Introducing modern readers to the riches of preaching in later medieval England, distinguished scholar Siegfried Wenzel offers translations of twenty-five Latin sermons written between 1350 and 1450. These carefully selected and previously untranslated sermons demonstrate how preachers constructed them and shaped them to their own purposes. The sermons provide representative examples of preaching through the Church year from Advent to the Sundays after Easter; also included are sermons for saints and pieces preached on such special occasions as funerals, convocations, visitations, professions, and academic lectures.
Taken together, the sermons provide a view of the wide variety of styles and rhetorical appeals that were used by well-known medieval preachers, such as FitzRalph, Brinton, Wyclif, Repingdon, Felton, Mirk, Philip, and Dygon; a number of anonymous sermons are included as well. All but one (Mirk) have been preserved in Latin and are translated here for the first time into modern English.
The book also contains a general introduction and short historical notes on the individual selections. Besides attracting the attention of students of preaching and of Western Church history, the material will be of great interest to medieval historians and to students of Middle-English literature, especially of Chaucer, the Pearl-Poet, Langland, fifteenth-century drama, and the lyric.
"These sermons are difficult to acquire, often hard to translate, and very hard to teach. Wenzel's collection will go a long way toward enhancing the classroom experience of many teachers and students. Wenzel is a superb translator. The texts are a pleasure to read, written in a light, accessiblestyle that flows beautifully."—Maura Nolan, University of California, Berkeley
"This book is immensely illuminating! Wenzel's mastery of the field is reflected in the bountiful and fruitful ways the selected sermons interrelate, and his translations are beautifully done."—Theresa Gross-Diaz, Loyola University Chicago
Siegfried Wenzel, a longtime professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is author or editor of ten books and numerous articles. He received the Medieval Academy of America's prestigious Charles Homer Haskins Medal for his contributions to medieval literature and religion.
