Tradition and Belief: Religious Writing in Late Anglo-Saxon England

Medieval Cultures #19

by Clare A. Lees

In this major study of Angle-Saxon religious tests sermons, homilies, and saints' lives written in Old English -- Clare A. Lees reveals how the invention of preaching transformed the early medieval church, and thus the culture of medieval England in placing Anglo-Saxon prose within a social matrix, her work offers a new way of seeing medieval literature through the lens of cultures. To show how the preaching mission of the later Anglo-Saxon church was constructed and received, Lees explores the emergence of preaching from the traditional structures of the early medieval church -- its institutional knowledge, genres, and beliefs. Understood as a powerful rhetorical, social, and epistemological process, preaching is shown to have helped define the sociocultural concerns specific to late Anglo-Saxon England. The first detailed study of traditionality in medieval culture, Tradition and Belief is also a case study of one cultural phenomenon from the past. As such -- and by concentrating on the theoretically problematic areas of history, religious belief, and aesthetics -- the book contributes to debates about the evolving meaning of culture.

Genres: Medieval, History

216 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1999

About the author

Clare Lees (MA, PhD) is professor of Medieval Literature and History of the Language at the Department of English, King's College (London, UK).

Reviews

[Brandon Hawk · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I read this book, I realized how much it felt like a precursor to much of the type of work I pursue on religious Old English literature. In many ways, in fact, the idea that stuck with me was Lees's formulation that the book may be seen as "Serving as a prolegomenon to the more detailed analysis of preaching as a traditional genre"--exactly what I see myself doing in my research. In this, the book is a great success.

Much of the thrust of this monograph is to break down the critical distaste and neglect of Old English religious prose, a process that has been ongoing for several decades but still deals with the shadow of poetry cast over the subject. Questioning traditional literary-historical scholarship, she brings in a variety of disciplines and methodologies, often invoking contemporary cultural theories throughout the Introduction and first chapter. While Lees provides a heavy critique of Anglo-Saxon studies, she also provides ways of fusing past scholarship with new approaches. The whole book does well to demonstrate this, although chapter 3-5 depict perhaps more of her own reliance on traditional literary close reading than would be expected after the first 45 pages of the book.

As a study that seeks to break down boundaries, Tradition and Belief is an excellent contribution to medieval studies generally. For anyone pursuing study of Old English religious prose, it is a necessary starting place.