating them within the larger continuum of medieval culture.
Table of Contents
Series Editors’ Preface
Acknowledgements
Notes on Contributors
1. Introduction
Susannah Mary Chewning
2. The ‘Conditions of Eligibility’ in Þe Wohunge of ure Lauerd
Bella Millett
3. Speaking of Flesh and Soul: Linguistic and Spiritual Translation in the Wooing Group
Susannah Mary Chewning
4. Subject, Object and Mantra in Þe Wohunge of ure Lauerd
Jennifer N. Brown
5. The spellings <e>, <ea>, <a> in tow Wooing Group texts (MSS London, Cotton Nero A.xiv and London, Lambeth Palace 487)
Jeremey Smith
6. Þe Wohunge of ure Lauerd and the Tradition of Affective Devotion: Rethinking Text and Audience
Catherine Innes-Parker
7. ‘Þe blod Þ[at] bohte’: The Wooing Group Christ as Pierced, Prickled and Penetrated Body
Michelle M. Sauer
8. Transvestism in the Anchorhold
Sarah Salih
9. The Wooing Group: Pain, Pleasure and the Anchoritic Body
Anne Savage
10. What Kind of Writing is A Talkyng of Þe Love of God?
Michael G. Sargent
11. Afterword: ‘On Eise’
Nicholas Watson
Bibliography
Index