Devotional Culture in Late Medieval England and Europe: Diverse Imaginations of Christ’s Life

Christ’s life, as related through the Gospel narratives and early Apocrypha, was subject to a riot of literary-devotional adaptation in the medieval period. This collection provides a series of groundbreaking studies centring on the devotional and cultural significance of Christianity’s pivotal story during the Middle Ages.

The collection represents an important milestone in terms of mapping the meditative modes of piety that characterize a number of Christological traditions, including the Meditationes vitae Christi and the numerous versions it spawned in both Latin and the vernacular. A number of chapters in the volume track how and why meditative piety grew in popularity to become a mode of spiritual activity advised not only to recluses and cenobites as in the writings of Aelred of Rievaulx, but also reached out to diverse lay audiences through the pastoral regimens prescribed by devotional authors such as the Carthusian prior Nicholas Love in England and the Parisian theologian and chancellor of the University of Paris, Jean Gerson.

Through exploring these texts from a variety of perspectives — theoretical, codicological, theological — and through tracing their complex lines of dissemination in ideological and material terms, this collection promises to be invaluable to students and scholars of medieval religious and literary culture.

Marketing secondhand goods in late medieval England

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the main practitioners, goods, customers and locations of secondhand marketing activities in late medieval England. It questions how important was the economic role played by such markets and what was the interaction with more formal market structures?

Design/methodology/approach – A broad range of evidence was examined, covering the period from 1200 to 1500: regulations, court rolls, wills, manorial accounts, literature, and even archaeology. Such material often provided mere scraps of information about marginal marketing activity and it was important to recognise the severe limitations of the evidence. Nevertheless, a wide survey of the available sources can give us an insight into medieval attitudes towards such trade, as well as reminding us that much marketing activity occurred beyond the reach of the surviving documentation.

Findings – Late medieval England had numerous outlets for secondhand items, from sellers of used clothes and furs who wandered the marketplaces to craftsmen who recycled and mended old materials. Secondhand marketing was an important part of the medieval makeshift economy, serving not only the needs of the lower sectors of society but also those aspiring to a higher status. However, it is unlikely that such trade generated much profit and the traders were often viewed as marginal, suspicious and even fraudulent.

Originality/value – There is a distinct lack of research into the extent of and significance of medieval secondhand marketing, which existed in the shadowy margins of formal markets and is thus poorly represented in the primary sources. A broad-based approach to the evidence can highlight a variety of important issues, which impact upon the understanding of the medieval English economy.