The London Old and Middle English Research Seminar presents:
Laura Saetveit Miles
"St. Birgitta of Sweden’s Revelations
in Middle English Devotional Compilations"
December 9th, 5.30 GMT (click here for your time zone)
To attend, please register: https://www.ies.sas.ac.uk/events/research-seminars/lomers , click on the 'seminar schedule and registration’ button, and then scroll down for the buttons to book both events.
You’ll be sent the Teams link for the seminar with your booking confirmation e-mail. Seminars begin at 5.30, but the Teams meeting is scheduled to begin at 5, so that you can enter the ‘waiting room’ before the talks begin.
About the talk:
More and more attention is being paid to the vernacular devotional compilations that circulated everywhere in late-medieval England. Though we have long known of their many surviving copies, only recently has their complexity, variety, and influence been more closely examined, for instance with Prof. Denis Renevey’s large project. How did these devotional compilations simultaneously rely on and shape the authority of female visionaries such as Birgitta of Sweden, whose Revelations were borrowed by several different texts? In this talk I will highlight some of the ways in which Birgitta’s influence was spread by means of dozens and dozens of manuscripts containing compilations that relied on Birgittine excerpts. Both adored and ignored, both cited and silenced, Birgitta emerges as an enigmatic figure at the mercy of male literary agents. Nonetheless, I propose, compilations ensure Birgitta’s status as the most-read holy woman in late medieval England. This work-in-progress presentation showcases current work from my Norwegian Research Council project, “Re-Assessing Birgitta of Sweden’s Revelations in Medieval England: Circulation and Influence, 1380-1530.”