| FEL-257802-18 | Research Programs: Fellowships | Nicole R. Rice | Hospitals and Literary Production in England, 1350-1550 | 1/1/2018 - 12/31/2018 | $50,400.00 | Nicole | R. | Rice | | | | St. John's University, New York | Queens | NY | 11439-9000 | USA | 2017 | British Literature | Fellowships | Research Programs | 50400 | 0 | 50400 | 0 | Completion of a book-length study on late medieval English hospitals as centers of religion,
literature, and civic affairs.
The civic responsibility of hospitals for both medical and spiritual care lends them a distinct status among premodern institutions, for they constantly negotiated theology, medicine, and politics. The story of how hospitals participated in England’s literary and civic histories has yet to be written. I fill this gap with a new monograph on premodern English hospitals and the varied texts written, read, and performed within them. Hospital priests wrote foundation narratives, medical compendia, spiritual guides, and dramatic scripts. Hospital scribes copied devotional manuscripts and voluminous records that survive today. By studying the literary cultures of St. Bartholomew’s and St. Thomas of Acon in London, St. Leonard’s in York, and St. Mark’s of Bristol, I show how these institutions fostered devotional practice, promoted themselves in the civic sphere, responded to controversy, and negotiated the administration of charity over two hundred tumultuous years. |