Medieval Life Cycles: Continuity and Change (International Medieval Research 18)
Isabelle Cochelin (Editor), Karen Smyth (Editor)
Hardcover: 357 pages
Publisher: Brepols Pub (30 July 2013)
ISBN-13: 978-2503540696

BOOK DESCRIPTION:

The essays in this collection present new research into a variety of questions on birth, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, middle age, and old age, ordered in a more or less chronological manner according to the lifecycle. The volume exposes attitudes and representations of the lifecycle from the Anglo-Saxon period to the end of the Middle Ages as being full of inconsistencies as well as definitive categories, and of variation and stasis. This attests to the fact that medieval conceptions and representations of the stages of life and their interrelationships are much more nuanced and less idealized than is usually credited. Medieval conceptual, mental, artistic, cultural, and sociological processes are scrutinized using various approaches and methods that cross disciplinary boundaries. What is emphasized across the volume is that there were varying, context-dependent rhythms of continuity and change in every stage of life in the medieval period. The volume’s selection of authors is international in scope and represents some of the leading current scholarship in the field.

LIST OF CONTENT:

• Introduction: Pre-Thirteenth-Century Definitions of the Life Cycle by Isabelle Cochelin
• Baptism and Infant Burial in Anglo‑Saxon England by Sally Crawford
• Wanton Boys in Middle English Texts and the Christ Child in Minneapolis, University of Minnesota, MS Z822 N81 by Mary Dzon
• Adolescence Uncloistered (Cluny, Early Twelfth Century) by Isabelle Cochelin
• Rebellious Youth and Pliant Children: Jewish Converts in Adolescentia by Jessie Sherwood
• Generational Discourse and Images of Urban Youth in Private Letters: The Nuremberg Tucher Family around 1550 by Christian Kuhn
• Adulthood in Medieval Europe: The Prime of Life or Midlife Crisis? by Deborah Youngs
• The Middle-Aged Meanderings of Margery Kempe: Medieval Women and Pilgrimage by Sue Niebrzydowski
• ‘Byð se ealda man ceald and snoflig’: Stereotypes and Subversions of the Last Stages of the Life Cycle in Old English Texts and Anglo‑Saxon Contexts by Philippa Semper
• Imagining Age in the Fifteenth Century: Nation, Everyman, and the Self by Karen Smyth