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Christ's Birth and Infancy in Middle English


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Authors

Bates, Linda Rachel 

Description

The dissertation reconstructs a version of Christ's early life from Middle English narratives of his Birth and Infancy, with a chapter structure that follows the chronology of events in the canonical and apocryphal gospels. After an introduction, the chapters are arranged as follows: 1) Mary and Joseph's journey to Bethlehem, the significance of Bethlehem and the role of the census; 2) the Birth of Christ, its location and popular iconography; 3) the legend of the midwives; 4) the shepherd.s; 5) the Circumcision and the Presentation in the Temple; 6) the Magi; 7) the Slaughter of the Innooents and the Flight into Egypt. An epilogue briefly discusses Middle English versions of the apocryphal events from Christ's childhood. Each chapter synthesizes all variables of episodes in the life and aims to recreate the way that it would have existed in medieval English mindsets. The thesis thus provides new insight into the culture of Christian devotion as it was encountered by diverse social and geographic groups in England from c.1200 through to the sixteenth century. By analysing Middle English versions of bible stories, apocryphal and canonical, the thesis shows that such stories are fully part of orthodox devotion. Recognising that the vernacular texts of this period cannot be read in isolation from visual and material culture, my methodology embraces all media, from apocryphal gospels to roof bosses, tiles to mystery plays. Close reading of poetry, prose and drama from the twelfth- to sixteenth- centuries presents a picture of religion as people would have experienced it; this does not support binary opposition of orthodox and heterodox. Such dichotomies fail to allow for the heavilypopulated middle ground between the Wycliffite Bible translations and Arundel's 1409 Constitutions that attempted to suppress them. Continuities and discontinuities are demonstrated across each chapter by examining the development of the various facets of the story under discussion, from the sources inherited by the earliest English writers through to the late medieval drama. Therefore, the dissertation places the plays in their vernacular literary contexts and traces changing attitudes to the relationship of canonical and apocryphal material, as the events of Christ's Birth and Infancy were told, adapted and assimilated in various media . The holistic picture thus gleaned serves to show the breadth of doctrine accepted, albeit tacitly, by the Church in England.

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Qualification

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Awarding Institution

University of Cambridge

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