Preaching the Word in Manuscript and Print in Late Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Susan Powell

The focus of this volume, on Middle English and Latin material in prose and verse, concerns the preaching of the word of God in an expansive sense in late medieval England. This collection of essays explores the multiple ways in which the sermon in England in the later Middle Ages both influenced and was influenced by other devotional and didactic material, both implicitly and explicitly. The essays pay special attention to examples of textual complexity in the sermon as manifested in the manuscript and early printed traditions. By examining sermon technique and methodology contributors present related material that either travels alongside sermons or shares the same preaching or teaching milieu. While analysing sermons and other homiletic material, the essays also explore areas, such as the dating and illustration of incunabula, which have an important bearing on the sermons and devotional literature of the period, but are normally studied in an isolated fashion. These fit in well with the particular emphasis in the collection on the sermon in the early printed period. In addition, attention is paid to some of the ways in which sermon-study was first brought to the fore by late nineteenth-century editors and early twentieth-century commentators. In this way various threads are brought together, new texts and ideas presented, and potential future avenues for research suggested that will continue to be important for an understanding of sermons and related religious literature in late medieval England.