Polemic This page has been left blank intentionally Polemic language as Violence in medieval and early modern Discourse Edited by Almut SuerbAum Somerville College, Oxford GeorGe Southcombe Sarah Lawrence College, USA benjAmin thomPSon Somerville College, Oxford First published 2015 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Almut Suerbaum, George Southcombe and Benjamin Thompson 2015 Almut Suerbaum, George Southcombe and Benjamin Thompson have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editorsof this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Polemic : language as violence in medieval and early modern discourse / edited by Almut Suerbaum, George Southcombe and Benjamin Thompson. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4724-2506-5 (hardcover) 1. Rhetoric, Medieval. 2. Literature, Medieval. 3. Civilization, Medieval. I. Suerbaum, Almut, editor. II . Southcombe, George, 1978- editor. III . Thompson, Benjamin, 1963- editor. PN185.P65 2015 808.009’02–dc23 2014033501 ISBN 97814724-25065 (hbk) ISBN 9781315601014 (ebk) Contents Acknowledgements vii Notes on Contributors ix Introduction 1 George Southcombe, Almut Suerbaum and Benjamin Thompson Part I: textual StrategIeS: rhetorIC between InveCtIve and lament 1 between autobiography and apocalypse: The double Subject of Polemic in Petrarch’s Liber sine nomine and Rerum vulgarium fragmenta 17 Francesca Southerden 2 The ends of Polemic and the beginning of Lohengrin 43 Alastair Matthews 3 Feeling the Polemic of an early motet 65 Sean Curran 4 ‘why do you concern yourself with these words?’ rhetoric and Polemic in medieval Castilian Female Saints’ lives 95 Emma Gatland Part II: SoCIal PraCtICe: artICulatIon oF dISSent and normatIve PraCtICe 5 dissing the teacher: Classroom Polemics in the early and high middle ages 107 Monika Otter 6 language of violence: language as violence in vernacular Sermons 125 Almut Suerbaum vi Polemic 7 Psalms as Polemic: The english bible debate 149 Annie Sutherland 8 maximos the greek: Imprisoned in Polemic 165 C.M. MacRobert Part III: hIStorICal narratIveS: reFormatIon, renovatIon, reStoratIon 9 The Polemic of reform in the later medieval english Church 183 Benjamin Thompson 10 lamenting the Church? bishop andrzej Krzycki and early reformation Polemic 223 Natalia Nowakowska 11 The Polemics of moderation in late Seventeenth-Century england 237 George Southcombe Bibliography 253 Index 287 Acknowledgements For this second interdisciplinary collaboration at Somerville College, Oxford, we have stretched our chronology beyond the Middle Ages so as to address a question of continuity into the early modern period. Put polemically, we set out to challenge the notion that polemic is an invention of the early modern period, and our question has been whether its features are to be found earlier. We are grateful to our co-contributors for their participation and for the mutual enrichment which the process of discussion facilitated. Once again our (largely polemic-free) meetings took place over the lunches and workshops for which a college provides an ideal environment, and we are very grateful to our colleagues and staff at Somerville for all their support, notably to Dave Simpson and Richard Vowell for accommodation and meals. The college offered some of those Somervillians who now hold posts abroad academic visitor status for periods of research leave and thus enabled us to continue our academic dialogue across the Atlantic. Our library, one of the college’s ornaments, once again provided thought-provoking reading matter. We are grateful to Tom Gray and his colleagues at Ashgate for taking on the volume, and to the anonymous readers for their helpful suggestions. Others who have provided invaluable help and entertainment include Jen Southcombe, Peter West and Nancy-Jane Rucker. Since the publication of our previous volume in 2010, we have lost two of our predecessors at Somerville, Christina Roaf and Olive Sayce, after full and productive lives, and it is with as much pleasure as sadness that we remember them here. George Southcombe Almut Suerbaum Benjamin Thompson This page has been left blank intentionally