The Antifraternal Tradition In Medieval Literature (Princeton Legacy Library, 373)

This book is a history of a literary tradition, but not in the usual sense. It is not the history of a genre, a literary form, or a literary technique, but the history of a complex of hostile ideas about the friars - 'fratres, ' hence fraternal orders. In all levels of medieval society, especially in England, these interwoven ideas dominated criticism of the friars from the 1250s to the end of the Middle Ages. The pervaded the fictions of Jean de Meun, Chaucer, Langard, and others, but they also flourished in works of polemic, theology, eschatology, canon law, in 'distinctiones' and encyclopedias, in chronicles, sermons, and Biblical exegesis. Despite their diversity in genre and purpose, these antifraternal works offer testimony to a common literary tradition. They share a common language, largely derived from the Bible, and a common - theological, symbolic, and prejudicial - perception of the friars that helped to create and preserve many charges against the fraternal orders that were distorted, outdated, or false. The antifraternal tradition is a product of the historical and theological, as much as of the literary, imagination."

• | Author: Penn R. Szittya
• | Publisher: Princeton University Press
• | Publication Date: Jul 14, 2014
• | Number of Pages: 334 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 0691610843
• | ISBN-13: 9780691610849