A Legend of Holy Women : A Translation of Osbern Bokenham's Legends of Holy Women Hardback
by Sheila Delany
Part of the Notre Dame Texts in Medieval Culture series
Hardback
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Description
Sheila Delany's spirited translation of Osbern Bokenham's Legendys of Hooly Wummen (1443–1447) makes available in modern English the first all-female hagiography.
Closely translated from elaborate, Latinate Middle English verse into fluent prose, A Legend of Holy Women contains the Augustinian friar’s version of the stories of 13 women saints from gospel, apocrypha, martyrology, and high-medieval history.
As Delany writes in her comprehensive introduction, “Bokenham gives us not only an all-female hagiography—an authorial decision significant in its own right—but a gallery of powerful, articulate women who are indubitably worthy to do God’s work.
Some of them are well-educated, some give sound political advice to a monarch, some preach, converting hundreds and thousands to Christianity, some walk on water or perform resurrection.
Nor are they pacifists; on the contrary, they call for divinely inflicted vengeance and approve violence in their cause.” Delany argues that Geoffrey Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women provided a principle of selection and of arrangement for Bokenham’s array of saints.
She suggests further that the friar’s choice of all-female hagiography, and his poetic representation of holy women, are closely linked to patronage and politics in fifteenth-century England.
The translation is accompanied by full notes which, along with the introduction, make the book accessible to a wide audience.
It will appeal to all readers interested in the representation of women in late-medieval culture as well as to scholars and students in medieval, renaissance, religious, and women’s studies.
Information
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Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:256 pages
- Publisher:University of Notre Dame Press
- Publication Date:31/12/1992
- Category:
- ISBN:9780268012946
Other Formats
- Paperback / softback from £19.47
Information
-
Available to Order - This title is available to order, with delivery expected within 2 weeks
- Format:Hardback
- Pages:256 pages
- Publisher:University of Notre Dame Press
- Publication Date:31/12/1992
- Category:
- ISBN:9780268012946