Medieval Literature: A Very Short Introduction by Elaine Treharne

Author:Elaine Treharne
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780199668496
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Published: 2015-06-30T04:00:00+00:00

From communion to community

The symbiotic relationship between the individual and the community both within a text and as a result of textual remembrance is of great importance, particularly in a period where personal literacy—the ability to pick up a text and read it oneself—was a scarce skill. Public Christian communities took many forms from boisterous church congregations to small groups of attentive devotees.

The Ancrene Wisse, or Ancrene Riwle, is a Guide for Anchoresses associated with the Katherine Group of saints’ lives, and another text on virginity called Hali Meiðhad (Holy Maidenhood). The Ancrene Wisse was written by a male religious author to assist three aristocratic women in their avowed lives as contemplatives, shut up in a cell-like room attached to a church with a squint to allow them to peer into the church and participate remotely in the community. Such medieval anchor-holds are still to be seen adjacent to churches such as Skipton, in Yorkshire.

The Ancrene Wisse, composed c.1225, was remarkably popular and survives in English in eleven manuscript versions, as well as in four translations into French and four into Latin, and it was also adapted for male anchorites and for larger groups of religious solitaries. It exemplifies rather well the ways in which the individual functioned as part of a larger community, while, to an extent, being cut off from that community. The author creates the Guide to instruct the anchoresses in how they should live both their outer, bodily lives and their inner, spiritual lives. They are advised about what they should wear: ‘wel mei don of ower clað beo hit hwit, beo hit blac, bute hit beo unorne’ (‘it matters not whether your clothes are white or black, except that they are plain’); that they should not have jewellery; and that they can keep no animals, except a cat. The writer advises that they should build their own small textual community by reading to the women serving the needs of the anchoress: ‘ƺe ancres ahen þis leaste stucche reden to ower wummen euche wike eanes aþet ha hit cunnen’ (‘You anchoresses ought to read this last section [on the Outer Rule] to your women once each week until they know it’). In teaching the Guide, the adviser points out, the anchoress will be sure to learn it and keep it devoutly herself.

This public display, intended to teach, inspire, and encourage the adherence to a faithful Christian life, also motivates the most communal of literature: drama. Dramatic performances of moments from the Christian story had long been part of the liturgy or church service, but in the later Middle Ages organized dramas became an established part of urban and village life. In particular cases, these were put on by the laity for the laity (often Guildsmen of the town were responsible for specific parts), and centred on the life and events of Christ, or the exemplary Christian.

Two plays survive from medieval Dublin in Ireland: The Play of the Sacrament, and the earlier 15th-century English morality play The Pride of Life.

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