Shaping Monastic Devotional Culture in 14th-Century England

FAIN: FT-259760-18

Virginia Blanton
University of Missouri, Kansas City (Kansas City, MO 64110-2235)

Research for a book-length study of a work by 14th-century chronicler, John of Tynemouth, on the lives of saints in medieval England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland.

I seek funding to support the writing of a formative section of a book project, titled Shaping Monastic Devotional Culture in England. This monograph offers the first sustained investigation of a neglected collection of 156 saints’ lives, some of which constitute the only historical evidence of religious women during the Christian conversion of England. John of Tynemouth's legendary became the definitive register of English holiness, one that was read and recopied from c. 1350-1550. Shaping Monastic Devotional Culture in England investigates the scope of John’s legendary, documents the sources for the saints' lives, examines the collective narrative about localized sanctity, and illustrates the centrality of this register in English monastic reading.